Patience Wears Thin

by Jennifer Dickens - July 13th, 2007 - Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald

On July 30, [at 3:00 PM] a joint session of the Bertie County Commissioners and the Bertie Board of Education (BOE) is to be held at the Council on Aging building on School Street in Windsor.

"This is the meeting that Mr. (Rick) Harrell (the chairman of the commissioners) envisioned where interested parties can sit down and talk about what will be done with the buildings," County Manager Zee Lamb stated at Monday night's regular commissioner's meeting.

Harrell said at a previous commissioner's meeting there would be no decision made on what to do with the school buildings until everybody who had a stake in the outcome sat down and talked about it.

Some people in the community are evidently tired of waiting for that decision.

"We're disgusted; we're tired of waiting," stated Jean Canada, a representative of the C.G. White Alumni Association interested in acquiring that school.

Interesting position, this "we're tired of waiting" comment. The group Jean Canada represents essentially asked that they be given the building free for their group to use alone. There are several other groups that have an interest in use of the facility (which appear to be representated by the Town of Powellsville or even the County for sports). There has been no delay in moving forward with the efforts to resolve the issue. The County Commissioners have been moving forward promptly in talking with all groups. Is the lack of patience because other groups had not approached the Commissioners until after the Alumni group?

Though I know some are not in favor of this blogs position as expressed in an earlier editorial, I feel the tax payer money spent on this facility was directed towards education and proceeds from the building disposal should go to education factilities. I recognize that the fair market value of the facility is not nearly what some would think, but I do hope that the Board of Education uses whatever proceeds they get from divesting the property to fixing the problems with the high school facility.

Though keeping C.G. White in the hands of groups dedicated to the public good will require some new tax payer expenditures, we will get double value by both receiving the new facilities for the Powellsville area and directing the money it costs to transfer title into fixing the high school issues as well (I hope!). I think that is a good bargain.

From what I have been told, all the money should not have to come from Bertie County tax payers either. There are lots of grants available for education, sports, library and civic facilities. C.G. White could be used for all of these and grants are certainly a reality. Unfortunately that will take some time and might further try the patience of the Alumni group.