CMYK Arson at Granville farm probed
Obama faces a chilly autumn
Webb volleyball sweeps Eagles
Local News, Page 7A
Opinion, Page 8A
Sports, Page 1B THURSDAY, September 3, 2009
Volume XCV, No. 206
(252) 436-2700
www.hendersondispatch.com
50 cents
Owner working to improve ‘flophouse’ motel By WILLIAM F. WEST Daily Dispatch Writer
Police Chief Keith Sidwell told the Clean Up Henderson Committee how badly the America’s Best Value Inn at 200 Parham St. had deteriorated prior to being closed in the aftermath of the June 14 shooting that resulted in the death of a man. “That specific situation was more or less not a motel, but a flophouse,” Sidwell said Wednesday. “And what I mean by that is, you had people living there
Murder warrant waiting
full time and you had people that were coming onto the lot and asking, ‘How much for a room?’” The going price was $30, Sidwell said. “And the person on duty would say, ‘Well, how much you got?’ So, you could get a room for as little as five bucks. Now, you can use your imagination if you will as to what was going on there,” Sidwell said. The motel, which is located just off Interstate 85 and North
shooting, what the motel had been doing was “patchwork” to get the place up to code in time. “And sometimes you have to shut people down to get their attention,” Wilkerson added. Wilkerson said the motel owner is working to bring the property back into code compliance. The matter is set to come up at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday when the Zoning Board of Adjustment
Establishment had deteriorated, then closed after shooting in June Garnett Street, was shut down because of code violations. “There was clearly mold all over the walls,” Sidwell said on Wednesday. “And it had been painted over and it was very difficult to even breathe going through there.” Fire Chief Danny Wilkerson said although the property had been inspected prior to the
Dolly: ‘My Mountains, My Home’
Police search for suspect, 22, in August shooting Henderson Police are trying to serve a firstdegree murder warrant on Shamon Champion, a 22-year-old suspect in the Aug. 23 fatal shooting of Robert Newsome. AP Photo, Michael Patrick/Knoxville News Sentinel The Champion 30-year-old Dolly Parton sings “My Mountains, My Home” during the 75th anniversary rededication Wednesday of the Great victim was pronounced Smoky Mountains National Park near Gatlinburg, Tenn. At right are governors Beverly Perdue of North Carolina and dead after officers respond- Phil Bredesen of Tennessee. ed to a 911 call shortly before 1 a.m. and found Newsome lying in the roadway at Highland Avenue national park in the counBy DUNCAN MANSFIELD America’s most-visited visited Please see WARRANT, page 3A try with more than 9 million visiAssociated Press Writer park dedicated by FDR, tors annually. President George W. Bush got as far as Knoxville’s GATLINBURG, Tenn. — the only president to call airport a few years ago, but canMemories and Appalachian pride celed a trip into the park because echoed from the summits of the broke into applause. of a storm. Our Hometown . . . . . 2A Great Smoky Mountains National “Wow,” Smokies Superin“I am here today on behalf Park on Wednesday as America’s Business & Farm. . . . 5A of President Barack Obama to most-visited park held a rededica- tendent Dale Ditmanson said, Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . 8A offering a challenge to the Park celebrate Great Smoky Mountains tion to celebrate its 75th anniverService’s 310 other units to “beat Light Side . . . . . . . . . 9A sary. National Park, to honor our anthat!” Sports. . . . . . . . . . 1-4B cestors who left us this treasure, “These are my mountains, my Wednesday marked the 69th and to rededicate an American Comics . . . . . . . . . . . 5B valleys. These are my rivers flowanniverary of Roosevelt’s speech icon for a new century,” U.S. Inteing like a song,” 75th anniversary Classifieds. . . . . . . 6-8B from the same stone stage on rior Secretary Ken Salazar said. ambassador and homegrown su“We must continue to invest in perstar Dolly Parton sang. “These Newfound Gap, built by Civilian Conservation Corps volunteers our parks. We must remain comare my people, my memories. along with many other still-stand- mitted to preserving our nation’s These are my mountains. This is Today ing park structures. FDR’s chair treasured landscapes for future my home.” was placed beside the rostrum. generations,” he said. Some 2,000 park supporters, Cloudy FDR remains the only sitting Every member of the Tennessee guests and former residents gathHigh: 77 president to ever come to the ered atop Newfound Gap on the Low: 57 Please see PARK, page 4A 520,000-acre Smokies, the most Tennessee-North Carolina line
Contact the writer at bwest@hendersondispatch.com.
Contact the writer at awheless@hendersondispatch.com.
Weather
Details, 3A
Deaths
$70,000 bid for Southerland tract Offer takes the lead for city-owned land By WILLIAM F. WEST Daily Dispatch Writer
Bullock Addie R. Cash, 81 Clarksville, Va. Raeford M. Newman, 90 Durham Gloria A. Thomas, 53 Henderson Octavia E. Howard, 81 Willie R. Jones, 68 Oxford George P. Duffy, 94
Bier Haus has taken the lead in bidding for the Southerland’s Mill Pond tract in the southeastern part of Vance County by submitting a $70,000 counteroffer. The counteroffer, which was submitted Aug. 28, tops the Aug. 19 counteroffer of $63,500 by Robert Southerland, City Clerk Pam Glover told the Dispatch. Glover said the Obituaries, 4A next step is for a notice to appear in the newspaper to start another 10day deadline for another counteroffer. Paul Harris is a managing member of Bier Haus. Harris is president of the Budweiser distributorship, which is located off
Warrenton Road. Bier Haus, which is a limited liability company, owns the distributorship building. Harris additionally is serving as vice chairman of the newly designed city and Vance County Economic Development Commission. Southerland’s $63,500 counteroffer had surpassed a $55,000 counteroffer by Bier Haus and a $60,000 counteroffer by Elissa Yount. Southerland, a former city councilman whose family once owned the land, made the first offer with a $43,000 bid. Yount, a former city councilwoman, made a counteroffer of $50,000. The city acquired the property in 1952 for $51,000, which prompted a dissent by Councilman Garry Daeke at the July 27 council meeting about the government selling land at $8,000 less than what the city paid more than a half-century ago. The council on July 27 voted 7-1
By AL WHELESS Daily Dispatch Writer
for a resolution stating the city’s intent to sell the land. City Attorney John Zollicoffer at the July 27 council meeting said the next person to submit a bid would have to counter with an amount of at least $45,200, which is a staterequired 5 percentincrease plus $50. And Zollicoffer said a counteroffer would have to come within 10 days, along with a $2,200 deposit filed with Glover. The Southerland’s Mill Pond site was a former water supply reservoir for the city, with city-owned land across the road from the pond having once been proposed as a site for a wastewater treatment plant. Henderson’s water supply presently comes from the John H. Kerr Reservoir and Henderson’s water reclamation facility is off N.C. Highway 39 north of Interstate 85.
Index
High: 85 Low: 63
School spending restricted
Finance Officer Steven Graham has given a mandate to Vance County Schools employees not to spend more than 50 percent of their 2008-2009 budgets until Oct. 12. That’s when the School Board is expected to adopt the 2009-2010 budget. Graham informed the Finance Committee Wednesday afternoon that he took the measure recently in connection with the school system’s financial crisis. It affects all of the schools and all departments, according to Graham. “Expenditures are to be restricted to only what is absolutely needed to provide direct classroom instruction and to Capital projects ensure the proposed for 10 safety and Vance schools security of Page 7A students, faculty and staff,” he said. “With respect to budget planning for two months out and beyond, schools and departments will work under the assumption that they will be working with a budget that is approximately 20 percent less than the funds that were appropriated to them last fiscal year,” Graham told the committee. “Support services have been hit tremendously with the State budget reduction, and these holes will have to be filled with our federal and local resources,” he added. At a called meeting Monday afternoon, members of the Board of Education learned that they have a shortfall of $4,860,895 in State allotments, compared to those received for 2008-2009. The amount represents a reduction of 9.6 percent. It includes $1,145,863 in allotment money that has to be returned to the State Department of Public Instruction by this Friday. The $1,921,495 in federal stabilization package money just released to Vance County Schools by Gov. Beverly Perdue drops the lost amount of allotment funds to 4.75 percent or $1,793,537. The school system was supposed to have received another $2,034,896 in stimulus funds, but that money was held back, according to Graham.
Rededication marks Smokies’ 75th year
Warmer
Please see MOTEL, page 3A
Until OK, staff not to exceed half of 2008-2009 budget
By AL WHELESS Daily Dispatch Writer
Friday
meets in the City Council Chambers of City Hall, 134 Rose Ave. The motel owner, identified in the city zoning officer’s records as Mahendra Patel of Nanuet, N.Y., is requesting a special use permit because of the property having been closed by the municipal government. Wilkerson on Wednesday told of having entered what had been the motel property manager’s room with City Planning Director Erris Dunston, who was