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Business & Farm, Page 5A
Opinion, Page 6A
Faith, Page 1C SATURDAY, September 19, 2009
Volume XCV, No. 220
(252) 436-2700
Rezoning for retail business
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‘Come into my parlor said the spider...’
50 cents
Leaders set joint meeting
Clothing, shoe store would open on First Avenue
Mutual interests bring Henderson, Vance together
By WILLIAM F. WEST Daily Dispatch Writer
By WILLIAM F. WEST Daily Dispatch Writer
A Planning Board special meeting set for 3:30 p.m. Monday includes considering a request to recommend the City Council approve rezoning a couple of small lots along First Avenue to allow property to become the site of a clothing and shoe business. SRS of Henderson wants the land bordering First, which is the rear part of the property, to be rezoned from High Density Residential to Highway Commercial. The front part of the property, which is located along Andrews Avenue and is adjacent to a BP convenience store, already is zoned Highway Commercial. The request was on this past Monday’s Planning Board meeting agenda, but no recommendation could be made to the council because of the lack of a quorum of city-appointed Planning Board members, prompting the need for the special meeting. Additionally, the board could not act on two text amendments presented by the city staff. One involves tailors, who are allowed to do their work as a home occupation by a special use permit from the Zoning Board of Adjustment, but not as a use by right in a commercial building in OfficeInstitutional “A” districts. The other one involves automobile repair facilities. The city has regulations saying these businesses must be 500 feet from a house or a residential district. That in itself is prohibiting some locating in what are existing commercial districts because of houses already being in these districts, City Planning Director Erris Dunston said. Dunston suggested reducing or removing such buffers. This past Monday’s Planning Board meeting lasted approximately 40 minutes. Planning Board Chairman Michael Rainey did allow public hearings on the items. No one spoke in opposition. Planning Board members Linda Allen, Ricky Easter, Michael Inscoe and Marchita Vann were absent from the meeting. Allen and Easter are Vance County appointees.
8,330 workers to just more than 4 million, while the number of people unemployed decreased by 6,534 to 488,974, the ESC said. “It’s going to have an impact on consumer confidence because people aren’t as optimistic about finding work as they were in the past because if they were, they’d still be looking for work,” Hall said. The August rate marked a seventh consecutive month the number hovered above the previous historic high. Before this
A meeting of Henderson’s and Vance County’s officials will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday at The Silo restaurant off the Interstate 85/Ruin Creek Road interchange. Beverly Davis Jackson, executive assistant to City Manager Ray Griffin, said Griffin and County Manager Jerry Ayscue asked her to set up the session, which by state law is required to be open to the public. Jackson said the agenda has not yet been prepared, but she said she would provide a copy as soon as the items for discussion become available. Jackson said, however, that Ayscue is off until Tuesday morning, so the agenda may not be ready until then. One of the priorities the council set at the municipal government’s two-day March retreat was to re-establish the former business and industrial recruitment partnership with the county, as was already being worked on by Griffin, whom the council appointed as city manager in July 2008. A new economic development commission of six members from the county and three members from the city first met on Aug. 19. And one of several items mentioned at the municipal government’s two-day retreat in March was having a joint meeting with the county commissioners to talk about mutual concerns and interests. A session was held at City Hall in November with the county officials, as well as with state Reps. Jim Crawford and Michael Wray and state Sen. Doug Berger. The council, at a June 22 work session, gave the go-ahead to Griffin to sit down with Ayscue, with the idea being for the two to come up with ways the city and the county could work closely together in the near future on joint projects and programs of mutual interest to both governments. During the June 8 council meeting, former Rose’s stores
Please see JOBLESS, page 3A
Please see JOINT, page 3A
Contact the writer at bwest@hendersondispatch.com.
Index
Daily Dispatch/GLENN CRAVEN
Taking advantage of a moth-attracting light on the deck outside a Vance County home late at night this week, a pair of large spiders spun webs near one another to do their hunting. The spider in the top photo, identified with the aid of Jeff’s Nature Home Page at duke.edu online, is a black and yellow argiope (Argiope aurantia). These spiders, though very large and intimidating in appearance, and commonly encountered statewide, are not considered dangerous to humans. Other names for this creature include “Golden Garden Spider” and — due to a heavier pattern of spinning often seen at the center of their webs, though not pictured here — as the “Writing Spider.” The spider, bottom photo, appears to be an orb weaver of an unidentified variety.
Jobless rate remains near 11 percent Economist: ‘People looked for work, got discouraged and quit looking’ By MARTHA WAGGONER Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH — North Carolina’s unemployment rate dropped almost imperceptibly in August from a month earlier, remaining close to 11 percent as more people became discouraged by the job market and stopped looking for work. The state Employment Security Commission said Friday the unemployment rate was 10.8 percent, down only slightly from the 10.9 percent reported for July. The rate for August 2008
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was 6.6 percent. Both employment and unemployment decreased for the first time this year. Typically, when unemployment falls, employment increases. “What that tells me is that the discouraged worker effect is at work here,” said William Hall, an economist at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and senior economist with the Center for Business and Economics Service. “People looked for work, got discouraged and quit looking.” Employment decreased by
Cloudy
High: 80 Low: 61
Sunday More sun High: 76 Low: 64
Details, 3A
Henderson Thornie Edwards, 93 Heddie L. Robert, 66 Zenity A. Weaver, 66 Leslie A. Wright, 18 Richmond, Va. Willie A. Alston, 73 Stovall Ernestine F. White, 96 Virginia Beach, Va. Melvin T. Renn, 75 Wake Forest John A. Floyd II, 64
Swine flu vaccines may be nasal spray By MIKE STOBBE AP Medical Writer
ATLANTA — The first doses of swine flu vaccine may all be the nasal spray version, government health officials said Friday. The government has said a trickle of vaccine will be available in early October, but on Friday Obituaries, 4A they defined the size of
that trickle — an estimated 3.4 million doses. Currently it looks like all of them will be a nasal spray vaccine that is approved only for healthy people ages 2 to 49, said Dr. Jay Butler, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The nasal spray, called FluMist, is not recommended for some of the
people most in danger of severe swine flu complications. That includes pregnant women, children younger than 2, and people with asthma and other chronic respiratory diseases. However, it’s possible that some vaccine shots will become available by the first week of October Please see FLU, page 3A