INSIDE.......... Blue, Grier to be honored 5A
School news
Serving Belmont, Mount Holly, Stanley, Cramerton, and McAdenville
Volume 78 • Issue 4 • Wednesday, January 23, 2013
1B
75¢
NEW HOME NEEDED
Mount Holly, CMUD to work together
Gaston Schools “Things are looking good” By Alan Hodge Editor Alan.bannernews@gmail.com
By Alan Hodge Editor Alan.bannernews@gmail.com
At its Jan. 14 meeting the Mount Holly City Council approved a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the City of Charlotte through Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities (CMUD) to cooperate in the area of wastewater collection and treatment. Mount Holly officials are calling the arrangement a “soft agreement” that can be subject to “additions, revisions, and modifications, without prejudice to either Party as the Parties continue negotiations toward and Interlocal Agreement”. “The MOA that was approved is a non-binding agreement that will allow the two parties move forward with further negotiations,” said James Friday, Mount Holly utilities director. “CMUD needs to have the MOA in place before they can start the approval process for a new wastewater treatment plant with the State. Our council will be looking at what is best for the City. They will be looking at cost and other issues that will be impacted by their decision.” The idea of Mount Holly and CharMeck working together on wastewater goes back to a 2006 feasibility study that looked at a half-dozen ways the two municipalities could work together regarding increased wastewater capacities. The study was prompted at least in part by a letter Mount Holly received from the NC Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR) stating the city would soon need to update its existing wastewater treatment facility. One conclusion the study came to was that construction of a regional wastewater treatment plant would be a way to go. Other ideas that were floated included expanding and upgrading Mount Holly’s current plant, shutting down the plant and work on a regional wastewater treatment program with Charlotte and/or Gastonia, and include the City of Belmont in the wastewater treatment plan. After consideration, Mount Holly decided to team up with Charlotte. The preliminary MOA has a number of key features. One would see wastewater from Mount Holly pumped across the Catawba River to Charlotte by a new pump station and force main. Another would be a new, large, regional wastewater plant in Long Creek built by Charlotte. This new facility would also connect to other wastewater plants in the area. A regional wastewater treatment approach will also help protect the environment by not only giving Mount Holly’s wastewater a higher-tech treatment, but by also reducing the risk of sewer overflows from it being piped long distances. The MOA also has over twenty provisos for implementation. Just a few of these include having Mount Holly providing information to Charlotte who will in turn work with DENR on environmental approvals, having Mount Holly pay up to a maximum of $14 million for a pumping station, force main, and flow equalization facility near the city’s current plant to move wastewater to Charlotte, have Charlotte make available to Mount Holly any future expansion of wastewater treatment or capacity, and have Mount Holly provide updates to Charlotte concerning any expansion of its wastewater collection system or any issues, including performance, that might arise and impact Charlotte’s system.
Photo by Alan Hodge
Pat Marcum with the Catawba River Artisans is seen in the group’s gallery it will soon have to vacate on Main St. in Mount Holly. The CRA is looking to the City of Mount Holly for help in relocation efforts.
CRA needs new place to call home By Alan Hodge Editor After two years, the Catawba River Artisans (CRA) and their gallery currently located next door to City Café at 128 S. Main St. in downtown Mount Holly, are going to have to move and the nine member co-op is looking to city officials for financial grant help in getting a new home. The group hasn’t decided on a specific amount right now. Representatives of the CRA re-
cently met with the Mount Holly City Council and laid out their need for a new gallery location by the end of February, as well as hopes for expanding their current exhibit area in a new spot to include space for things such as art classes. The current CRA location is less than 225 sq. ft. but the CRA is looking at a minimum of 3,000 sq. ft. in a new home with 2,000 sq. ft. used as a gallery and the rest as classrooms. Renee Clemmer, president of See CRA, 5A
Gaston County Schools have released the latest “School Crime, Violence, and Dropout Rate 20112012” statistical report as issued by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and according to the numbers, things are looking good compared to a lot of other districts, especially Charlotte-Mecklenburg. “Obviously we are extremely pleased with the decrease in GCS school crime and dropout rates,” said Superintendent L. Reeves McGlohon. “School safety is our number one priority and we take this very seriously. GCS continues to have the lowest incidents of crime in the region and the lowest of the ten largest school districts in the state, which reflects the hard work of our principals, resource officers, and everyone in the school safety arena.” The NCDI report is an annual tally of numbers gathered by public school districts statewide and individual schools within the
districts that show the number of crimes and/or violent acts committed there during a given academic year. Charter schools have their own set of charts. Categories include possession of a weapon, possession of a controlled substance, possession of an alcoholic beverage, assault on school personnel, assault resulting in serious injury, sexual assault, assault involving use of a weapon, sexual offense, possession of a firearm, robbery with a dangerous weapon, taking indecent liberties with a minor, rape, death by other than natural causes, kidnapping, bomb threat, and burning of school building. According to the report, for the period 2011-2012 GCS had seven assaults on school personnel, four bomb threats, six possessions of alcoholic beverage, sixty-six possessions of a controlled substance, two possessions of a firearm, thirty-one possessions of a weapon, and one sexual assault for a total of 117 incidents. The NCDPI stats also report the number of incidents See GCS, 4A
Road crews ready for winter snow & ice By Alan Hodge Editor
Photo by Alan Hodge
Last week’s prediction of snow for Gaston County fizzled out and ended up being a cold downpour, but some areas not that far away got several inches of the white stuff.
Alan.bannernews@gmail.com
Despite impassioned reporting and prognosticating by media meteorologists, last Thursday’s prediction of snow for Gaston County went up like a rocket, but came down like a stick. Or more accurately, like a driving cold rain that left icy spots on roads Friday morning and caused schools to operate with a two-hour opening delay. Nonetheless street crews with both the City of Belmont and City of Mount Holly were ready for any frozen precipitation that could have come last week, or still might come for the rest of this winter. City of Belmont Public Works Director
David Isenhour and his employees are veterans of winter weather street conditions. “We are always prepared here in the city when it comes to snow and ice,” Isenhour said. “We have two slag/plow trucks that we purchased used from DOT many years ago. We
obviously don’t use them very much but when it does snow or sleet these trucks do a great job.” The trucks hold about eight tons of mixed slag- a mixture of river based sand and salt. “We keep it stockpiled over at our materials handling location,” said Isenhour. “During the average storms we’ll use about 40 to 50 tons of sand/salt slag in two days. We have crews on standby when the weather alerts come out. My crews will roll out of Public Works - ready to See ROAD CREWS, 5A
Sirmon finds “... another man’s treasure” By Alan Hodge Editor Alan.bannernews@gmail.com
Everyone dreams of finding treasure in the attic or basement of an old house, or junk piled at the curb, and Jason Sirmon of Belmont did just that. However, the goodies Sirmon unearthed recently didn’t consist of cash or jewels, but rather a bundle of news clips, photos, receipts, and bank ledgers going back around 100 years that have turned golden with age. “I was driving down Julia Ave. past a house that was being foreclosed on and saw a piece of ply-
wood with the word “Free” spraypainted in big letters beside wooden shelves and a box filled with odds and ends,” Sirmon said. “I met one of the family members that lived there and decided to take a peek at one of the boxes.” What Sirmon saw intrigued him as much as if it had been from a pharaoh’s tomb. “I noticed the 3-cent stamped envelopes dating back to the 1920s,” he said. “It reminded me of the memories I have of receiving letters some twenty years ago while deployed on submarines in the U.S. Navy. Soon, I found myself digging around in the box and See TREASURE, 5A
Photo by Alan Hodge
Jason Sirmon of Belmont looks over an old document that was among the historical papers he discovered in a trash pile and returned to the owner who currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.
INDEX
OBITUARIES, 2A Florence Garrett, Umatilla, FL Ruby Lynch, Belmont Memphis Sigmon, Gastonia
GO! Area events.......................2A Remembering Reid High..........3A Lifestyles..................................6A
Sports ......................................4B Classifieds................................4B Classes at DSBG ......................5B
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