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Jeff Davis photo
Trash burning . . .
Siler City fireman
Todd Williams sprays down garbage in the back of a
tractor-trailer Thursday afternoon. The garbage caught fire
as it was sitting near a building at the garbage refuse
station behind Wal-Mart in Siler City. A backhoe had to be
brought in to pull the full load out by pieces so the fire
could be completely put out. On the inset photo fireman
Roger White sprays down the canopy of the truck that is on
fire.
County water advisory board discusses fee hike
By Randall Rigsbee
A flap that arose after the recent resignation of Chatham
County water utilities director Will was mentioned during a
session last week of the county’s water advisory committee;
but mostly the committee did what it normally does: discuss
county water issues.
Last week, Chatham County commissioner Patrick Barnes said
he is concerned about the turnover rate in the county’s
water utility department.
Baker is the third utility director in three years to leave
the post.
“There’s something wrong somewhere,” Barnes said in an
interview last week. Barnes also serves on the water
advisory committee.
He assigned some of the blame to conflicts former utility
directors have had with Bill Lowery, chairman of the water
advisory board, who Barnes said “wants to run the water
department.”
Lowery, earlier last week, declined to comment on the
matter, but when the water advisory committee convened last
Thursday night, advisory committee member Pierre Lauffer
immediately addressed the situation, saying that no one on
the advisory committee, all of whom are volunteers, has an
interest in running the department.
more- See Thursday, Mar 16
paper:
Vol 86, No. 16 |
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Spring
offers chance to help keep county clean
By Bob Wachs
Just like the Marines, Chatham County’s environmental enforcement
officer is looking for a few good men.
Or women.
Or even groups of either or both or teenagers and children.
Actually, Val Chadwick, who heads the county program to keep
Chatham clean and beautiful, would like more than a few people to
become part of the effort to improve its looks, especially along
its roadsides.
“Spring is just around the bend in the weather road,” he says,
“and we begin to look for new growth.
“But before that new growth, we can still see Winter’s dry brown
deadness. That gives us this time of the year when we see both the
beauty and beast of our beautiful county.”
Mixed in with that natural beauty, Chadwick says, is what he calls
“the awful sight of roadside litter.” And it’s in the area of
cutting down on the amount of litter that he’s both asking for
help and offering suggestions on how to make a difference.
“It seems worse this year,” he says of the trash that pops up
along both major roadways and rural roads. “People ask what they
can do. That’s a good question and I want to encourage them to
look in several areas.”
Chadwick points out that there are a couple of efforts already
underway to police the county’s roads but even with those, the
effort still isn’t enough.
“The courts assign community service hours to some of their
cases,” he says, “and the Department of Corrections has inmates on
the roadsides to clean up litter from time to time.
more- See Thursday, Mar 9
paper:
Vol 86, No. 15
New school’s name expected
this month
By Bob Wachs
Three
people, two geographic references and a nod toward the community’s
growing Latino population.
That’s the
makeup of the short list of names the county board of education
will pick from when it names the new elementary school that will
be built in Siler City.
School
superintendent Ann Hart announced the six, in what she said was
"no particular order" of preference, at this week’s board work
session. Those names were pulled from a list of 60 different ones
suggested over the past several weeks by members of the community,
parents and educators.
After the
deadline for submitting names passed, a committee, composed of
parents, educators and superintendent Hart, met to review the list
and make a recommendation to the school board. Recommendations
were to be either people who had made a direct contribution to
education in the Siler City area or have some geographic basis for
the new school.
Making the
short list of possible names are three people who gave much of
their lives to education. They include Alexander Graves, Jr.,
longtime teacher and coach and later principal at the old Chatham
High School in the days of segregated schools. After integration,
Graves became assistant principal at Jordan Matthews High School.
Also on the list of people
whose names were submitted are Norman C. Lisk, former
administrator of Chatham Hospital and a member of the county board
of education from 1965 – 1982, including a lengthy period as
chairman.
more- See Thursday, Mar 16
paper:
Vol 86, No. 16 |
