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High-speed chase ends with robbery suspect's arrest A Staff Report An armed robbery suspect was arrested by Chatham County Sheriff’s Office deputies Thursday, May 19, after a 20-mile long high speed chase through Chatham, Randolph, and Alamance counties. According to local authorities, members of the Sheriff’s Office’s Interstate Criminal Enforcement (ICE) unit attempted to stop suspect Rodney Bartshe Jr., 22, of 2791 Piney Grove Church Road, Siler City, just west of Siler City on Thursday. Deputy J.D. Scott observed a white Ford F-150 pickup truck traveling at a high speed on US 64 heading west towards Randolph County at about 7:30 p.m., the Sheriff’s Office reported. The deputy had previously received information about the vehicle in reference to a robbery that had occurred earlier in Siler City. At 1 a.m. that morning, a witness obtained the license number of the vehicle during the robbery of a Kangaroo convenience store on US 64. According to Siler City Police Department reports, an armed robber took $35 and some cigarettes from the Kangaroo store before fleeing the scene. The vehicle had been reported stolen on Wednesday by its owner, Elaine Doby of Piney Grove Church Road.
School board land buy leads to unexpected bonus By Bob Wachs The best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray, as the poet has said, but sometimes there is a flip side. Such is the case with the county board of education’s recent purchase of a lot in Siler City that’s near Jordan Matthews High School. The board purchased what it thought was an acre of land in April for $28,000 with plans to use the site for parking when the parking lot adjacent to the JM lunchroom is no longer available. That current parking lot is where a new kitchen/lunchroom will be built to ease the overcrowded conditions at JM that see four lunch periods and students sometimes eating meals outside or in the halls of the main building. At this week’s board of education meeting, board chairman Allan Zimmerman announced that survey work had been done on the site, off Cardinal Street and behind home plate at the baseball field. That survey revealed, Zimmerman said, that the school had not purchased an acre, as originally thought. Instead, the purchase was for almost two acres – 1.8, to be exact. “We didn’t know that,” he said, “and it doesn’t often happen but it’s good news.” Assistant county school superintendent Paul Joyce, said trees on the site, which is heavily wooded, would be cut and the proceeds would be used to benefit the work. |
Jeff Davis photo Until next year . . . Smiles, cameras and hugs were the name of the day Monday as Chatham County public schools finished up yet another school year. At 12:30 P.M., schools around Chatham released their students and the celebrating began. Their were hugs, smiles, taking of phone numbers and grins for cameras as snapshot after snapshot ran through the cameras. Then those that rode busses were loaded up and waves were sent out the windows as teachers responded back with their own. And the school kids will get a little longer summer vacation than usual with the first day of the 2005-06 school year beginning on Thursday, August 25. In the top photo, Chatham Middle teachers wave at a bus as it leaves the school grounds. At Siler City public input session Residents ask county to plan frugal budget By Randall Rigsbee In Siler City, where the Chatham County Board of Commissioners on Monday night conducted a public input session on the county’s proposed 2005/06 budget, the Sheriff’s Office outlined a plan for expanding the department over the next few years and several county residents urged commissioners to be as thrifty as possible with their tax dollars. Commissioners convened in the courtroom in Siler City Town Hall, joined by about two dozen county residents, several of whom offered comments on the proposed budget. “I’m not asking you for any money,” said Richard Peter of Siler City. “I wouldn’t do that. I’m just asking you to let me keep mine.” Jimmy Collins of Pittsboro urged commissioners to be “as conservative as you can, but liberal enough to meet the needs.” Byron Oldham of Siler City sounded a similar note, asking that commissioners be “as frugal as you can and give us the services that you can.” Siler City resident Jesse Albright suggested county commissioners take an even more conservative approach to spending. “Let’s start talking about how much we can cut,” he said, “instead of figuring out how much we can increase.” In preparing the proposed budget, county manager Charlie Horne determined that a “revenue neutral” tax rate of 55.7 cents per $100 would be the equivalent of the current 64.64 cents tax rate, had the county not conducted a property revaluation this year. In his proposed budget, Horne is recommending an additional six cents more than the revenue neutral rate, for a tax rate of 61.7 cents per $100. County resident Paul McCoy, who spoke Monday, suggested that “something somewhere in between those two we can find something we can live with.” McCoy, however, said at least one agency receiving county funding – the Chatham County Economic Development Commission (EDC) – needs a greater allocation.
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The Chatham News is Published Every Thursday by The Chatham News Publishing Co, Inc at 303 West Raleigh Street, Siler City, NC 27344, (919)663-3232
Alan D. Resch Editor-Publisher |
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