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Lee Moody photos Easy rider . . . This passenger hitched an unusual - but by all appearances, comfortable - ride on Chatham Street in downtown Bennett on Saturday, Sept. 10 as part of the Flatwoods Festival Parade. His was one of many horse-drawn entries in the popular annual parade. Crime rate down overall in county By Cara Rotondaro Crime rates in Chatham County, and in North Carolina, were down in 2004 compared to crime rates the year before, according to a yearly report on the index crime rate issued by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). The index crime rate is the rate of crime per 100,000 people. The index crime rate for Chatham County in 2003 was 3,612 and that number fell to 2,773.8 in 2004. The total index crime rate in the state fell from 4,711.8 in 2003 to 4,573.9 in 2004, a 2.9 percent decrease. The violent crime rate in Chatham County (including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) went down from 274 to 220 from 2003 to 2004 and the property crime rate in the county (including burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson) went down from 3,338 to 2,553.9 from 2003 to 2004. Major Gary Blankenship of the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office said that the county’s decrease in crime rate was one of the biggest in the state. Crime in Chatham overall was roughly 20 percent lower in 2004 than in 2003. The Sheriff’s Office reported 15 fewer violent crimes in 2004 than in 2003, Blankenship said. Property crimes, which compile most of the crimes in the county and municipalities, said Blankenship, went down considerably as well. While law enforcement agencies naturally want to take credit for the lower crime rate, it’s often just a matter of chance and various circumstances, Blankenship said. “Crime is very difficult to control, it’s very difficult to prevent. I really think it has to do with who’s in prison and who’s out,” Blankenship said. He said that the numbers were the lowest they had been in some time, and that’s encouraging.
Storm throws curve to Jones, team By Eliot Duke LUBBOCK, TX. – As the head coach of a major college baseball program, Bennett native Rick Jones knows a lot about being prepared. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, Jones, since taking over at Tulane University 12 years ago, had been through the process of evacuating his team from the New Orleans area. On two separate occasions, Jones faced the threat of a hurricane and managed to handle the situation just fine. One of the reasons why was because the hurricanes missed New Orleans and Jones had his team back on campus usually within a few days. Nothing, however, could have prepared Jones for what happened nearly three weeks ago. On August 29th, Hurricane Katrina, a near category-5 storm, barreled into the Gulf Coast region of the United States, leaving a massive trail of death and destruction in its path to the likes the country has never seen. Katrina left thousands homeless, and has forced Jones into making contingency plans for a baseball team with 37 players that is also displaced and trying to make sense of what just happened to The Big Easy. “In an unprecedented natural disaster like this, there is really no game plan that anybody can study or research,” Jones said via a teleconference last Friday morning. “You have to go minute by minute. It has changed dramatically, but it has changed dramatically for everyone in the area. ” Just like the previous evacuations, Jones and his Green Wave were not in harms way, having heeded the advice and evacuated the area before the storm struck. Although New Orleans escaped much of the wind damage that all but leveled certain areas of Mississippi and Alabama, a busted levee left the city under several feet of contaminated water that could take months to fully pump out. |
Work begins on new line Silk Hope School to get county water By Randall Rigsbee Work was scheduled to begin this week on a new county water line that will supply the much-needed resource to Silk Hope Elementary School. Chatham County leaders gathered in Silk Hope Monday morning to celebrate the start of construction of the water line, which officials say will take approximately 90 days to complete. County officials say construction of a water line to the school should be completed within 90 days. Because of inadequate water levels over the past few years, the school has frequently used bottled water and paper plates in the cafeteria. Principal Janice Frazier hailed the county’s efforts to supply the school with water, noting in a press release from Chatham County that the line will allow Silk Hope Elementary “to operate as a normal school.” Frazier said that the water crisis has been so bad over the past few years the future of the school often seemed uncertain. “Our worst fear, which fortunately did not happen,” Frazier said, “was that we would have to shut down school operations,” Frazier said. The Chatham County Board of Commissioners – joined by other county leaders including Siler City Mayor Charles Turner, State Sen. Bob Atwater and State Rep. Joe Hackney - gathered at the school Monday morning for a groundbreaking ceremony. They were greeted at the school by a sign that read: “Thank you for the water!” Work on the line, which is being constructed by J. F. Wilkerson Contracting, was expected to begin this week. Chatham County Board of Commissioners chairman Bunkey Morgan, in an interview this week, said the school has needed water for years, but it won’t be the only beneficiary. The Silk Hope Fire Department, Morgan said, “is very glad to have it.” Several fire hydrants will be placed along the line, which will also mean reduced homeowners insurance for some residents, Morgan said. End in sight for 15-501 expansion By Cara Rotondaro Many, many people will be very happy when the widening of US 15-501 from Chapel Hill to Pittsboro, a project notorious for its complications and delays, is finished. Marty Tillman, resident engineer at Sanford’s Department of Transportation (DOT) office is one of those people. “We’re going to finish one day, and I will be the happiest person on Earth,” he said in a recent phone interview. Unfortunately, he’s not quite sure when “one day” is just yet. While the end isn’t exactly in sight, and he know everything won’t be finished by the end of September as he once thought, Tillman said that things have been progressing better recently than in the past. The project, being completed by Jones Bros. Construction, is widening the two lane highway to four lanes in anticipation of higher traffic on that road down the line, as projected by DOT. As Jones Bros. discovered, that task came with a lot of baggage, from severed telephone wires to angry business owners to weather delays. The latest complication, occurred when Jones Bros. decided to part ways with their paving subcontractor, Tillman said. As of last week, no new subcontractor had been chosen but DOT was in the process of holding meetings with Jones Bros. to secure a new group to take on the job, Tillman said. “If we can get them in there and they can supply what we need then things will be great,” Tillman said. He said that the hiring of a new paving subcontractor could, in fact, speed up the proceedings. While paving is up in the air, there have been some successes lately, said Tillman. |
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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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