County eyes naming highway after Kerr
By Steve Herring
Published in News on June 15, 2015 1:46 PM
As one of the most powerful members of the North Carolina General Assembly, the late John Kerr III championed improvement to state infrastructure including the U.S. 70 Goldsboro Bypass now under construction.
Tuesday morning Wayne County commissioners will consider adopting a resolution calling on the state to name a section of the center portion of that highway in memory of Kerr who died May 24.
Kerr was first elected to the state House of Representatives in 1986, serving three terms before being elected to the state Senate, where he served from 1992 to 2008.
The resolution notes that Kerr was "vocal is his support for getting the Interstate 795 designation (for a four-laned U.S. 117) between Goldsboro and Wilson and was a strong supporter of the US Highway 70 Goldsboro Bypass."
It adds that Kerr "dedicated his life to his family, Madison Avenue Baptist Church, civic organizations, numerous boards and many causes, which touched the lives of the people and communities in North Carolina and especially eastern North Carolina."
The meeting will start with an 8 a.m. agenda briefing followed by the formal session at 9 a.m. Both will be held in the commissioners' meeting room on the fourth floor of the Wayne County Courthouse Annex.
Two public hearings are scheduled for 9:15 a.m.
The first is on a request to rezone a 1.03-acre lot at 872 N.C. 111 South from Residential Agriculture 30 to Residential Agriculture 20.
Kenneth and Jenia Fields asked for the rezoning to subdivide the lot.
The second hearing is on updating the Neuse River Basin Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan.
The county currently has a multi-jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan that involves its unincorporated area, Goldsboro, Mount Olive, Fremont, Pikeville, Eureka, Seven Springs and Walnut Creek.
It is being replaced by a regional multi-county, multi-jurisdictional plan that includes Greene, Jones, Lenoir, Pitt and Wayne counties and all of the municipalities within them.
A copy of the plan can be viewed at http://neuseriverregionalhmp.org.
Commissioners will consider approval of the plan following the public hearing.
The board will be asked to act on four recommendations from its Facilities Committee. They are:
* Installing airlock doors at the courthouse atrium, while leaving the existing exterior doors in place. The new glass sliding panels will extend eight feet into the atrium. There will be a flat roof over the area from the exterior doors to the new sliding door glass panels creating the airlock configuration.
The double doors will not be airtight, but should minimize the loss of heated or cooled air from the building.
The new doors will be connected to the security system and will be handicap accessible.
Funds for the project will come from Court Facilities-Building Structures and Improvements.
The committee is recommending that the bid be awarded to Convenient Glass Service that submitted a low bid of $21,725.
* Replacing the roof on the Dudley Emergency Medical Services Station at an estimated cost of $20,000.
* Declaring two plaques that originally hung in the old hospital building (that now houses the Department of Social Services and Health Department) as surplus property and donating them to Wayne Memorial Hospital.
* Selecting Stanford White of Raleigh to provide mechanical/electrical/structural engineering services for the installation of an emergency generator to provide redundancy for the data center in the courthouse and a feasibility study to determine the costs and benefits of converting the current chilled water (air conditioning) system to an air-cooled chiller system in the courthouse.
In other business, the board will consider a motion authorizing County Attorney Borden Parker to draft an agreement with Goldsboro and the Goldsboro-Wayne Transportation Authority concerning county rent for the proposed new transfer center/office.
Items on the consent agenda include declaring the closed Pinewood Fire Dept.'s equipment as surplus property and authorizing disposal of the property, and budget amendments.
Public comments will be taken at 10 a.m. Speakers will have four minutes to comment on their topic of choice.