 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Barbecue
A barbecue will be held Friday at 11 a.m. at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Holly.
The event will benefit Zack Osborne, the 6-year-old son of Lorrie Stilwell and Jonathan Osborne, who is fighting leukemia.
Barbecue plates or three sandwiches are $8, and chicken plates are $7. Call Kelly at (704)502-7655 or Lorrie at (704)922-0901 for details.
|
|
 |
|
 |
Alcohol sales approved for Citizens Center
By THOMAS LARK
- Thu, Sep 4, 2008
MOUNT HOLLY—Drinks will now flow at the Mount Holly Citizens Center.
By a vote of four to three at its marathon Aug. 25 work session, which lasted five hours and five minutes and ended at 12:05 a.m., Aug. 26, the Mount Holly City Council voted to approve the consumption of alcoholic beverages (except on Sundays) as part of the new rental policy for the center’s grand hall, effectively changing a city ordinance. The policy took effect on Labor Day.
Voting in favor of alcohol were council members Carolyn Breyare, David Moore and Jerry Bishop, following a respective motion and second from Moore and Bishop. Voting against it were councilmen Frank McLean, Bennie Brookshire and Perry Toomey.
Mayor Robert Whitt had to break the tie. Whitt voted in favor of alcohol.
“I’m not in favor of legislating morality,” the mayor said.
Toomey offered further explication in an Aug. 27 interview.
“As an elected official, I personally don’t think I have the right to vote to serve alcohol on city property,” he said. “I just don’t think we have that right. Alcohol can create a lot of problems, even though some people seem to enjoy it while they’re consuming it. But they can overindulge, and you know that leads to: rowdiness and damage to city property. Some people are just not as level-headed as others.”
“I’m just not an alcohol man,” said McLean, “and I don’t believe in it and can’t vote for it.”
But, also speaking Aug. 27, Breyare said the move simply made sense.
“It’s a matter of supply and demand,” she said. “My thinking is, because we’re wanting to rent the hall, that’s why we went with it, especially for a place of that size. We are charging a good bit to rent it ($2,000 for the whole hall and $750 for only the north end of it). We looked at other places comparable in size and price, and they often have caterers serving alcohol. If you’re paying $2,000 for a wedding reception or whatever, and other comparable places do allow this, in order to rent the hall at that price, you have to make alcohol available. If not, people could opt instead to go somewhere else. And we’d just have a big room we couldn’t rent.”
And of course, said Breyare, if any groups—church organizations, for example—want to rent the hall but stipulate that no alcohol shall be consumed in their particular instance, that’s also OK.
“Whatever you want,” she said. “Family reunions and things like that—if they don’t want to serve alcohol, that’s perfectly fine. But the Schiele Nature Museum, which is owned by the city of Gastonia, serves alcohol at functions there, for example. Many other North Carolina cities allow this. We checked, and they have no problems. But if should have a problem with it, here in Mount Holly, we can always change it back.”
In other meeting news, Chuck Flink, the founder, owner and president of Durham-based Greenways, Inc., presented the council with several options for the city’s planned linear park connecting Main Street to the Citizens Center, thence to the proposed Catawba River Greenway. The plan calls for improved sidewalks, street crossings, landscaping, signs and more.
The council directed city staffers to work with Flink to continue developing the plan and to bring a proposal that can also be submitted to CSX, as the trail will run adjacent to portions of the company’s rail line.
“I’m very happy with this,” said Toomey, “and I’m looking forward to the plan’s completion.”
Whitt said that the park project is being facilitated by a $1.4 million bond, authorized by Mount Holly voters some years ago, which will be paid for in the future.
And the council voted four to two to approve a plan to transition the Mount Holly Police Department to a one-to-one vehicle assignment for its patrol officers.
Moore, Toomey, Breyare and Bishop voted for this, while McLean and Brookshire voted against it.
Chief David Belk said assigning patrol officers their own vehicles will aid in response times and provide the MHPD a higher presence in the community.
“It also extends the life of the vehicle, because each officer is responsible for his or her own car,” said Belk, “and this is an effective recruiting tool.”
Officers will be allowed to drive vehicles home within an eight-mile radius from Mount Holly but not into Lincoln County or South Carolina, where some MHPD personnel reside. Officers living outside this radius will have the option of leaving vehicles at the MHPD or at an approved location within city limits.
Belk said he also plans to use the one-to-one assignment as an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of hybrid vehicles.
But McLean said he still has questions.
“Does the radius start at the city limits, or does it go from downtown?” he asked. “I don’t believe in people doing this. If they don’t live in town, I don’t want them driving our cars—not to their residences. When I worked in water and sewer for Mount Holly, many years ago, I didn’t get to bring a vehicle home. When I had to go out on emergency calls, I had to drive my own truck and go to get the city truck and lock the gate behind me and then proceed to the problem.”
McLean, a former mayor of Mount Holly, also said he wasn’t happy with the meeting’s length.
“We were down there until past midnight,” he said. “I think all our meetings should be cut short at 10 p.m. By that time, everybody’s worn out. When I was mayor, if 10 o’clock would come around, and we weren’t done, we would stop and come back the next evening.”
But Whitt said the council’s hard work can sometimes take time, and slogging through can be necessary.
“I believe in doing city business,” he said, “and getting it done.”
|
|
|
