News and Record from Greensboro, North Carolina • 12

News Record Saturday December 16 1995 TRI A A STATE Audit of Edmisten worries Gov Hunt Edmisten TORT BRAGG One of the three white soldiers charged in the murder of two black people in ay etteville had his security clearance ment said Republican leaders have not discussed impeaching Edmisten know that it would come to Morgan said has a way of working itself out If it were to come to that I imagine there would be enough heat on him (Edmisten) that he likely would step The audit said Edmisten ran a lax operation abused his authority and wasted the money The audit questioned more than $390000 in spending by Edmisten's of fice including possible misuse of state employees for personal errands and us ing an fund to pay for the overseas trips together the findings illus trate a pattern of both unacceptable behavior as well as very lax administra tive practices in conducting public busi ness in accordance with the policies and of the state State Auditor Ralph Campbell said found sure Secretary Edmisten has' consider any resolution for impeach given this considerable thought ana should give it considerable The state Constitution allows the leg islature to impeach the secretary of state as well as other state officials The process similar to the one used in Con gress calls for the House to present the behavior provoked the Army The Associated Press sitv ate to conduct the actual impeachment I am deeply disturbed the the attorney general has trial A judge also can order a state governor says of a state audit criti done the right thing in calling for an official removed from office as part of rnl Af rhe cpcretnrv of state investigation of the office by the his sentence if he is convicted of cnmi cal ot the secretary ot state Asked whether Edmisten should re nal charges A in sign Hunt said: know the an Rep Richard Morgan Moore The Associated Press answer can be whose House Rules Committee would RALEIGH Gov Jim Hunt said riday he was disturbed by the finding of auditors who said Secretary of State Rufus Edmisten ran a lax operation and wasted money am deeply disturbed by the num ber and gravity of the findings in the nnnratorir etatp 1 Tiint dUUll UL L11C OCV1VLCUJ ui uiuiv said after a speech at NC State Univer charges for impeachment and the ben revoked four months ago because of extremist activities the Army page audit report Among the chief I fl I ees away from the duties for which they were the report states Edmisten spokesman Boyce said security is often needed that he would be attacked or shot but crowds would often well up around Boyce said to the gov ernor he gets the most requests for appearances around the That recommendation should be ditched said Al Boyce spokesman for Edmisten Boyce said Edmisten is unavailable for comment while on vacation until Jan 2 believe that would fragment services Other secretaries of state do the things we do Boyce said attorney office would be on the phone over here all the is wondering the County Manager rank Willis said downside to this deal is it takes away a lot of options that might have been available to the county for borrowing money for other purposes Time will bring those options back to As Willis puts it the school pack age maxed the credit card And that notion prompted Phil Kemp the chairman of the com missioners to vote against the plan not that I was against this Kemp said just hate to limit ourselves to one particular project I guess just being conservative But as time goes on just work with what Worth Younts the principal at Tabernacle School knows the schools package is expensive After the commissioners voted to finance the $26 million plan he acknowledged the cost was and thanked them for fo cusing on children not the dollar amount He recently made the same pitch as he watched first graders at Tab emacle leave their trailer and line i up in the morning cold waiting to use the bathroom in the gym can you better invest 26 1 million dollars than in the educa tion of Younts said think that says it It looks like it's going to take a few books for WXLV to show any strength Leigh Marlowe senior media planner in the school The cramped quar ters give teachers little flexibility in their activities and force stu dents to squeeze into tight rows of desks In the core a 1924 building many classes are frag mented because the rooms hold all the students The roof is leaky the radiators serve as shelves and the paint chipped walls are spotted with mildew In addition the classrooms swel ter in the late spring and early fall because they have no air condition ing who are not around the school or who have children in the school necessarily know how important the needs Tyndall said sure all schools have needs but we have some desperate needs that have to be met The Tabernacle project calls for the old part of the school to be destroyed A separate 1955 building will be renovated and the gym added in 1980 will be built into a new wing Those renovations represent one of the top three projects in the Randolph County package The others are new elementary schools in Level Cross which currently has no school of its own and in Cole ridge which has an outdated ele mentary that will eventually be torn down Those projects expected to be finished bv mid 1997 will cost an estimated $22 million The rest of the $26 million package provides money for Eastern Randolph High i School Grays Chapel School Lib erty School and Trinity High School Improvements to those buildings range from the addition of air conditioning to the upgrading of a wastewater system poor showing surprised industry analysts who thought loyal viewers who tuned into ABC for its strong news presence and well rated prime time shows would also tune in to the new local newscasts is such a strong network but with local news that always mean viewers will stay to said Leigh Marlowe a se nior media planner and buyer with Trone Advertising looks like going to take a few books for WXLV to show any Meanwhile new ox affiliate WGHP took an expected ratings hit Although numbers dropped president and general manager Da vid Boylan celebrated the fact that his station finish last you had opened my head over the past few months you would have heard me saying going to Boylan said was anticipating my funeral but we held in there pretty In fact WGHP finished only one share point behind WXII at 6 pm and retained its second place standing in the early morning and 5 pm newscasts The station also jumped several points at noon with re runs of the cop drama the Heat of the But new 10 pm broad cast suffered against hot prime time competition such as and While the show earned a 9 share at 10 pm news casts on WMY (Channel 2) and WXII at 11 pm earned 28 and 25 shares respectively 11 pm news garnered only a 5 share A share is a percentage of the people watching TV at a particular time Even though numbers are down at 10 pm station execu tives consider the 10 pm newscast to be a good return on their invest ment Buying a half hour of syndi cated programming could cost up to $250000 annually while expand ing local news with people and equipment already employed is much cheaper more cost effective to pro duce an hour worth of local news than it is to produce 30 minutes of local news and buy 30 minutes worth of syndicated program said Boylan presi dent more importantly we feel like a content consider ation Cost aside there are enough issues here to warrant a full hour not fluff a substantive Although overall viewership dropped slightly stability drew big numbers at WMY and WXII AU of newscasts fin ished first in their time periods for instance Deborah Hooper the sta vice president and general manager attributed the success to the product network affiliation switch) may have had a slight impact but I really feel like we delivered on the product in this said had specific internal strate gies for how we planned this rat ings period from what stories we selected to what promotion we used Those strategies At WXII the 6 pm newscast rose from third to second place while the new 6:30 pm broadcast finished ahead of Peter Jennings and behind Dan Rather The national NBC news at 7 pm finished in second place well be hind of on WMY and just ahead of Improve on WXLV and on WGHP While WXII was happy about its showing station officials declaring victory was a great deal of viewer confusion and that was re flected in this said Hollis Boardman general sales manager at WXII will take at least one or maybe two more books to stabilize way too early to suggest victory or Boardman said James ParkerNews Record Many repairs have been put off at Tabernacle Elementary School in western Randolph County their anger or referendum to raise i their curiosity county residents i have shown no opposition to the $26 million plan The only people to speak up have been project propo nents who argued for the school funding during county budget ses sions have to assume the support is there because I heard any Hatley said re member anyone at any of the meet ings saying six million dollars of money? You do But there is a lot of pressure on us We have to be accountable we have to be open to the public I think the taxpayers deserve Indeed the $26 million vote will affect those taxpayers The commissioners agreed to sell Certificates of Participation which provide cash for the county and earnings for the people who buy the certificates The county assumed the debt and must pay it at an average interest rate of 56 percent oyer the next 20 years That means the more than $13 million given each year by the commissioners to the schools must now be reserved to pay debt It also means the county cannot borrow a large amount of money until it sub stantially reduces its debt which could take up to seven years seems so simple Everybody said riday Pfc James Burmeister 20 of Thompson Pa who is charged with first degree murder and con spiracy to commit murder in Cum berland County also was reprimanded for wearing symbols of extremist groups and fighting with a black soldier in the bar racks according to a statement from the 82nd Airborne Division Malcolm Wright Jr 21 of Lexington Ky also was charged with murder in the deaths of Jackie Burden 27 and Michael James 36 A third soldier Spc Randy Mead ows was charged with conspiracy to commit murder 1 Meadows who drove the other two to a ayetteville neighborhood and let them out early Dec 7 told police that Burmeister had bragged that he was going to get a spider tattoo Police said the tattoo was a skin head symbol that meant the wearer had killed a black or gay person Post officials said a report that Burmeister had a Nazi flag in his barracks room was investigated last August but the flag had been removed when a platoon sergeant reached his room A Nazi flag was found in a room Burmeister rented off the post The statement was a summary of the' investigation into background No in formation was released on Wright or Meadows Burmeister a member of the Headquarters Co 1st Battalion 505th Parachute Infantry Regi ment was counseled for taking too long to perform his military duties last eb 7 the division said the counseling his su pervisor observed a leather thong around the statement said supervisor noticed Bur meister was wearing a Nazi like medallion under his uniform The supervisor had him remove the me dallion and put on his military identification also was repri manded for an Aug 26 fight with a black soldier nose was broken in the fight and the other soldier injured was a dispute concerning the littering of a common latrine which was just cleaned by the African American the statement said It helps the inmate parent too Barbee said know there are some who care less but many do care and a lot get senti mental at One of the people who works with Barbee each Christmas is a former inmate who relied on the Angel Tree to take care of his children The tree helped keep his family together says it was a Barbee said Barbee can tell by their notes on the applications that many prison ers care deeply for their children name is i one inmate father wrote needs clothes She is a large girl Please get her some got Barbee said James Howell of Morganton is a former inmate who travels to High Point and Greensboro every year to help Barbee with the Angel Tree project Howell served time 20 years ago when he a young he said only wish this kind of program had been around then It could have saved a lot of children as well as their daddies do I help? Why should all of us help? Well Jesus said it Howell said as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto said were used by Edmisten to drive him to NASCAR races Char lotte Hornets games his Boone home and other places In essence these investigators perform similar duties as state troopers assigned to the governor though there is little evidence to show Edmisten merits the same security as Gov Jim Hunt the au dit says the use of employ ees for security drivers and advance men on out of town trips ensures that the trips go smoothly criticisms are use of it unnecessarily takes the employ securities investigators to serve as for him on state and personal business Two investigators in the securi ties division were shuttled to ort Lauderdale la in January 1993 to attend an protection which cost taxpayers $2 291 These investigators the audit they want or need for Christmas Many children live with their grandparents she said Most are very poor When Barbee calls she lets the from guardian know immediately that she is calling on behait or tne father or mother times the guardian will call to the child right away calling for Daddy! He wants to know what you want for Christ The Angel Tree has helped mend many a broken heart Barbee said goes a long way toward helping make up for the time Daddy up and But it come as a shock that Edmisten would have a yen to take on law enforcement duties During the 10 years he served as attorney general Edmisten often personally led drug raids gamer ing him a reputation as a publicity hound Stories abounded about how he loved using flashing blue lights and blaring sirens Edmisten carried that love of law Attorney General Mike Easley enforcement to his job as secretary comment on the audit until of state as evidenced in the 132 an investigation by the State Bu reau of Investigation is completed said spokesman Greg Rideout In North Carolina 37 state agen cies have sworn law enforcement officers But most of those are bet ter known such as the State Capital Police campus police at the 13 universities Alcohol Law En forcement officers and state game wardens Hatley knows that getting money for all the projects easy but it may have seemed so to officials from other school systems Some of them in fact have asked him got 26 million dollars just like Not quite The planning began about two years ago and reached a pivotal stage in June when the Randolph County commissioners in a 4 1 vote agreed to finance the $26 mil lion plan The significant decision how ever did not draw much attention The closest thing to controversy came when Asheboro school offi cials complained that the plan did nothing to meet the needs of the schools But they came away happy when the commissioners voted one week later to give $225 million over five years to the city schools And with no tax hike to stoke At Tabernacle School in west ern Randolph County such poor conditions are prevalent The 200 kids who learn in trail ers must often walk through rain and mud on their trips to the bath room the cafeteria or other places ANGEL Continued from page Bl for ministering to inmates Greensboro to the western most reaches of the state More than 7800 prisoners filled out applica tions this year asking that an angel represent their children on the An gel Tree Churches agreed to buy gifts for 6689 of those children but that still left 1200 angels for the Angel Tree Barbee said Barbee con tacted the guardians of each of those 1200 children to learn what iMotorist rescues man in wheelchair from burning house BURLINGTON A passing mo torist rescued an elderly man in a wheelchair from his burning house early riday morning Gary Chavis a Burlington resi dent was on his way home in his car' when a woman flagged him 'down She told Chavis her husband was trapped inside the burning house 'Harry and ran house at 420 Davis St caught fire some tpne before 4 am the fire depart ment said Before firefighters arrived Chavis had carried Harry Mc Clure 85 to safety McClure was treated for minor bums at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill ran Mc Clure 85 was treated for smoke inhalation firefighters said the two story House worth about $75000 was Heavily damaged Investigators ex pect to know the cause of the fire by Monday Police probe robbery try at Greensboro restaurant Greensboro police are investigat ing the attempted robbery of a High Point Road restaurant early riday iTwo men approached two em ployees outside Restau rant and Bar at 3300 High Point Road about 1:30 am said Capt Af Scales of the Greensboro Po lice Department One of the men armed with a small chrome plated handgun ordered the employees back into the restaurant in an at tpmnt to rob the business the would be robbers fled when one of the employees ran away from them Scales said tNo money was taken from the festaurant and neither employee injured rom Staff Reports! TV Continued from page Bl SCHOOLS Continued from page Bl Like $26 million how much the county is spending on an expansive con struction package the building of two elementary schools and a bus garage and the renovation or up grading of two elementary schools two high schools and a 8 school Though those efforts have differ ent timetables construction began this week on the three most com prehensive school projects reno vations at Tabernacle and new schools in Coleridge and Level Cross And that makes this a signif icant time for Randolph County schools is a massive said Worth Hatley the superinten dent of the school system a pretty big job just to build one school When you have eight differ ent projects to coordinate not much time for anything The school woes stem from surging student populations and declining buildings With more than 15100 students and room for only 14000 Randolph County uses 48 trailers as class rooms The growth of the student body is expected to continue as more families discover the low cost of housing in Randolph County Guilford southern neigh bor situation is similar to those in other school systems in the Triad and across North Carolina where student populations grow faster than available construction funds However unlike many of those school systems Randolph now has the money it needs The county recently sold certifi cates to generate $2915 million for the schools a new mental health building and related costs of both of those projects The move did not require the typical obstacles for such a financ ing package voter approval or a tax increase but it will restrict the borrowing power for years Supporters of the school plans however say the projects will pay off really not about putting kids in a Taj Hatley said about taking kids out of atrocious learning conditions and putting them in acceptable learning condi UDIT Continued from page Bl the report states our opinion other state agencies which have a larger complement of officers could provide such law enforce ment tasks more efficiently and could provide considerably more support for these investigatory or example the auditors recom mend that the attorney office take on the task of investigat ing securities fraud There are four sworn law enforcement officers that serve as securities investiga tors in the secretary of of fice meaning they can carry firearms and must undergo the same training as regular police of ficers SJ 4 4i 5 7 A SB Irafefll wai i wwt I oral 1 I aw ftpsv A 0 AV i.