PENDER COUNTY — The Pender County Board of Commissioners are considering a special-called meeting to address a multi-million dollar water grant, after its approval got pushed to the wayside due to Monday night’s lack of a quorum. The grant’s deadline looms for the county to secure funding.
The application is due to the state before the next scheduled commissioners meeting in October. Pender County spokesperson Brandi Cobb told Port City Daily in August, the grant would need to be applied for by Sept. 30. According to Monday’s agenda, commissioners were set to vote on a resolution authorizing Pender County staff to apply for some money to cover the cost of adding waterlines to part of northwestern Pender County.
Cobb previously told Port City Daily, to pay for the project the county was looking at a $25-million loan through the drinking water state revolving fund and a $3-million grant through the drinking water and wastewater state reserve.
READ MORE: No quorum: Pender commissioners’ absence delays Beth Burns’ appointment again, despite state ruling
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There are no waterlines in the northwestern area of Pender County, though residents have been requesting them for years. They have complained of magnesium, rust and iron in their well water.
“It’s been a long-awaited process because the individuals in this community, we don’t drink our water,” resident and water access advocate Cheryl Highsmith told Port City Daily Tuesday, noting she has been wanting county water hookup for 28 years. “Our water system is failing, and this grant would have brought us a long ways of seeing pipe in the ground.”
Currently, Pender County Utilities serve approximately 11,000 of the county’s 72,000 residents — or 15%. The county’s 1,100 miles of pipeline is spread across six water and sewer districts, disproportionately not servicing rural areas.
Last month, commissioners heard a presentation from Highfill Infrastructure Engineering of potential water routes, as well as learned about the grant opportunity.
Highsmith said she has been working with Commissioner Jimmy Tate on the grant; the last step is approval from commissioners. The grant application was on the agenda for the Sept. 21 meeting but it adjourned after only two of four commissioners attended. Chair Randy Burton and commissioner Jerry Groves were absent, while Tate and Vice Chair Brent Springer were present. The District 1 seat remains vacant after Brad George stepped down in August.
Springer told Port City Daily Tuesday a special meeting could possibly be scheduled to address the grant on Monday, Sept. 28, with the county staff firming the date and time before sending it to Chair Burton for approval.
“I understand the frustration many may have,” Springer said about Monday’s meeting, before adding that without a quorum, state statute does not allow commissioners to conduct business.
Springer said County Manager Colby Sawyer is checking with the state for additional details about applying for the grant: “I anticipate we will not fail at applying.”
Groves agreed with Springer’s assessment, telling Port City Daily he was not concerned about missing the deadline.
“That paperwork has already been sent by the county manager, and I knew it could be done by him individually,” Groves said. “I knew that the whole time.”
He declined to clarify the process further. The agenda packet for the Sept. 21 meeting indicated action was requested of the commissioners “to adopt the resolution, authorize staff to apply for State loan and/or grant assistance for the Pender County Distribution System Project, and designate James Proctor as the County’s Authorized Representative for the application and related assurances.”
Highsmith told Port City Daily she is hopeful for the grant’s forward movement: “If it was on the east side that this grant was going, trust me, there would have been made a way for it to have gotten signed.”
That’s where hefty growth in Pender County has been taking place. Hampstead’s population, for instance, is growing at an annual rate of about 3.92% with an increase of 48.31% since the 2020 census. Highsmith lives in Willard — an unincorporated town in Pender County — with a population of around 4,500, half of Hampstead’s 10,200 people.
Highsmith added she believes the lack of quorum was an intentional move by commissioners, as was suggested by Tate during Monday’s attempted meeting. As a constituent, she said she left disgusted and surprised.
“It’s just been one excuse after another, after another, after another, and it is like I said, so frustrating that this is how our elected officers, county commissioners, who are being paid by Pender County taxpayers, and this is what happens,” Highsmith said.
Tate alluded commissioners didn’t show up to the meeting due to the appointment of Beth Burns to the District 1 seat. He called it disrespectful to not follow through on procedure — the Pender County GOP Executive Committee voted her in, which she won by one vote, so the commissioners’ solidifying the appointment was a final step. Tate planned to suspend the rules to swear in Burns.
Her appointment has been controversial, with three appeals filed to the state GOP, two of which upheld Burns’ taking over the seat. Commissioners already tabled the matter once last month.
Springer didn’t believe Burton and Groves’ absences were purposeful. The county staff and commissioners found out 15 minutes before the meeting the two commissioners would not be in attendance.
“I have no reason or evidence to prompt me to believe it was done intentionally,” Springer said.
Tate said Monday it was a commissioner’s duty to see through promises to constituents.
“We got a water grant, the biggest water grant that we are writing in this county now for our district that’s due before the next meeting,” Tate said. “Playing politics do not help the citizens or our staff.”
Burton, who has not responded to Port City Daily, did not attend the meeting due to a scheduling conflict.
Groves wrote on his social media account ahead of Monday’s meeting he would have a Pender County sheriff’s officer escort him there, as he was worried about heightened comments made about commissioners online as of late. Some included racial hate against Tate, who filed a criminal summons against an Onslow County man for cyberstalking. During Monday’s meeting Tate said he had private security in attendance.
There also was law enforcement on site at Hampstead Annex Monday, with metal detectors activated for community members entering the building to attend the commissioners’ meeting.
To Port City Daily Tuesday, Groves said he changed his mind about attending because he feared for his safety. He also brought up year-old claims of being threatened by Pender-Topsail Post and Voice’s editorial cartoons. One last year featured the Pender County EMS and Fire merger, with tombstones, crosses, money, and caricatures of Groves, Burton and Springer around a bonfire. In PCD’s previous reporting of the incident, Pender Post owner Andy Pettigrew maintained it wasn’t a threat, rather political commentary and the death was about Pender County EMS and Fire, not commissioners.
“I came to the understanding my safety could be in jeopardy,” Groves maintained Tuesday. “We have church shootings every day. We have school shootings. We have people from the ocean shooting into restaurants. You know, we can’t say it’s not going to happen here because it very well can.”
[Editors note: The piece was updated after press to include responses by Commissioner Jerry Groves.]
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