County Commissioners discuss transportation grant for Neuse Boulevard, voting site and property foreclosures during first meeting of the year.
The Craven County Board of Commissioners approved budget amendments, delayed voting on a transportation grant and discussed several matters during Jan. 6, 2025 meeting in the Craven County Administrative Building in New Bern, NC.
Chairman Dennis “Denny” Bucher thanked Jason Jones for serving as chairman for the last four years.
Tax Administrator Leslie Young said taxes were due on Monday and thanked taxpayers for paying their taxes on time. She reported a record-breaking collection.
Joshua “Josh” Kohr, the newly elected Craven County Register of Deeds told the commissioners he was looking forward to having conversations with the board and thanked them for their support.
Economic Development
Economic Development Director Jeff Wood said Project Emerald is a local real estate developer who is planning to build a new industrial warehouse facility in the Craven County Industrial Park. The new facility will be located at 120 Corporate Lane and is expected to be valued at around $2 million. The developer plans to build other facilities that are expected to be valued between $4 to $5 million.
Albert Lester spoke in favor of the project during the public hearing and said it would increase the county’s tax revenues.
The board approved an agreement to provide a $300,0000 cash grant to help offset infrastructure and utility costs with Chairman Denny Bucher of District 7, Vice Chairman Jason Jones of District 2, Commissioners Beatrice “Bea” Smith of District 3, Ettienne “ET” Mitchell of District 4, Shevel “Sherry” Hunt of District 5 and Chadwick Howard of District 6 voting yes. Commissioner Thomas “Tom” Mark of District 1 was absent.
Jeff Wood also said the Department of Defense increased funding for the existing Eastern North Carolina Tech Bridge grant by $549,121, which will pay for a tech bridge facility at Coastal Carolina Regional Airport. It will also fund a new tech showcase event, provide funding for education research grants at colleges and it will put two Craven County teachers into Fleet Readiness Center East. They will also seek a fellowship fund for another teacher.
He said the increase in funding wouldn’t have happened without the efforts of the Craven County government, the Coastal Carolina Regional Airport, the Riverfront Convention Center of Craven County, the Tourism and Development Authority and the Airport Authority.
Neuse Boulevard corridor study and grant application
Deanna Trebil, the administrator of the New Bern Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, reported that the North Carolina Department of Transportation recently completed a Vulnerable User Corridor Study for NC Highway 55, also known as Neuse Boulevard, and determined the corridor has a high crash rate. She showed a heat map that summarized crashes with vehicles on Neuse Boulevard between Queen Street and Racetrack Road from July 2018 to June 2023 and said Simmons Street and Glenburnie Road were hotspots. She said they looked at pedestrian and bike crash histories and showed maps that highlighted crashes between 2012 and 2021 and noted there were two pedestrian fatalities and numerous pedestrian and bicycle crashes along the entire corridor.
NCDOT analyzed how and why the crashes happened, and they looked at ways to reduce crashes along the corridor.
Commissioner Howard said he thought he read an article a couple of years ago that someone was killed on Neuse Boulevard.
She said they had crash fatalities last year, but they weren’t noted in the study. Trebil later told NewBernNow.com, “The safety data used typically lags about a year behind since the data must be reviewed and geolocated. Therefore, the most recent safety data was used for analysis.”
Trebil told the board they’re recommending adding crosswalks, new signals and reconfiguring an existing intersection as shown on the image below. They’re looking at ways to improve safety without breaking the bank.
She said they initially considered a road diet with a raised median, but decided on a center turn lane.
“A road diet means you take your existing road profile which in this case is four lanes and we would be reducing that to two lanes with a center turn lane with bike lanes on both sides,” Trebil said.
She said they’re looking at adding a sidewalk or multi-use path on the north side, where CarolinaEast Medical Center is located, and the sidewalk would be continued on the south side.
She said the city of New Bern is working with NCDOT to apply for a $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity Grant Program. The city would get a $25 million investment with North Carolina putting in about a million to help to make the application more competitive.
Deanna Trebil said she has been getting letters of support to help strengthen the application and asked the commissioners to approve a resolution of support. If they receive the grant, there would be about a two-year design process that would allow community partners and the public an opportunity to weigh in.
Commissioner Mitchell said if they received the grant, “this would not be DOT telling us how to do Neuse Boulevard. It would be a community effort to design it based on New Bern, Craven County needs.”
Trebil told NewBernNow.com, “the grant elements or items stated in the application such as a road diet, intersection improvements, etc. would be installed. However, specific design details would still need to be decided.”
The road diet limits aren’t the same as the study and would only include First Street to Glenburnie Road.
Commissioner Smith said she had an accident there last year and understood the need.
Vice Chairman Jones said it’s a main thoroughfare and asked if the flow of traffic and congestion would improve or get worse.
Trebil said NCDOT did a traffic impact analysis. They took the NC 43 Connector into account, and concluded “traffic should flow as projected and would be better than it is today.”
She said anytime they do construction, they’re looking at future traffic projections, what traffic would like in 2040-2050, based on long range plans.
She didn’t anticipate congestion getting worse, but it should improve and imagined some of the traffic would not take Neuse but would be diverted to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Trebil said she’s aware of safety and congestion concerns on MLK and they are working on identifying ways to enhance safety along that corridor.
“I would be 100% against a raised median because I think that’s just going to cause chaos from one end to the other,” Jones said.
He asked if she could guarantee there wouldn’t be a raised median.
She guaranteed there wouldn’t be a raised median because the city has the same stance, they want the center turn lane. “Any raised median would only be at specific locations to channelize traffic, like at an intersection or to help a pedestrian, like at a midblock crossing that’s between two signals.”
Mitchell said she’s on the Metropolitan Planning Organization board and they’ve discussed the project extensively. This isn’t as difficult to implement as a lot of the Department of Transportation projects because it’s a lot of paint. She made a motion to approve the resolution.
Chairman Bucher said they need to be careful how they do this.
“When we put up Broad Street, it made it narrow street,” he said.
He said he lives downtown, and it really caused congestion.
He noted Neuse Boulevard is a state owned and maintained road and said the project would start where the new Stanley White Recreation Center is at First Street and go to Glenburnie Road.
He thought one reason why the road is very dangerous is because ambulances are coming in and out of the hospital and they’re moving along at a good clip.
Commissioner Hunt said she’s a cyclist and she loves bike lanes.
She said former Mayor Pete Buttigieg did something similar to this in the downtown area of South Bend, Indiana, which is her hometown.
She said it may have solved one problem, but it created others.
“Our first responders were the first ones to have issues with it because also in their corridor, they also had a hospital there. So, they had issues getting in and out, so it was a problem with them. It was local businesses because of the backed-up traffic and the time it took to traverse those four miles, and I know that’s twice as long as this one, but the time it took to traverse that four miles, people would find another alternate route and didn’t go downtown no more. So, it decreased business revenue,” Hunt said.
She said citizens didn’t like it because cyclists were going in and out of traffic.
The South Bend Tribue reported on Buttigieg’s Smart Streets initiative in an article here.
Sherry Hunt made a made a motion to postpone the vote to allow her more time to research and talk with first responders.
Deanna Trebil said they met with Michael Smith, the president of CarolinaEast Health Center, and “he is in full support of the project and is a stakeholder of this project.”
ET Mitchell had already made a motion, so the Board of Commissioners voted on her motion first. The motion failed 2-5 with Denny Bucher and Mitchell voting in support of the resolution and Sherry Hunt, Chadwick Howard, Jason Jones and Beatrice Smith voted against it.
Hunt said she still wanted to talk with the first responders.
The commissioners voted on Hunt’s motion to delay with Smith, Howard, Jones and Hunt voting to postpone the matter and Mitchell and Bucher voting no.
Jason Jones said he didn’t want anything in the resolution that suggests a raised median.
ET Mitchell said the Metropolitan Planning Organization “absolutely 100% agrees with you.” She said one reason why they wanted a non-raised median was because if the center lane doesn’t work, they can restripe it. It’s easier than having to remove a raised median.
“There were similar concerns with First Street when there was the road diet. If this doesn’t work or causes more problems than it is worth, then there is the opportunity to correct it at minimal cost, Mitchell said.
Emergency Services
Emergency Services Director Stanley Kite reported that he applied for a $25,000 grant from Duke Energy so they could acquire a distributable emergency network, the Den XL.
He said the rugged mobile equipment is designed to support large command post operations and emergency operations centers. He noted the system could be used in a mobile setting where the infrastructure is down.
Kite told NewBernNow.com, “Starlink would be capable of enhancing the ability of DEN.”
He said the units were used in Western NC in coordination with Starlink, “that’s how a lot of the counties and municipalities were able to have some type of means of communications with emergency responders because basically all the primary infrastructure and the hard type of infrastructure was down and out.”
“The DEN can support up to 4 sim cards to assist in connectivity to other networks including StarLink. The unit would be considered operational once the sim cards are activated. This system can support up to 250 users and can operate for up to 20 hours on the battery power supply until emergency power or a generator can be provided. We would be able to provide a continuity of operations if we lost our normal network and communications ability,” he said.
Stanley Kite said they received a generous donation of $10 from a Craven County citizen and asked the commissioners to approve a budget amendment for $25,010. The board approved his request.
Property Foreclosures
Craven County Attorney Arey Grady reported on foreclosed properties.
BCJ Development, LLC offered to purchase property at 408 Suttons Alley in New Bern for $1,500, according to the meeting packet. The city of New Bern and Craven County jointly acquired the property through tax foreclosure. The costs of foreclosure and past due taxes total $4,082.81.
The company also offered to purchase 919 Elm St. for $2,700. The foreclosure costs and past due taxes total $4,057.
BCJ Development offered to purchase property at 1009 Main St. in New Bern for $2,400. The foreclosure costs and past due taxes total $1,920.
They also offered to purchase 1013 Main St. for $2,400. The costs of foreclosure and past due taxes are $5,558.
Victoria Clark offered to purchase property at 605 Second Ave. in New Bern for $2,700. The county and city acquired the property through tax foreclosure. The foreclosure costs and past due taxes are $3,948.
The commissioners adopted resolutions to approve the transactions and authorized the upset bid process for the properties.
Julius Rodriguez and Crystal Rutledge offered to purchase property at 1110 Mechanic St. for $6,000. The offer was advertised and there were no upset bids. The costs of foreclosure and past due taxes are $2,492. The board adopted a resolution to approve the conveyance.
Commissioner Hunt asked the tax administrator how people can find the properties.
Leslie Young said there are two types of properties that are available for sale as noted on Craven County’s website here.
The first type of property has gone through the tax foreclosure process and Arey Grady facilitates the sale at the courthouse. The tax department has the list of properties and the auction information can be found here. The property is not owned by the county government.
Young said after the county attorney tries to sell the property and no one bids on it, that’s when Craven County government becomes the owner and the properties are available for sale to the public here. Any questions should be directed to Assistant County Manager Gene Hodges.
Petition of Citizens
Albert Lester said they need a permanent voting site for citizens of District 5. He said citizens of District 6 voted in Havelock and asked the BOC to take a closer look to see what they could do.
Rick Hopkins, the Chairman of the Craven County Republican Party, said the lines at the Havelock voting site were over three hours long, and some people choose not to vote. He said the issue needs to be addressed before the next election.
He said the voting equipment needs to be evaluated because of the amount of time it took to recount ballots. He said the poll place scanner and vote tabulator is beyond the ten-year lifecycle and the newer model offered a faster processing time.
County Manager Jack Veit said the director of the Board of Elections is aware of the end-of-life issue and she’s working with the vendor to look at upgrading.
He also said Havelock is a high-volume voting site and there is demand from Township 5 and 6. He worked with the elections office on an exhaustive search for a location. The elections office picks the site, and we assist the elections office. He said the city of Havelock didn’t have a facility and they approached several churches, but they were turned down. He said they were forced to rent the facility.
“There’s an answer and it’s we got to build a building in Havelock, and we’ve been talking about it for several years. We have the property. We have the project. We got the plans. It has a multi-purpose room where voting could take place. It’ll have adequate parking. We’re going to lose the building we’re in now so sooner rather than later we’re going to have to pull that project off the shelf,” Jack Veit said.
Jason Jones asked how long the project would take if they began construction tomorrow.
Gene Hodges estimated it would take approximately three to four years.
Denny Bucher said they needed to talk about it at the next work session.
The commissioners went into closed session “to discuss the location or expansion of industries or other business in the area served by the public body,” according to the packet.
NewBernNow.com asked if the board took any action after they came out of the closed session and Shane Digan, the assistant to the county manager and public information officer, said, “The Board authorized the County Manager to enter into an agreement with NC Capitol Strategies for government relations services and approved an associated budget amendment in the amount of $37,500. This action will be shown in the official minutes once posted.”
The agreement is between the former NC Senator James A. Perry, who is the president of NC Capitol Strategies, LLC and the county. The firm will provide “strategic consulting and also lobbying after the January 8 NCGA (NC General Assembly) swearing in ceremony.”
The full meeting agenda and packet are available here. The Board of Commissioners meeting schedule is available here.
Video recordings of county meetings are available on YouTube here.
By Wendy Card, Editor. Send an email with questions or comments.