gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648
DURHAM -- It appears the City Council members will go along with Mayor Bill Bell's proposal that they donate $25,500 worth of surplus vehicles to a town still struggling to recover from a 1999 hurricane.
Members reviewed the aid request for Princeville Thursday. The only one to voice objections was Councilman Eugene Brown.
"If we can't help a sister city, Lord help us if we were caught up in a similar situation," Councilman Howard Clement said, advocating the donation.
Provided the council follows through on Feb. 15 with a formal approval vote, administrators will transfer three police cars, a dump truck and a rear-loading garbage truck to Princeville.
The eastern North Carolina town was flooded out in 1999 by Hurricane Floyd. Aid to the first incorporated black community in the nation became a national cause, attracting the attention of elected officials from then-President Bill Clinton on down.
Princeville's mayor, Priscilla Everette-Oates, attended Thursday's council work session and said she asked Bell for help because her town's "budget is kind of low because of a lot of things that happened prior to me being sworn in."
Reports from down-east newspapers and the N.C. Department of State Treasurer indicate that the town's savings has been in negative numbers the past three fiscal years.
The N.C. Local Government Commission recommends that city and towns keep money equivalent to at least 8 percent of their annual budget in the bank, to cover cash flow and as a reserve against emergencies. Princeville last met that standard in fiscal 2004-05, according to the treasurer's staff.
Everette-Oates and another woman, Delia Perkins, have fought for and swapped the mayor's job a couple times over the past decade. Perkins held the office from late 2005 until late 2009.
The town's administration has also suffered turmoil. A former town manager, Sam Knight, is in prison for his role in helping a contractor steal disaster aid. The new manager, Victor Marrow, left a similar post in another town after the Local Government Commission questioned his competence.
Everette-Oates said Durham was "the first that came to mind" when she went looking for a large city that might help out by donating the some vehicles.
Durham administrators have said the five vehicles they identified as candidates for donation were all due for replacement anyway and would otherwise have been auctioned as surplus. State law allows cities to transfer property to other "governmental unit[s]" at will, even for free.
The three police cars are 2004 models that average 85,232 miles on the odometer. The dump truck is a 1999 model that has 96,571 miles on it, while the garbage truck is a 2001 with 46,788 miles.
Brown said that given the economy, he couldn't go along with surrendering the likely proceeds of an auction sale. "We've had to lay off staff and cut budgets," he said. "I believe charity begins at home and will not be supporting this."
Clement, however, noted that city officials joined the effort to help Princeville after the 1999 hurricane. He recalled visiting the ravaged town with Durham's then-mayor, Nick Tennyson.
"I have no hesitation to help," he said. "There but for the grace of God goes Durham. Yes, we have troubles, no question. But I don't think there's [any] way in the world you can compare what's happened in Princeville to what Durham's situation is."
