INSIDE.......... 2013 Hall of Fame banquet . . . . . 3A
Serving Belmont, Mount Holly, Stanley, Cramerton, and McAdenville
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Volume 78 • Issue 2 • Wednesday, January 9, 2012
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More employers now required to ‘e-verify’ hires
CaroMont donates $100k for Rail Trail
By Alan Hodge Editor Alan.bannernews@gmail.com
Thanks to the NC General Assembly, sixteen new laws went into effect on Jan. 1, 2013. The new law that will likely have the biggest impact on business statewide is the requirement that companies with 100 or more employees must submit its new hires to the Department of Homeland Security database to see if they can legally work in North Carolina. Known as “e-verify”, the procedure is basically a way to check immigration status. E-verify was already required for companies with 500 or more employees. Come July 2013, employers of 25 or more persons will have to use the system. Officials in Belmont and Mount Holly are on top of things regarding everify. The City of Belmont has around 125 full time workers. That includes police, fire, water, administration, parks and recreation and streets. According to city manager Barry Webb, Belmont has already been participating in the e-verify system. “We’ve been submitting the information for over a year now,” Webb said. “So far, we have not had any triggers on anything we’ve turned in.” According to City of Mount Holly Human Resources Director Susan Allen, the municipality has 152 employees including fulltime and parttime. “The City is required to follow this law for new hires only and has no new hires yet in 2013,” Allen said. “The city has always followed the requirements related to I-9 and verified required proof of citizenship or eligibility to work in the U.S. The employer cannot initiate verification procedures before an employee has been hired and the Form I-9 completed therefore I see no effect on our current hiring policies.” First it was copper, now it’s grease that thieves are targeting heavily, and a new NC law will bring a harsher penalty to anyone caught greasyhanded. The use of grease as the main component of biodiesel fuel is what is making it popular with pilferers. After Jan. 1, an amendment to the state’s Rendering Act will make stealing more than $1,000 worth of grease, including the value of its container, a felony. The bill to bolster the penalty for grease-grabbing was introduced by Gaston County Rep. John Torbet who said the increase in the problem had reached “epidemic proportions.” However, the new law on grease also helps those who collect the stuff on a small scale for resale. Previously, those who gathered grease had to have a state license, keep records of how much grease they collected and where it came from, and a requirement for $1 million in liability insurance. Now, collectors will only need a statement of ownership rather than a state license, and the $1 million insurance requirement will be for firms that make biodiesel. Another new law that took effect on Jan. 1 is designed to strengthen the law regarding the safety of children in day care facilities. The main provision of the law will require mandatory criminal checks of child care providers. That includes not only owners, but workers as well. It also includes anyone over the age of 15 See E-VERIFY, 5A
Contributed Photo
The new Harper Park in Stanley is nearing completion. Located on Blacksnake Road, the facility is the first park of its type in Stanley.
Stanley’s Harper Park nearing completion By Alan Hodge Editor Alan.bannernews@gmail.com
With work having gone ahead at a brisk pace over the past months, residents of Stanley and the surrounding area won’t have to wait much longer to cavort at the long-awaited Harper Park. “We are wrapping up the loose
ends of the project now,” said Stanley’s Park and Recreation Director Tug Deason. “We are right on target.” Located on Blacksnake Road just off NC Hwy. 27, Harper Park is the first municipal recreational area of its type in Stanley and will include two baseball fields, a large basketball court, playground, picnic shelter, paved walking track, nature trail, dog See HARPER PARK 5A,
The Belmont City Council has accepted a $100,000 grant from CaroMont Health, Inc. that will be used for the “Rail Trail” greenway project. According to the agreement approved by the council at its Jan. 7 meeting, CaroMont will pay the money $20,000 at a time each year for five years. CaroMont will have exclusive hospital/health system naming rights on the trail and on any signage or structures associated with it, subject to NCDOT approval. “This is a multi-year commitment,” said Dallas Paddon, CaroMont spokesperson. “One of CaroMont’s main objectives in being a good citizen is to encourage economic development within Gaston County. We do our best to assist with community projects that will improve the quality of life for our citizens.” Adrian Miller, Belmont’s assistant city manager, says the municipality is glad to get the grant. “We are happy to partnership with CaroMont,” he said. The Rail Trail as the project is called will see the section of unused railroad track that begins in downtown
Belmont, runs along Main Street in front of the Sisters of Mercy campus, across US 29/74 and I-85 and ends near Belmont Abbey College turned into a walking/bike trail. The path will be ten feet wide and paved. The portion that goes over I-85 will have a protective screen. There will be amenities along the way such as benches and lighting. The Rail Trail is part of the Carolina Thread Trail network. “We’ve been talking about the Rail Trail for fifteen years,” Miller said. “The last two years, talks became serious. We got a grant for $30,000 from Carolina Thread Trail to do a feasibility study on the project that was sent to the NCDOT and approved.” The NCDOT eventually gave Belmont $1.3 million in grants for design and construction of the project. Miller says the $100,000 from CaroMont will be used to help fund niceties like benches and lights. With funding in place, actual digging on the Rail Trail will begin this year. “We hope to begin construction in the fall of 2013,” Miller said. “It will take about twelve months to complete the work.”
What do you know about DeAnna?
Photo by Alan Hodge
This mural in Belmont City Hall dates to 1940 and was painted by young artist Peter DeAnna as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal public art series. By Alan Hodge Editor Alan.bannernews@gmail.com
Long before Belmont’s City Hall became the center of the town’s municipal government, it was a U.S. Post Office, constructed in 1938. In that building is a reminder of those days when the federal government’s New Deal was in full swing in the form of a mural entitled “Major William Chronicle and His South Fork Boys.” Many thousands of people over the years have seen the mural, but not that many know about the artist Peter DeAnna who painted it, how he went about his work in Belmont in 1940, and the fact that the mural as folks see it today was not his first choice of theme. DeAnna was one of a small army of artists that the Works Projects Administration (WPA)
sent out across the land during the Great Depression to create public art, perform music, and take photos of everything from poor folks to national park vistas. Overall, from 1934 to 1943, over 1,300 murals and 300 sculptures were commissioned by the federal government nationwide. Artwork for post offices was supposed to reflect the heritage or history of the town where it was located. The Belmont Post Office mural was DeAnna’s first paying art job. A native of Uniontown, Penn., DeAnna had grown up in Washington, D.C., and received “formal” art training of sorts at the Washington Boys Club. A natural talent, DeAnna won first prize at a local art show at age sixteen for a work entitled “China Boy.” According to the book “New Deal Art in N.C.” by Anita Price See DeANNA, 5A
SCHOOL NEWS LES receives Bright Ideas Grant Rutherford Electric Membership Cooperative for her classroom project “Brilliant Non-Fiction Bookworms”. “I was surprised and very excited,” she said. “Now I can buy more books not just for my classroom but for the whole grade
By Alan Hodge Editor Alan.bannernews@gmail.com
Lowell Elementary School fourth grade teacher Sandra Engbarth was lit up when she got the news she had been awarded a $700 Bright Ideas grant from the
See LOWELL ELEMENTARY, 3A
BHS restores 1899 kitchen By Alan Hodge Editor Alan.bannernews@gmail.com
Combining a bit of the old with a bit of the new, carpenters and brick masons have been hard at work rebuilding an important piece of Belmont history. The structure is the circa 1899 kitchen on the grounds of the Belmont Historical Society’s (BHS)
headquarters and museum in the Robert Lee Stowe house at 40 Catawba St. As was common practice when it was first built, the kitchen was separate from the “big house” due to the fact that cooking over open flame was often the cause of house fires. “It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a
OBITUARIES, 2A Margie Adams, Mount Holly Henry Baxley, Mount Holly
Mattie Childers, Mount Holly Shelby Weathers, Gastonia
See BHS, 3A