Cars, parades, and Santa capped off the year 2007

A newcomer and two incumbents won a five-way for three Littleton Board of Commissioner seats in the fall election, the Observer reported Nov. 7.

Terry Newsom, a 10-year veteran of the commission, garnered the most votes, with 77 of 92 voters casting ballots for him.

Clara Debnam, who has served slightly more than a single term, was second with 68 votes. Patrick MacRae, a retired Navy veteran running for elected office for the first time, was the final victor Tuesday, with 46 votes.

In Macon Rob Evan won the mayor race with 36 votes, compared to two for Lawrence Skinner and three for Carroll Harris.

The Halifax County school board appointed an acting chairman last week, supplanting vice chair Dr. Donna Hunter, the Observer reported Nov. 14.

Hunter had been leading the board since August, when chairman Charles Swindell took a health-related leave of absence.

The board voted 3-2 to install board member Tyrell Williams as acting chair, with Hunter and Carolyn Hawkins casting the dissenting votes.

A school system spokesman also said the school board may wait until receiving the 2005-2006 audit before approaching the Halifax County Board of Commissioners to ask for an additional $840,000 over the current year’s budget.

The school system needs the money to pay back overspending from state coffers from the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 school years. Last month the school board learned it had overspent by more than $800,000, and with interest added, owed the state more than $840,000.

A former Halifax County deputy was arrested and charged by officials with the North Carolina Department of Insurance with conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and failing to report an accident, the Observer reported Nov. 21.

Fontay Lakia Macon, 28, of 4033 Roper Springs Rd., Littleton, was picked up by investigators with the insurance department and charged with the offense.

His mother, Ida Macon, 66, of the same address, was also arrested and charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

The charges stem from a March 22 single-car wreck that occurred, and from what insurance department officials say was a bogus accident report from a wreck that was reported to have happened on April 2.

Littleton has been home to a Christmas parade for as many years as most folks can recall.

Still, there seemed to be a little something different in this year’s procession, the Observer reported Dec. 5.

‘This is the longest parade I’ve seen here in a long time,” one bystander commented while a fire truck rolled by. ‘This one’s been really nice.”

The event included a bevy of floats, local groups marching, Grand Marshal Rep. Lucy Allen and a number of other area politicians, fire trucks, rescue squads, miniature cars, race cars, horses, two local high school bands, and good old Santa Claus.

The parade wasn’t the only holiday activity in town.

Area kids made sure they were up early and on their best behavior, because word had gotten out that Santa was coming to Littleton to have breakfast.

Santa was going to have breakfast at the Littleton United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall.

More than 200 kids and other family members filled up Santa’s time Saturday. Being the patient man that he is Santa listened to all the requests. Some of the little ones must have gotten up to early, because by the time they were ready to see the jolly one, they had fallen back to sleep in mom’s or dad’s arms.

The sounds of Christmas are in the air in Littleton from one end of town to the lake area, the Observer reported Dec. 12. 

Even with spring like weather it was apparent which season it was if you were around Littleton United Methodist Church or Calvary United Methodist Church.

This is also the season for Christmas Cantata’s. Fortunately, for the people who live in Littleton and the lake area, they have some of the best voices around. They are also blessed in that the people behind those voices enjoy sharing their talents with the churches in the area.

The Community Christmas Cantata was presented by a choir of about 45 people from nine of the local churches. This year’s presentation was called “A Celebration of Lesson and Carols.” It was a mixture of music with Bible versus. The celebration was co-directed by Sue Beazley and Janice Love.

 “Joy Around the World,” was the Cantata held early Sunday evening at the Calvary United Methodist Church in Littleton.

The 23-person choir took the audience on a tour of Christmas songs from various countries. Some of the songs were even sung in the original language.

Not all was happy and cheerful during the holiday season, the Observer reported Dec. 19.

In a scathing report to the Halifax County Board of Education, an official with the auditing firm of Cherry, Bekaert & Holland said the school system had no management oversight of the budget, expenditures, or the finance department staff during much of the 2005-06 and 2006-07 years.

Eddie Burke, a certified public accountant with the company, said his firm had been employed by the school system to audit its books for the 2005-06 year, but found it was not able to do the job because of the condition of the financial records and information was not presented to his firm in a timely manner.

Eventually, the firm was able to compile the audit, which it presented to the board on Dec. 12.

Among the findings revealed in the report:

• Funding was reduced and costs were not cut to match funding cut backs.

• (There was) no management oversight of the budget and expenditures.

• (There was) no management oversight and review of finance department staff

• Finance department staff did not know what they were doing.

• Various and numerous receipts and disbursements (were) posted to the wrong accounts.

• Cash receipts and disbursements (were) not posted timely to the accounting records – (they were) posted much later when finance department staff didn’t know what the source was.

• The books were out of balance by millions – (the) finance department was not even aware of this – finance department staff was very argumentative about this, saying that (the) books were in balance.

• The budget was out of balance by millions – finance department was not even aware of this.

Burke also told the board the audit discovered eight statutory violations, nine of what he termed “material reportable conditions” and six areas of potential fraud. He said, however, the eventual determination on whether fraud was committed is dependent upon the intent of the person or people involved.

More than 50 shoppers braved cooling temperatures, the threat of rain, and a bit of wind Thursday morning, waiting in the parking lot for the grand opening of Littleton’s newest business venture, Family Dollar, the Observer also reported that week.

With the opening, the discount retailer has more than 6,500 stores across 44 states, and area shoppers have another choice when it comes to shopping for household goods.

“It’s a great asset to the town,” said Littleton Mayor Mason Hawfield prior to cutting the ribbon for the opening ceremony.”

Readers also learned that a new, more stringent burning ban had been put in effect in Halifax County, effectively making all outside fires, with the exception of grills used for cooking, illegal.

Citing prolonged and extreme dry weather across the state, which had resulted in a number of wildfires, the North Carolina Forest Service instituted a statewide burning ban on Oct. 15.

That ban did not affect such practices as individuals burning leaves or twigs in their yard, or any other sort of outdoor burning done within 100 feet of a private dwelling.

The more recent action by Halifax County Fire Marshal Jim Davis now makes such action illegal.

Davis said the action is the first such ban he’s aware of in Halifax County history.

“We’ve just had persistent dry and windy conditions,” he said. “That means the fuels in the forest, leaves and branches, are really, really, dry.” The threat of a forest fire, either from household burning that gets out of control or from sparks from such fires, is too great not to enact the ban, he said.

As more North Carolina counties find themselves in severe drought conditions, Gov. Mike Easley called for water systems around the state to institute higher rates for people who do not cut their water use by at least 30 percent, the Observer reported Dec. 26.

Some local utility officials say that’s not likely to happen here, while others say local water users are only a step or two away from such measures.

Betty Willis, the public utilities commissioner for Littleton, said the town board of commissioners approved a plan in the spring that would allow for higher rates to be charged to customers who do not cut their water use when asked to do so.

“If we ask you to cut back, and you exceed that, there can be a penalty charge,” she explained.

However, she said town officials have not enacted the higher rates because the local water supply seems to be sufficient despite the long-going drought.

Teresa Harris, with the Warren County public utilities department, said she couldn’t imagine the governor’s call for a higher rate happening in her system any time soon.

“We’re just not that critical,” she said of the county’s supply of water. “I think the main concern (for the governor) is Durham, Raleigh, places like that where the lakes are just drying up.”

Harris explained that the county’s water supply comes from Kerr Lake, which is such a large body of water that even though it’s low, there is ample supply for the foreseeable future.