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Littleton Commissioner Alfred L. Cooke Sr. has announced he is seeking re-election to his seat on the town board.
Cooke, a retired carpenter, is finishing his first four-year term on the board, after having lost a bid several years before that.
In his more recent, successful bid for office, Cooke ran, at least in part, on the issue of the town cemetery, and what he perceived were to be problems with how the facility was maintained, and where money for that purpose was being spent.
He also states he believes a survey map showing the land for the town cemetery is incorrect.
“This town is controlled by a small group of people,” he said Monday. “Most people don’t even go to the town meetings any more.”
Cooke said he believes he is working to restore governing power to a wider cross section of the town’s inhabitants.
Two issues that he says bother him is the fact that the town police department is larger now than it used to be, and the fact that some key votes have been taken with only a few of the board members present.
“We have five policemen on that department now,” he said. Although the expansion of the department has come, in large part, because town residents have complained to the council about the lack of a police presence when the department was smaller, Cooke doesn’t believe the town needs that many officers.
“We’ve never had that much,” he said. “Our whole tax base is going to that department.”
The other issue is voting on key measures before the council. The most recent vote on the town’s $566,555 budget, which Cooke opposed, passed on a 2-1 vote, with Commissioners Terry Newsom and Betty Willis voting in favor of the measure. Commissioners Billy Matthews and Clara Debnan were not able to attend the meeting, and Mayor Mason Hawthorne does not vote unless there is a tie.
Cooke said he believes the vote should have stood, though town officials checked to ensure the vote was legal under state code.
He is also bothered by the town’s decision – again, with less than a full commission voting – to sell the former Pepsi bottling plant after the owners gave the building to the town.
The building is now known as the McPherson Complex, and houses a branch of the Halifax County library and more than a half dozen businesses, including the Littleton Observer.
“That was a gift, and I think it should have been illegal for the town to sell it,” he said. “The town should have kept that, but the sold it and used the money to balance the budget. They’ve used cemetery money to balance the budget.”
Cooke said he would like a chance to return to office to continue to address these issues, but either way he said he will work hard during whatever time he has on the town board.
Two other candidates had filed to run as of Monday – Mark Murphy, who has not yet made a formal announcement of his candidacy, and Patrick MacRae.
The seats held by commissioners Newsom and Debnan are also open, and neither has publicly announced their intentions.
Candidates have until July 20 to file.
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