Jones County opted out of the Eastern Carolina Council of Governments, an agency providing a variety of services for counties and municipalities in a 16-county region. But they may be joining back.
The COG provides services that include community and economic development, workforce development, state and federal program management, planning and GIS mapping services, grant writing, regional collaboration and partnership building, according to the NC Regional Council’s website.
Counties can pay annual dues for membership or pay a lesser amount for Area Agency on Aging and/or Regional Planning Organization services.
“If you pull out of the COG, you can contract to do just the aging,” said Robert “Bob” Masters, owner of Carolina Opportunities, a loan company.
The Jones board of commissioners voted to pull out back in April under ambiguous circumstances. Zack Koonce III left the meeting shortly before the vote. Sondra Ipock-Riggs and Joe Wiggins voted to pull out, while Frank Emory and Mike Haddock voted against.
The county’s attorney advised the board Koonce’s vote counted as a yes because he had been present earlier.
“Because of the way it happened,” Jones County Manager Franky Howard said about the COG vote, “it will probably come back up.”
Howard said the board hasn’t voted on it yet because they have been concentrating on the budget.
All of it may be moot, anyway — Masters said the COG may no longer exist if the state takes much more money away.
Snow Hill dropped out this year, Onslow County pulled out a year ago and Jacksonville has been out since 1996. Lenoir County is a member, along with the cities and towns of Kinston, La Grange, Pink Hill and Grifton.
The subject of the COG came up at Greene County’s workshop last week by Commissioner Denny Garner, who was recently named president of the COG Board and who also sits on the Neuse River Development Authority Board. He sat on both boards when both were involved in providing loans for the COG.
Garner accused Masters of trying to get COG members to pull out of the agency after Snow Hill removed him from the COG board.
“It is a conspiracy. That’s all it is. He’s trying to bring the COG down,” he said about Masters, who agreed.
Masters had told the town board after a second bad audit the COG’s revolving loan program had written off $659,000 of unpaid loans.
Garner, however, has never related to the county board in a public meeting the COG’s financial problems.
Garner is also president of the Greene County Development Corporation, another loan company. In 1998, he listed on the Secretary of State’s website the address of the GCDC as 110 N. Greene St., Snow Hill — the same address as then-First Citizens Bank, of which he was vice president.
“The COG has done a lot for this county, I’m telling you, it has,” Garner said at last week’s workshop.
The COG helped write a PARTF grant for $873,689 a few years back when the Recreation Complex was built.
Masters said the $87,000 would have been paid to the engineer and architect, as well as the grant writer, for planning.
Garner said it is a much-reduced rate through the COG. Masters and Garner agreed it cost about $5,000 for the COG to write the grant.
Greene County pays $6,875 for annual COG dues.
Interim Manager Richard Hicks said the city of Wilson paid about $10,000 to have a grant written by an outside consultant.
Garner said Greene doesn’t have an economic developer, but that designation is part of Misty Chase’s title. Chase was hired with a similar a job description as Chris Roberson had before his job was eliminated as economic developer and assistant county manager. The only difference was the addition of grant writer under Chase’s job description.
Garner listed a number of projects for which Hookerton, as well as the Rosenwald Center in Snow Hill, has received assistance.
“Let’s be honest,” Jody Tyson, an Arba resident, said. “The situation this county’s in and how PARTF grants are required to have a match from the local fund, folks, we ain’t going to be going looking for a PARTF grant. We ain’t in the financial position to fund a PARTF grant. … The COG is not the only grant-writing agency this county is currently using.”
Masters said, “You all really have to admit, McDavid Associates has written more grants in Greene County than any other entity alive — me included.”
Masters said the state de-funding the COG is going to impact the free services the members are getting.
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.