By Tim Gardner
A male was arrested after disrupting the Avery County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, January 16, at the start of its public comment segment.
The male, William Barthel, age 30, of Spruce Pine, had a banner with him at the back of the Commissioner’s Board Room in the County Administration Building in Newland that contained a vulgarity. As moderator of the meeting, Board Chairman Tim Phillips asked Barthel to remove the banner. He refused and Phillips then asked the two Avery County sheriff’s deputies present to remove Barthel from the meeting for disruption of it.
After a brief scuffle with sheriff’s deputies in the Board room, Barthel was removed by them to the adjoining hallway. Avery Sheriff Mike Henley was also contacted and he and additional deputies responded to assist the deputies present. Barthel said foul words to the law enforcement officers while he was inside the Board room and after he was taken to the hallway. Barthel was arrested and then transported to the Avery County Detention Center (Jail), also in Newland, where he was booked after being charged with Disruption of an Official Proceeding and Resisting a Public Officer, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Both charges are misdemeanors.
Barthel, who has also been called by the nickname “White Rabbitt,” remained in the Avery County Detention Center from Monday evening until Wednesday, when he posted a $1.000.00 bond and was released.
He is scheduled to appear in Avery County District Court about the charges on February 7.
A female who accompanied Barthel at the meeting, but whose name was not released, was not charged with any illegal offenses.
After the meeting resumed following Barthel’s removal from the Board room the commissioners addressed the meeting’s agenda topics.
Besides Phillips, all other commissioners—Vice-Chairman Dennis Aldridge, Martha Hicks, Wood Hall (Woodie) Young, Jr., and Robert Burleson—were present for the meeting. County Manager Phillip Barrier, Jr., Assistant County Manager and Clerk to the Board Cindy Turbyfill, County Finance Officer Caleb Hogan, and County Attorney Michaelle Poore were also in attendance.
The commissioners unanimously (5-0) approved Avery County entering into an agreement with Mitchell County Animal Rescue that the latter will provide assistance 24 hours; 7 days per week to Avery County for any animals seized in Avery and determined to be rabid or dangerous and house them in Mitchell’s Animal Shelter. For these services, Avery County will pay Mitchell Animal Rescue a fee of $6,600.00 to reserve its services. Additionally, Avery will pay Mitchell Animal Rescue $15.00 per day for the first 30 days to house any animal and $30.00 per day for animals kept after 30 days.
The agreement is for one year and automatically renews under the same financial terms unless either party gives the other notice of at least sixty days before it expires that it does not wish to renew it.
Also, under terms of the contractual agreement, the County of Avery will also be solely responsible for paying any veterinarian’s fees for any animals in the care of Mitchell Animal Rescue. Additionally, both parties agree to hold each other free of any liability that may arise out of the performance of the contract as well as any incidental or consequential damages to any equipment, employees, animals, or third parties as result of breach of this agreement.
The commissioners also unanimously approved the December 2023 Tax Report from Tax Administrator Andrea Turbyfill of an enormously high amount of $5,424,953.75 collected in taxes due the county by her and her tax collections staff on Day 1 through 29 of that month. Days 30 and 31 of December 2023 were on a Saturday and Sunday, respectively, and the tax office was closed on each and no collections were made on those days.
The December total is $668,656.70 more than the month before (November 2023), when another extremely high amount of $4,756,297.05 was collected.
Turbyfill told the commissioners that $23,421,974.13 was collected in taxes due the County from January 2 through December 29, 2023. Each January 1 is a holiday—New Year’s Day—and the tax office was closed then, too. Tax payments for 2023 are still being accepted until April, although those paying will be accessed a late fee. A total collections amount for 2023 and a percentage of collections made for that year will be tabulated in April by the Tax Administrator.
In the County Manager’s monthly report segment, Barrier, Jr. updated the commissioners about the Complete Access to Broadband (CAB) Internet Grant and Homelessness and Housing Insecurity.
Barrier, Jr. said that Avery will be the first of the State of North Carolina’s 100 counties to implement the Complete Access to Broadband (CAB) Grant, which will be used for the installation of Broadband Internet throughout the county
Barrier, Jr. said that Avery’s total CAB funding will be $3,410,000.00, which includes $3,000,000.00 in the American Rescue Act funds that the commissioners have designated for Broadband service. The CAB Program is a competitive bidding program that provides an opportunity for individual North Carolina County governments to partner with the North Carolina Department of Internet Technology (NCDIT) to fund broadband infrastructure projects in unserved and underserved areas of each county.
Avery County is also a beneficiary of a grant that Spectrum was awarded that will bring gigabit high-speed internet access to more than 230 homes and small businesses in Avery County. It’s funded by the North Carolina Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) Program and is approximately $2.25 million in value. Combined with funding from the County of $250,000, that was used from the Federal American Rescue Plan (Coronavirus Pandemic Recovery) money it received, the total project investment is nearly $2.65 million ($2,646,740.00 precisely).
Spectrum is part of Charter Communications, Inc., an American telecommunications and mass media company. Its services are branded as Spectrum. Its Fiber-Optic buildout will connect Gigabit Broadband in the county with starting speeds of 300 Megabits per second (Mbps). Spectrum is North Carolina’s largest broadband provider, already serving 2.8 million customers.
Barrier, Jr. added that he hopes the funding can be as much as $9 million if matching funds are provided by the State of North Carolina and other entities.
Barrier has maintained that the projected access date for all Avery County residences and businesses to have Broadband Internet Service is still December 31, 2026, although many of both will have it before then. More than 200 homes and several businesses in the county already have Broadband Internet and the commissioners have prioritized that every residence and business in the county have it.
Avery County was recently re-classified by North Carolina Department of Commerce as a Tier 2 county. It previously had a Tier 3 rating which meant it was then rated as a “prosperous area.” The new rating means it’s considered as a “more distressed area.” The county’s economic distress is ranked number 77 out of the State’s 100 counties after being ranked number 91 last year. The worse rating is largely driven by a change in the county’s population growth rate, which moved from number 81 to number 54 out of the state’s 100 counties in 2023.
However, the lower rating means the County can more easily secure future financial grants for the county. That’s because some grants are only available to lower-tier counties, and other grants may use the tier system as a means of determining need.
However, the tier system does not impact Broadband Internet grants. But Barrier, Jr. said that there is another financial grant available to secure Broadband connection poles that the County will pursue.
The County Manager revealed that $47 million has been awarded throughout North Carolina to reduce Homelessness and Housing Insecurity, with Avery County set to receive approximately $3 million that has been designated for the Riverwalk Connection at the old Lowes Supermarket complex in Newland. Barrier, Jr. also shared that the Northwest (North Carolina) Regional Housing Authority purchased the building and land upon which the old Lowes Supermarket complex sits and plans to build 10 units there to use for supportive housing.
In other business, the commissioners also unanimously approved the following budget amendments as requested by Hogan that includes their respective details and monetary amounts:
*Accepting a North Carolina Tier II non-competitive grant in the amount of $3,000.00 and approved the funds to be used for Department of Emergency Management hazardous materials emergency response planning, training, and related exercises for the region’s Local Emergency Planning Committee. The money will be appropriated from the Capital Outlay Fund.
*Accepting an American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant for the Department of Senior Services in the amount of $55,510.00 from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and approved using its funding for the purchase of a new walk-in freezer in the County’s Senior Citizens Center.
*An insurance reimbursement in the amount of $10,617.54 for a 2021 Dodge Charger for the Sheriff’s Office.
*Transferring $10,841.10 from the County’s Fund Balance to the Emergency-911 Department for financial reimbursement of extra computer system software editing work performed by the High Country Council of Governments in fiscal year 2022-2023.
Additionally, the commissioners also discussed changing the usual starting times of their regular monthly meetings from 3:30 p.m. until 6:00 p.m., Poore advised the commissioners that they would need to have a resolution made and presented at their regular February monthly meeting, when they could then vote to approve or reject such a time change. The vote to change the regular monthly meeting time would have to be either by a unanimous (5-0) or majority votes of 4-1 or 3-2. Poore added that if a resolution is presented, a vote taken, and it passes on February 5, the time change could take effect at the March 4 meeting or in whichever other month the Board designates it to do so. An adopted time change would then remain in effect until current or future Board members vote to make another time change.
And by another unanimous vote, the commissioners appointed Sam Calvert, Doug Jennings, and James Madison to the Avery Airport Authority Board.
The commissioners will hold their next regular monthly meeting on Monday, February 5, beginning at 3:30 p.m. in their Board Room, located on the second floor of the County Administration Building, at 175 Linville Street, in Newland.
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