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Asheboro High School unveils new renovations

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ASHEBORO — After almost five years of construction, Asheboro High School’s renovations are finally complete.

On Wednesday, May 3, Asheboro City Schools held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially unveil the new and improved home of the Blue Comets for a crowd of elected officials, school system leadership and members of the media. 

“This is a culmination of years of work with partners, with the Randolph County Board of Commissioners, with the City of Asheboro and their City Council members, with the Central Office and their staff, and the staff at Randolph County,” said Michael Smith, Chair of City of Asheboro Board of Education. “This renovation is part of the largest capital improvement even undertaken by our school system. This state-of-the-art facility will allow us to continue to serve Asheboro High School students for years to come.”

Students from Asheboro High School give a tour city and county elected officials. [Scott Pelkey | North State Journal]

Construction of Asheboro High School first began in 1949 and was later opened for students to attend during the 1950-1951 school year. The building has since become something of a historical icon in Asheboro.

In November 2018, Asheboro City Schools held a groundbreaking ceremony to launch the construction and renovation project. During renovations, the school had to find ways to work around having a construction site inside the high school. Sports teams were able to continue their season by playing at the City of Asheboro’s Recreational Center, and local churches and organizations opened their buildings to the school for various school-related activities.

The new common area at Asheboro High School is a part of 37,670 additional square feet added during renovations. [Scott Pelkey | North State Journal]

Now, after almost five years and $55 million in construction costs, the work is finally complete. Construction and renovations include adding 37,670 additional square feet, which gives the school fourteen new classrooms and state-of-the-art band and chorus spaces. In addition to these new spaces built onto the school, renovation of 200,000 square feet of the historical main building brought with it upgrades to the auditorium and two gymnasiums, a new-multipurpose commons area, modern technology, safety improvements, and additional ADA compliance.

Following the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the school hosted an open house event this past Sunday to allow members of the public to come see the renovations for themselves.

Renovations at AHS included several new ADA compliance features like this lower sink in one of the classrooms which is wheelchair accessible.[Scott Pelkey | North State Journal]

“The design of this school has truly captured the historical integrity of Asheboro High School while also exalting and emphasizing the future,” said Dr. Aaron Woody, District Superintendent.

An ADA compliant wheelchair elevator was added durring the renovations. [Scott Pelkey | North State Journal]
RandolphCommissionersApril

Board of Commissioners approves two economic developments

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ASHEBORO — The Randolph County Board of Commissioners met Monday, April 3, with various public hearings and property matters on the agenda.

The first action the board approved was to allow the exchange of property between the Randolph County School Board and the City of Archdale.

“At our last Board of Education meeting, our board declared a piece of property as surplus, but before we can make this exchange with the City of Archdale, we have to give you [the board of commissioners] the first right to this land at either fair market value or a value agreed upon between the board of commissioners and board of education,” said Randolph County Schools Superintendent Dr. Stephen Gainey.

The board also approved the reclassification of two soil and water positions.

“We are requesting to reclassify the Soil and Water Administrator to a Soil and Water Environmental Education and Support Coordinator,” said Soil and Water Department Head Kaitlyn Johnson. “That position would start identifying more educational opportunities in the county and work to provide new educational programs, classroom activities, teacher workshops, and even adult education programs.

“The other position would be transitioning the Environmental Specialist to a Soil and Water Director role. That would still allow us to provide the technical assistance that that position has typically always done as well as just oversight of the office and supervisory functions that are needed to keep the office progressing.”

The board also was presented with the proposed renovation plan by Smith Sinnett Architecture for the Northwest Human Services Center.

In the 15,825 square foot building, the plan lists 14 offices, eight on the upper level and six on the lower, three areas of open office space, a break room, a mailroom, two conference rooms, one training room, and a large multipurpose area with a final cost estimate of $3,120,000.

“When I was reading this, I was glad I was sitting down because we paid $1.5 million for the building, and I wasn’t thinking that it was going to take twice that to renovate it,” said Vice Chair David Allen.

As such, the board requested for the firm to break the costs down between the two floors and see about having the bottom floor listed as a bid alternate expenditure cost and then for that plan to be brought back before them at a later date.

The board then approved the awarding of a contract to Garanco Construction for the Health Department Renovation Project. According to County Engineer Paxton Arthurs, the base bid for Garanco is $1,975,200 for construction costs, but for all the alternates, the cost would go up to $2,351,500.

The board was then presented with two economic development opportunities, one for Project Spring and the other for the Caraway Speedway.

“[Project Spring] is a Texas-based manufacturing facility that has been in business for several years,” said Economic Development Business Development Director Crystal Gettys. “Their product and their business in sales has been expedited to the point where they feel the need to have a second facility to cover east of the Mississippi. This has been a search for an existing building over the last six months or more across multiple states. They have narrowed that pool down to the top two, and Randolph County is in that top two.”

According to Gettys, the incentive package includes $33,340 over a five-year period, and the state of North Carolina will also provide incentives, including a OneNC grant and a building reuse grant.

The board approved the economic development incentive package following a public hearing.

“In expending its Coronavirus state fiscal recovery funds, the state of North Carolina created something called the Motorsports Relief Fund,” said Associate County Attorney Aimee Scotten. “The purpose of this fund is to enhance amenities and increase the opportunities for events at motorsports venues in recognition of the impact that those events have on the local tourism, travel, and hospitality industries. Randolph County received a grant from this fund specifically for the benefit of Caraway Speedway in the amount of $485,000. Caraway plans to use that money to replace some aging and kind of dilapidated seating and to repave certain sections of the track.”

The board also approved the use of the Motorsport Relief funds for the Caraway Speedway.

The board then held public meetings for the restructuring of five Fire Tax districts – Coleridge-Erect, Fairgrove, Julian, Northeast, and Staley – in line with the other dozen or so that have already been restructured. 

There were no comments made for or against the restructuring, and so following the hearings, the board voted to abolish and then reform the districts in order to remove the $0.15 tax cap.

The change is not a direct tax increase but simply gives the district the ability to ask for a higher tax rate from the county commissioners should the need ever arise. The new districts also cover the exact same area as before.

The board finally approved a budget amendment to cover a change in the schedule for USDA debt service payments in relation to the Farm, Food, and Family Education Center.

“Last year, we got approved for two $2 million loans through the USDA going through REMC,” said Assistant County Manager Will Massie. “Since going through the approval, REMC has been trying to work with USDA to get the funds down here. Currently, they’re not down yet. We don’t have the loan and haven’t closed on that, but they think they’re pretty close. One of the things that the USDA has requested is to have monthly payments rather than annual ones. If we do close this month, that would indicate that we would have a debt service payment in May and June.”

The Randolph County Board of Commissioners will next meet May 1.

Randolph County Commissioners

Board of Commissioners approves Medical Assisted Therapy for addiction issues in Randolph County Detention Center

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ASHEBORO — The Randolph County Board of Commissioners met Monday, March 6, with various funding requests on the agenda for potential action.

The board first approved a contract amendment with Mediko for Medical Assisted Therapy in the Randolph County Detention Center.

“This is the use of medications in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies, which is effective in the treatment of opioid use disorders and can help some people to sustain recovery,” said Chief Deputy Aundrea Azelton. “Funding would provide the service of two MAT nurses to assist in the administration of the program.”

The medications included being Suboxone, which is a tablet that works by blocking the receptors in the brain that crave opioids without activating them; Sublocade, a monthly injection and a derivative of Suboxone; and Vivitrol, which is also a monthly injection and binds to opioid receptors in the brain and helps prevent relapses.

The contract is for $95,736 and will run from April to June, but will then be packaged in the contract renewal with Mediko in July.

The board was also presented with a funding request from Friends of the Historic Patterson Cottage Museum for $15,725 in strategic planning funds to help purchase materials needed to display artifacts in the Liberty Heritage Museum.

“The Friends is in the process of creating the Liberty Heritage Museum by remodeling the old Liberty Hardware building,” said Ad Hoc Board Member Warren Dixon. “While remodeling, we were hit by two unexpected expenses.”

“The first was a new HVAC system. The hardware store had a heating unit that hung down from the ceiling. It turned out to be totally inadequate to heat the museum, plus it created a sight barrier and was a safety hazard. So we installed a new HVAC system at the cost of $16,125. Secondly, we didn’t plan on doing any immediate remodeling to the upstairs, which has a completely separate entrance from the street, but some of the windows were faulty and were allowing birds and other critters and rain to enter the building. We were forced to replace the 21 windows at a cost of $12,000. These added unexpected expenses, over $28,000, have forced us to seek additional funds.”

Following the presentation, the board approved the funding request.

The board then approved the addition of two Cooperative Extension positions, Local and Community Food Systems Agent and Digital Literacy and Skills Agent, to the county budget. The positions had previously been funded through ARPA dollars, but the need arose to move them into the county budget.

“Currently, there are 12% of residents in Randolph County that suffer from food access issues, and 21% of children live in poverty,” said Cooperative Extension Director Kenny Sherin. “Our Local Food Systems agent has done an amazing job helping farmers connect with markets and helping people connect with local healthy, fresh food.”

“There’s also recently been a study released by the National Skills Coalition called Closing the Digital Skill Divide. That study states that 92% of all jobs require some type of digital skills, meaning the ability to use computers. About 75% of people have those skills, but there’s still a lot of room to make up in getting people the skills that are needed. So the Digital Literacy and Skills agent will help our Randolph County residents of all ages gain those digital skills to be able to earn, learn or be well in Randolph County.”

The final action that the board took was to postpone the public hearing for the Farmer Fire Tax District restructuring till the May meeting so that residents could be properly notified after an error occurred with the mailing lists.

The Randolph County Board of Commissioners will next meet April 6.

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Commissioners approve new departmental positions and reclassifications

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ASHEBORO — The Randolph County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, January 3, with a full agenda to kick off the new year.

The board was first presented with its annual audit report, which was conducted by Cherry Bekaert LLC.

“We issued what we call an unmodified opinion on your financial statements,” said April Adams, a partner at Cherry Bekaert LLP who oversaw the audit. “That is otherwise known as the clean opinion. That’s the opinion that you want. It’s the highest level of assurance that we can give you as an audit firm that your financial statements are free from material misstatements.”

Adams stated that the audit found no issues with any of the financials for the county, and the only thing they found was one non-material, noncompliance which was issued for the single audit for one of the 60 employees tested where there were inconsistencies with how they reported their time.

The board was also presented with an update on the Business Gym program they previously approved funding for.

“The Business Gym is basically a learning portal for anyone and everyone, and it’s free, and it’s on-demand training,” said Asheboro/Randolph Chamber of Commerce President Linda Brown. “Just the meat and potatoes, five to eight minute videos, quick, downloadable information packets that they can take, and the beauty of it is it is available 24/7, 365. It’s the same information every time, so it’s very consistent.”

The Business Gym’s purpose is to standardize and streamline the information given to businesses and to be easier to access to a wide array of people.

“We had a 62.5% increase in new business startups in Randolph County, and historically as much as 70% of those businesses will fail if they don’t have some sort of support or assistance. So, we had a two-fold problem, not just people trying to start new businesses, but people who had existing businesses that struggled through COVID and were trying to rebuild and become sustainable once again.”

The board also approved four funding requests, one for $152,265 for the Randolph Heritage Conservancy, Inc., to pay for an engineering study, an environmental study, and a rendering of what architects think the rebuilding outside of the Textile Museum would look like. In addition, the board also approved a $25,000 request for the Trinity Museum, $416,501 for the Sheriff’s Office to purchase nine new vehicles (three 2023 Chrysler 300 Touring and six 2023 Ford 150s), and $161,450 to Dbm Construction for the paving the parking lot of the Sheriff’s Office Fleet Maintenance Garage.

In order to keep funding from the Duke Endowment Grant for a school-based oral health program, the board approved subcontracting the grant to Kintegra Family Dentistry, with whom the board had previously approved entering into a partnership with to take over the county dentistry services. 

“In late 2020, early 2021, our public health dental clinic team applied for a Duke Endowment grant,” said Public Health Director Tara Aker. “The intent of that grant was to be used for us to implement a school-based oral health program to do preventive services on-site at schools. In the summer of 2021, the county was awarded that grant for $375,000, and the intent was for us to do it. But as you may recall, we entered into a partnership with Kintegra Family Dentistry to take over the dental services for the county since we were unsuccessful in finding a dentist. We want those funds to stay here and for Kintegra to assume those funds and implement that school-based oral health program.”

According to Aker, the Duke Endowment is aware and supportive of the plan for Kintegra to assume the funding.

The board approved a request by county staff to add a few departmental positions and reclassify some others.

“Our staff and employees are the ones that provide services that our citizens require more now than they ever have required from county government,” said County Manager Hal Johnson. “The whole role of county government, and in particular Randolph County government, has also been transformational in the last decade, and the citizens turn to the county for so many issues that they didn’t use to do in those earlier years, and this all falls back onto our employees.”

The request approves a $355,307 budget amendment to add 12 new positions and 12 position reclassifications to specific county employees.

Finally, the board approved two building reuse grants for Kraftsman Trailers and Mid-State Trailers, with $140,000 passing through the county for Kraftsman with 20 new jobs being required and $100,000 passing through for Mid-State with 19 new jobs being required, and approved an amendment to the I-74 Sewer Line grants to reflect a change in funding. 

The Randolph County Board of Commissioners will next meet February 6.

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Board of Commissioners approves funding for four SRO positions for elementary schools

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ASHEBORO — The Randolph County Board of Commissioners met Monday to deliver their decision on how to allocate $600,00 in state funding. In addition, the board also approved four new SRO positions for the county elementary schools.

First up on the agenda for the board was a presentation on the Children’s Home Society Study results.

“Back in November of 2021, the Randolph County Partnership for Children requested funding for an early childhood community survey in order to more effectively identify the needs of children and caregivers in Randolph County,” said commissioner Hope Haywood. “The partnership used for this survey was the Institute for Families, a division of the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina. This organization has had a presence in Randolph County for over 40 years, and their reputation is sterling.”

The study focused on four key areas: an analysis of population and DSS health data, an environmental scan for tools, resources, and supports already in the community, interviews with over 100 residents of Randolph County involving caregivers and community influencers, and a media analysis.

“There are three things that are the most important to take away tonight,” said Children’s Home Society Representative Donna Wood. “First and foremost, families in Randolph County are increasingly overburdened. Particularly around economic hardship and transportation. The second is that the increased needs of families are driving child welfare, foster care, and county expenses up. And the third and most important, in my opinion, is that Randolph County residents can come together to change this pattern. Throughout this process, it was evident what a wonderful community Randolph County is and how much residents care. It was very clear that this trend is likely due to people not knowing how they can be part of a solution as opposed to not wanting to be.”

The board was also presented with the annual update from their partnership with Waste Management.

“Since June of 2014, when we got the contract, we have contributed almost $13 million to Randolph County,” said Waste Management Governmental Relations Bob Peeler. “The past fiscal year, the annual payment with CPI was $1,214,063, and a couple of years ago, you approved a daily tonnage increase, and because of that, this past fiscal year, it brought in another $301,793. In addition, over that period of time, we have paid almost $6 million in solid waste taxes to the State of North Carolina.”

Following those updates, the board approved a series of community funding allocations using state funds brought forth by NC Senator Dave Craven.

“The citizens hear about the large investments we make from the state in our communities, but sometimes we have needs that don’t quite make it to the top of everybody’s list,” Craven said. “So tonight, we’re here to make some appropriations. The state sent the county $600,000 to look at some of these areas.”

The allocations include $25,000 for Experience Liberty, $50,000 for Your Choices Randolph, $50,000 for Randolph County United Way, $10,000 for Farmer Civitan Club, $20,000 for RC Family Crisis Center in conjunction with Emmy’s House, $20,000 for Randolph County Sheriff’s Office, $10,000 for Asheboro Downtown Development, $20,000 for Randolph County Crime Stoppers, $10,000 for Our Daily Bread Soup Kitchen, $20,000 for Randolph County Animal Shelter, $20,000 for Honoring Our Veteran’s, $5,000 for Asheboro Raiders Youth Football Program, $5,000 for Ramseur Food Pantry, $5,000 for Randolph County Honor Guard, $20,000 for Petty Family Foundation, $10,000 for Habitat for Humanity, and $10,00 in unrestricted grants for all municipal and volunteer fire departments totaling $200,000.

The board then approved a contract with mkSolutions Inc. of York, PA, for a cost of $125,875 with a $4,955 year two maintenance cost for the Library RFID project. The project is funded with a federal Library Services and Technology Act grant and a local match.

“We are getting a project underway to streamline our handling of library material through radio frequency identification of items, or RFID for short,” said Library Director Ross Holt. “We’ll place a short-range radio tag on each book, DVD, audiobook, and other items. This will allow multiple items to be handled, checked out, checked in, and processed in a single, hands-free transaction. You place a stack of items on a sensitized plate, and they’re checked out or checked back in. Inventory is as easy as waving a wand across a shelf of books.”

“One of the big benefits of RFID to the patrons is self-checkout which will be offered at each library, although staff assistance will always be available. We also expect to see a significant saving of staff time. This will enable us to redeploy staff to more substantive interactions with patrons. Our intent is to shift more staffing hours to the mobile library, which is very much in demand.”

The board also approved a request from the Randolph County Sheriff’s Department for four deputy sheriff positions for Elementary School SROs.

“We have some of the greatest schools that you guys have approved, and the county has built with state-of-the-art technology that is safer now than other times, but when I was growing up, we didn’t have the need for SROs, and that didn’t come until 1994,” said Captain Brian Arrington. “As time changes, the community and the sheriff’s office agree that we need to change with it, and if violence is going to present itself to our schools, we need to prepare to fight it to keep it away from the kids of Randolph County.”

“Since January 1 of this year, not counting the two and half months we were not in school, our SROs have taken over 675 reports or supplements of reports just in our county schools. So, the number of occurrences that law enforcement is needed in these schools has gone up dramatically. We get the job done with the number of officers we have, but we could better cover and provide better safety for the kids of Randolph County if we could add these four officers.”

The approved positions come at a total cost of $384,004, of which Randolph County Schools has agreed to pay $238,003.

“What’s the cost of one incident?” said commissioner Maxton McDowell. “We don’t want to pay that price.”

The board also approved the purchase of five Ford Police Interceptors and 10 Dodge Chargers at a total cost of $528,745 for the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office.

Finally, the board approved the purchase of approximately 2.5 acres of property for $76,398 in order to help facilitate the construction of a pump station and force main for the I-74 site project.

“Back in March, you had awarded a contract to the Wooten Company to design the pump station and force main serving the I-74 site,” said County Engineer Paxton Arthurs. “At that time, it was only for this site. However, in June, you approved an amendment to the contract to expand the pump station to serve the entire sewer basin. This was done to provide for future development. At that time, Randleman was going to provide water to the site, and all the sewer was going to be pumped south to Asheboro. Randleman had the capacity to provide for the site. However, it would use up all their capacity. So in order to preserve some of that, they were going to let the sewer go to Asheboro. However, recently we learned that Deep River Dyeing has closed. This was Randleman’s largest water and sewer customer, and because of the impact this is going to have on their budget, they have asked for the water and sewer to go to Randleman, and Asheboro is in agreement with this.”

The Randolph County Board of Commissioners will next meet December 5.