The Beaufort County Board of Commissioners took action on a number of items on its agenda Monday night. In those actions, the board:
• Voted unanimously to release $124,000 in lottery proceeds to Beaufort County Schools to offset the cost of construction projects in the school district’s 2011-2012 capital budget.
• Unanimously approved the purchase by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office of seven Dodge Chargers at a cost of $22,000 each. The purchase is included in the 2012-2013 county budget.
• Voted unanimously to pay $84,150 in additional charges incurred by McDavid Associates Inc., consulting engineers of Farmville, in preparing grant applications for a county project to bring drinking water from the south side of the Pamlico River to county water customers north of the river.
• Voted 5-2 to approve $21,200.69 in travel requests, with Commissioners Stan Deatherage and Hood Richardson casting dissenting votes. The request included $7,387 for four commissioners — Ed Booth, Al Klemm, Jerry Langley and Richardson — to attend a conference in August that is described as “mandatory.”
• Unanimously approved the purchase of a 2012 Ford F150 pickup truck by the county’s Maintenance Department in the amount of $19,917.67. The purchase is included in the 2012-2013 county budget.
• Voted unanimously to approve a five-year lease for $1,200 a month to U.S. Cellular for a 2,500-square-foot piece of property adjacent to the old County Home property off of Highland Avenue for a cellular tower. The county will advertise the lease to allow an upset bid on the property.
• Unanimously approved the closeout of an Economic Development-Community Development Block Grant in the amount of $850,000 to extend a sewage line to serve Carver Machine Works. The grant stipulated that the project would bring 50 new jobs to the county, including 30 jobs held by low- to moderate-income workers. The project has, to date, created 36 jobs, including 22 for low- to moderate-income workers. The failure to meet the jobs prediction will increase the amount of money the county and the City of Washington will need to appropriate to match the grant, the commissioners were told.
• Voted unanimously to join a class action lawsuit against Fannie Mae to recoup real-estate transfer fees of $2 per $1,000 valuation of property the firm has failed to pay counties nationwide since 1968.
• Approved the following appointments: Sonya Toman and John Pack to the Board of Directors of the Beaufort County Chapter of the American Red Cross; Marie Freeman Barber to the City of Washington Planning Board; Tim Cashion to the City of Washington Board of Adjustment; Robert Cayton, Mitchell St. Clair and Michael Crawford to the Beaufort County Board of Health; Pat Bragg, Curtis Ormond Sr., Charlie Cutler, David Rusevlyan and Hyram Paul to the Richland Township Fire and Rescue Authority Board; Owen Peele to the Richland Township Volunteer Agriculture District; Robin B. Morgan to the Bath Township Volunteer Agriculture District and Jerry Langley as the voting delegate to the N.C. Association of County Commissioners annual conference.