Please be informed of a joint public safety committee/fire commission meeting to continue discussions of the fire study report.
The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, August 15 at 4:00 p.m. and will be held in the commissioners’ conference room.
— From Kelly Grissom, Clerk to Board/Executive Assistant, Vance County Board of Commissioners
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Public Notice
The Henderson City Council changed the Regular Meeting schedule at a Special Called meeting on July 15, 2024. The August 12, 2024 City Council Regular Meeting is canceled and rescheduled for Monday, August 19, 2024.
Tracey Kimbrell
City Clerk
City of Henderson
As the wind and rain from Tropical Storm Debby continued to pelt the entire WIZS listening area Thursday morning, Duke Energy officials said power outages were limited at that time around Henderson and Vance County.
Duke Spokesman Garrett Poorman reminded customers to think Safety First. There are several ways to report a power outage in your area, but thanks to advances in grid technology, phone calls and text messages aren’t the only ways that the energy company is alerted to outages.
Report outages at www.duke-energy.com, text “OUT” to 57801 or download the Duke Energy app on a mobile device, he said on Thursday’s TownTalk. Of course, customers can dial 800-POWERON (800.769.3766) too, he said.
“The first priority is safety when it comes to storm damage,” Poorman said. That’s for crews and for customers.
Whenever winds are greater than 30 mph, crews are grounded from performing work in bucket trucks, he said.
And a couple of words of advice that bear repeating: if you see a downed power line, just stay away from it.
Even as forecasters were predicting the storm’s path, Duke was assembling 7,500 workers in strategic positions across the Carolinas, poised to fan out to areas affected by the storm’s damaging wind and rain.
Power restoration is a complex process, Poorman said, and Duke is continually upgrading the grid system to be able to automatically detect outages so crews can pinpoint the area that needs repair.
And then there are advances like a “self-healing network,” Poorman said, which works much like a GPS in your car. If there’s a traffic jam ahead, your GPS will likely reroute you to an alternate route. The self-healing network applies the same concept – it reroutes the energy to avoid the damaged lines.
“We’re able to reroute power around the outage,” Poorman said, “that will help us minimize the impact of a storm like this.”
Get updates at www.duke-energy.com.
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Granville Vance Public Health Director Lisa Harrison and her team maintain a laser focus on community health and providing services that improve residents’ well-being. But there’s a newly formed team within the health department that has the task of tweaking the ways that people in the community learn about the wide scope of services available at the health department.
As a result of that teamwork, the GVPH social media presence is going to have a new look in the next week or so, and Harrison said it’s just one way she and her staff are working to be effective community partners.
“We want to make sure that we’re in lockstep in communicating in our two counties,” Harrison said on Thursday’s segment of The Local Skinny! “Social media is how we do that these days.”
Over the course of the next week or so, they’ll be finishing up the final details before the launch, Harrison said. For those who already follow GVPH on social media, there’s nothing special that needs to be done. The address won’t change, despite the fact that the health department will be using a new hosting site.
And for that younger demographic that prefers Instagram over Facebook, no worries – GVPH has you covered.
“We’re trying to do both and connect them in real time,” Harrison noted.
There are always lots of exciting things happening at the Vance and Granville locations, and it’s important to share them with the public.
Whether it’s a reminder to get a flu shot, the latest COVID-19 booster or any number of other programs the health department offers, Harrison said social media platforms are a way to push that information out.
Visit https://www.gvph.org/ to learn more.
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With the upcoming election just more than three months away, Vance County Republican Party Chairman Jimmy Barrier reminds local residents that although political signs may be placed on private property, campaigners are supposed to wait until 30 days before early voting begins to place signs in public right-of-way spaces. That day for the Nov. 5 election is Thursday, Sept. 5.
“I am pledging that we will continue to follow the rules concerning the placement of signs” Barrier said on Wednesday’s TownTalk. “I just want everyone to play by the rules…as laid out by the state Board of Elections.”
Barrier challenged members of the Democratic Party to do the same, but he said he’s already seen some signs out ahead of the Sept. 5 start date, which Barrier called “blatant violations of the law.”
And although Barrier pledged that members of his party will not remove the offending signs, he said any private citizen is free to do so because the too-early placement of the signs is considered littering, a class 1 misdemeanor.
“We will not damage campaign signs,” Barrier said. “We’re not going to go out there and pull ‘em up – it’s not our job and not what we’re going to do.”
What he and others will do is notify local law enforcement officials including the county Board of Elections, Henderson Police Department, Vance County Sheriff’s Office and district attorney’s office to report violations. Each violation could bring a $50 civil penalty.
“If the signs offend you, people have the right to take them up,” Barrier said, but only from public rights-of-way – NOT from private property where the signs are placed with permission of the property owner.
The city regulates placement of campaign signs and its policies state that they can’t be placed on power poles, in cemeteries or in the grassy triangle northwest of the downtown underpass.
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On the Home and Garden Show with Vance Co. Cooperative Ext.
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The Vance County High School football Jamboree has been rescheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 14 at 6 p.m., but Head Coach Aaron Elliott is trying to look on the bright side and make the best of the situation, brought on by the approaching Tropical Storm Debby and forecasts of heavy rains.
In the “plus” category, Elliott said it will allow players to get in a few extra days of practice before that first scrimmage. The team has had just one day of contact practice, so a few additional days will be good.
Another positive is that the game field is in good shape. With recent rains, Elliott said “It’s all been Mother Nature – we’ve got the game field looking real good.” The field drains really well, he said, although Tropical Storm Debby’s contribution may result in some sideline ponding situations. A few extra days after the storm moves past should be enough time for sufficient drying.
In the “minus” category, however, is the number of teams available to attend the Jamboree. Franklinton and Wakefield had been on the list, but once the event was rescheduled, they had to drop out because they have other scrimmages going on that day.
Bunn is still in the mix, however, and Elliott said he’s in talks with a couple of other schools to see if they can participate to bring the total field to between 4 and 5 teams.
As far as a scouting report of the Vipers thus far, Elliott said his guys are doing a good job with the X’s and O’s but need to button down a bit with regard to being more disciplined on the field. Not the type of discipline that goes along with bad behavior, but the discipline that comes with knowing your job, remembering routes and not jumping offsides.
Cleaning up those little things will mean a lot as the Aug. 23 season opener approaches.
Be sure to listen to WIZS all season long for Vance County Friday Night Football and for coach interviews on Thursday SportsTalk programs at 12:30 p.m.
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