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In: Board of Aldermen, New Bern
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The concrete front steps at New Bern City Hall is the first obstacle for people with mobility issues. Google Street View image   For those with mobility issues who want to attend a Board of Aldermen meeting, the seven steps they have to climb to reach the front door at New Bern City Hall is just the beginning of a perilous journey. Those seven concrete steps get you barely a third of the way to the second-floor room where the board meets. I’m thinking that there are one of two thoughts that cross people’s minds when they want to attend a Board of Aldermen meetingRead More →

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In: Aldermen, Board of Aldermen, Mayor, New Bern Fire Department, News Media, Opinion
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Alderman Sabrina Bengel takes the oath of office after being selected mayor pro tem. Alderman and former mayor pro tem Jeff Odham is in the background fuming. The two sit on opposite sides of the dais and, judging from their first meeting Tuesday, are on opposite sides of other things, too. It didn’t take long for four years of bad blood between Sabrina Bengel and Dana Outlaw/Jeff Odham to spill over into Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen meeting. The question is, who started it? • Was it Ward 1 Alderman Bengel who, during her first meeting as alderman (this time around) and using a portion ofRead More →

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In: Aldermen, Board of Aldermen, Mayor, New Bern Fire Department
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Alderman Sabrina Bengel takes the oath of office after being selected mayor pro tem. Alderman Jeff Odham is in the background. The two sit on opposite sides of the dais and, judging from their first meeting Tuesday, are on opposite sides of other things, too. Former New Bern mayor Lee Bettis will have his name restored to a fire truck the Board of Aldermen authorized to buy during his last meeting as mayor but the subsequent board ordered removed because he was convicted of crimes. Ward 1 Alderman Sabrina Bengel, using the New Business portion of the meeting that she has complained about on herRead More →

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In: Craven County Board of Commissioners, New Bern business and commerce
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Belk, the North Carolina-based retailer that relies so much on holiday receipts to meet investor expectations, got into some hot water over its decision to ban Salvation Army bell ringers, so much so that it has reversed course and decided bell ringers are welcome, after all. Here’s the Tweet that Belk sent out on Dec. 2: Belk‏Verified account @belk Dec 2 Christmas truly is the giving season and we’d like to welcome Salvation Army bell ringers to all 294 Belk stores. Merry Christmas!  Happy ending to a story that started badly for the retailer, which has a store at New Bern Mall. Belk was once a family-ownedRead More →

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In: Aldermen, Board of Aldermen, Craven County Board of Commissioners, Mayor, New Bern
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In 1992, the same year Bill Clinton was elected to his first term as president, the City of New Bern installed a software system called Banner. It’s still in use today, even though the software developer got out of the municipal software business long ago and focuses on education institutional software now. Only one person among the 450 who work at New Bern City Hall knows how to maintain the Banner system, and the company that makes it will stop supporting the version the city uses in early 2018. The city’s aging software system has been a subject of conversation by city leaders for atRead More →

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In: Aldermen, Board of Aldermen, Craven County Board of Commissioners, Mayor, New Bern, New Bern business and commerce
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Lots of folks in downtown New Bern think they dodged a bullet when a downtown parking advisory committee leaned against recommending paid parking throughout downtown. Except along Broad Street. Folks there are still at the shooty-shooty end of the barrel. The committee will probably recommend that the city start enforcing the two-hour parking limit downtown. But anticipating an exodus of cars to nearby unregulated streets starting with Broad Street, the committee came up with the idea of installing paid parking kiosks charging a dollar an hour on Broad Street from the traffic circle to Middle Street. Parking would be free on nights, weekends, holidays andRead More →

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In: Board of Aldermen, Craven County Board of Commissioners, New Bern
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Going into extra innings, the city Parking Advisory Committee is meeting Tuesday to iron out recommendations it will make at an upcoming Board of Aldermen meeting. The committee meets Tuesday afternoon at the Police Substation at New Bern Mall, because what better way to encourage public participation than holding a meeting in a police station? The committee was supposed to present its recommendations to the Board of Aldermen on Oct. 24 but has gone two meetings past that date, including the one scheduled for Nov. 7. It has until Dec. 12 to present its recommendations, after which it dissolves. Two aldermen on the committee vacateRead More →

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In: Aldermen, Board of Aldermen, Craven County Board of Commissioners, Mayor, New Bern, New Bern business and commerce
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City Manager Mark Stephens said his research leads him to believe downtown New Bern has had a parking problem for the last 100 years. A committee set up by the city seeks to solve downtown parking problems after about seven or eight meetings. Chaired by lame duck Alderman Dallas Blackiston as his swan song gig as alderman, the committee plans to recommend to the Board of Aldermen during an upcoming meeting that two-hour parking be enforced on downtown streets … … Except for two blocks of Broad Street, between the East Front Street traffic circle and Middle Street. That stretch of city streets would beRead More →

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Alderman Bernard White was in charge of coordinating the opening prayer at the board meeting on Tuesday night. With the clock winding down until he leaves office after serving two terms, he let his wife of 47 years deliver the prayer. Later in the meeting, one-term Alderman Dallas Blackiston asked that the remaining thousand dollars in his discretionary fund go to Parks & Rec, specifically Thalmann Field, the ball field named after the New Bern policeman who was killed in the line of duty in 2014. Quarter-term Alderman E.T. Mitchell asked that the remainder of her funds (she did not specify how much that is) beRead More →

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Action on a proposal for the city to sign a $1.25 million contract with a software company to integrate the city’s various departments’s computer systems was postponed by the Board of Aldermen on Tuesday evening because key city officials were missing from the meeting. Aldermen Victor Taylor and Jeffrey Odham were not at the meeting, nor was City Manager Mark Stephens. The proposal led to a flurry of discussion on Facebook about a reportedly similar system in Elizabeth City. On the Citizens of New Bern Facebook page, there was a lively exchange about the proposed system upgrade between Buddy Bengal (a local businessman and sonRead More →