For almost two years now a group of dedicated citizens has been working to bring a group of economically disadvantaged students from our Sister City of Jinotega Nicaragua to Shelby. The Jinotega Music School Band, a jewel located in the remote mountains of Nicaragua will be here the week of April 16-24th, thanks to the perseverance of many volunteers, many of whom are involved with the Greater Cleveland County Baptist Association. The Association has been building a relationship with the City there for several years by sponsoring a Dental Clinic, a church, and other various ministries.
29 students and two faculty from the Music School will be performing at various venues throughout the week that they are here. They play primarily wind, brass and percussion instruments Their schedule includes two main public venues.

Sunday April 19 3pm on the Court Square-co-sponsored by Uptown Shelby Association and Young Life of Cleveland County and the Greater Cleveland County Baptist Association

Tuesday April 21 7pm at the Mildred H Keeter Auditorium of Cleveland Community College, co-sponsored by the Cleveland Community College Student Government Association and the Greater Cleveland County Baptist Association

In addition, the students will be performing on Sunday April 19th at the 8:30 am service at Central United Methodist Church; 10:45 service at Mount Sinai Baptist Church, the 7pm service at Westwood Heights Baptist Church and on Wednesday April 22 at the 6:30pm service at Eastside Baptist Church.

For most all of the students this will be not only their first time out of the country but also out of their own town. The students raised enough money to cover the cost of their own passports and half of the cost of their visas—almost $3000—no small feat in light of the fact that this represents perhaps as much as four people’s salaries there. A group of volunteers led by Katie Harris of GCCBA , Joey Hamrick of Joey Hamrick Construction and a host of others have worked tirelessly to make this visit a success, with help coming from some very unexpected but much appreciated quarters. .Thanks to all of those who have sponsored this financially, or otherwise. I continuously marvel at the generosity of our community, even in hard financial times.

I hope that everyone will plan to come out to the Courtsquare or to the Community College or one of the churches to give a warm Shelby and Cleveland County welcome these fine students.

By the way if you have new or used musical instruments or musical related items that you would like to donate to the School, please take them by Shelby Music Center. John Reid is kind enough to collect them for us.

Ted Alexander, Mayor City of Shelby
 
 

"Moore" News
from
Raleigh

604 Legislative Office Building
Raleigh, NC 27603-5925
(919)733-4838 - timm@ncleg.net

     
July 20, 2010
Legislative Update
Raleigh, NC
 

After a whirlwind short session, we adjourned sine die Saturday morning, July 10th at 5:33 a.m. The last day of session started at 10:00 a.m. Friday morning and ran until 5:33 a.m. Saturday with a break for lunch and dinner.

The Governor has until midnight, Monday, August 9th, to act on bills passed by the General Assembly. So far, the Governor has signed into law 95 bills with 101 public bills pending on her desk. The link to check the pending bills is: Public bills on the Governor’s desk .

Legislation that has gone into effect July 1, 2010 may be found at this link:

2009-10 Legislation Effective July 1, 2010

It pleases me that House Bill 1973, Various Economic Incentives, passed out of the House with a vote of 72 to 31 and is now waiting for the Governor’s signature. This economic development bill is extremely important for Cleveland County with keeping existing jobs and competing for new companies and jobs. We are competing with other states for jobs, and the other states have incentives. Our state has to offer incentives for us to stay competitive in today’s economy.

Another bill to pass the House was the DNA bill, (House Bill 1403, Collect DNA Sample on Arrest). The final vote was 83 to 21 after a much heated debate. As I stated before, this bill will provide law enforcement with a useful tool in solving crimes and protecting the public. The Governor signed this bill into law last week.

House Bill 1824, Coyote Controls, passed and will become law after the Governor signs the bill. Once signed into law, it will provide an additional method of trapping coyotes. Further explanation can be found by linking on the bill link.

Also, the ethics reform bill (House Bill 961, Gov’t Ethics and Campaign Reform Act of 2010) passed. With much controversy still surrounding the former Governor and others, more ethics reform was greatly needed. A couple of the things in the bill include political appointees to disclose fundraising activities, and the penalty is increased for exceeding campaign contribution limits. The bill overwhelmingly passed with 105 yes votes.

Several of you have asked me about what Senate Bill 897 contained regarding small businesses. The bill provides the following tax relief to small businesses:

  • It extends the 5-year carryback for net operating losses sustained in 2009. (Section 31.1)
  • It provides a refundable income tax credit to small business taxpayers whose gross receipts for the taxable year are less than $1,000,000. The credit amount is equal to 25% of the amount of the unemployment insurance contributions the taxpayer paid during the calendar year on wages paid to an individual. (Section 31.1A)
  • It increases the sales tax threshold that determines when a retailer must prepay a portion of the next month's anticipated sales tax collections from $20,000 to $15,000 effective October 1, 2010, and to $10,000 effective October 1, 2011. (Section 31.3)

Additionally, the bill provides administrative relief to small businesses by stipulating that the first annual report of an LLC is due April 15 following its year of organization. (Section 31.4)

The next session of the General Assembly will convene January 26, 2011.

Thank you for the honor and privilege to serve as your Representative.  My legislative office remains open during the interim.  Please feel free to contact us with any concerns or comments you may have.    We look forward to hearing from you. You can reach us at our Raleigh number 919-733-4838 or e-mail us at timm@ncleg.net or Moorela@ncleg.net.

Best Wishes,
Representative Tim Moore
Serving Cleveland County
 
   
 
Senator Debbie Clary
Cleveland & Rutherford
www.senatorclary.com
www.ncleg.net
     
April 3, 2009 Newsletter
  Debbie.Clary@ncleg.net  919.715.3038
   

From the Desk of Senator Debbie Clary….

The session appears to be moving along quickly with work on the budget being in the forefront. While the House Chamber is continuing to deal with several highly controversial bills, the Senate is working on the budget and a large number of local bills.

After working diligently with Legislative staff and many community members our bill filing deadlines have been met. I have filed a number of bills in various topics this session ranging from education to increasing the Felony charges for repeated criminal behavior.

Senate Bill 934 will create the offense of habitual misdemeanor larceny. A misdemeanor larceny in North Carolina is considered to be someone that has received or possessed stolen goods with a reasonable grounds to know or believe them to be stolen, where the value of the property or goods is not more than one thousand ($1,000). If passed this bill will establish that a person that is 18 years old, who commits a misdemeanor larceny (as defined above) and is convicted of at least five or more prior misdemeanor larceny convictions will be charged as a habitual misdemeanor larceny/felon. We need to cut crime and keep our community safe!

To many people BRIDGE means something you would cross over to get to the other side. To our firemen and rescue personnel, this is an essential program that has been marked for a potential budget cut this year. BRIDGE is an acronym for Build, Rehabilitating, Instructing, Developing, Growing, and Employing. The NC Division of Prisons and NC Division of Forest Resources work together to educate, train, and use non-violent inmates as a resource to assist in physically work intensive labor that is potentially life threatening. These inmates assist with major forest fires and other dangerous operations. Due how rapidly a forest fire spreads and the need for manpower instantly, it is often hard for counties to have enough volunteer fire personnel on staff to sustain such a threat. That is when this program is such asset. Inmates are paid $1.00 per day and many of them are thankful for the opportunity to serve, learning from being productive in their communities. This is a program that the western part of the state needs to fight forest fires and other natural disasters.

After patiently awaiting a recommendation from a study commission on the topic of adult day overnight respite, I was able to move ahead to file Senate Bill 906. I have worked closely with our local Life Enrichment Center Adult Day Healthcare to draft this legislation. Essentially, this will provide for the Social Services Commission to adopt rules for the adult day health overnight respite programs. This also directs the Division of Medical Assistance of the Department of Health and Human Services to pursue a Medicaid waiver to provide coverage for respite care in such programs. Adult day overnight respite means 24-hour group of care and supervision on a temporary basis to six or fewer unrelated individuals. We have a hearing on the bill April 15th in the Senate Healthcare Committee.

The Democrat Leadership in Raleigh needs to hold the line on spending. Republicans filed legislation last week to limit General fund expenditures in that they shall not exceed revenue collection from the previous calendar year. These are difficult times and increasing spending is irresponsible. The Senate budget is due out next week and will then go to the House for their budget negotiations. We have pressed hard for financial responsibility and will continue to stand up against careless financial constraints.

I was pleased to see Senate Bill 1014, making the Lottery Trust Fund immune to the governor’s powers to balance the state budget. If the amendment is approved by the citizens, the funds could not be “diverted to other purposes.” The lottery trust fund was created for education, not for balancing the state budget! We cannot continue to balance our state budget with the Highway Trust Fund or the Lottery Trust Fund.

The most controversy this week happened in the House. The House passed House Bill 2, which will ban smoking in most restaurants and offices in the state. This will cause a major issue with private property rights and raises an issue with the tobacco industry along with our jobs in the state. The amended version, as it stands, exempts bars and businesses that serve people over the age of 18. While I am a strong advocate for quality health, my greatest loyalty is with the rights of personal property owners.

As always, if an issue concerns you, please feel free to contact our office. I appreciate the opportunity to serve as your Senator.

Sincerely yours,