2023: a review of the year's top stories
The
new Amazon distribution
center in West
Smithfield was originally
scheduled to open by the
end of this year, but
first came the
announcement in January
that the opening had been
put off till the third or
fourth quarter of 2023.
That didn't happen either,
and last fall the company
sought and received
approval from both the
County of Johnston and the
Town of Smithfield to
extend the deadline for
meeting a hiring goal of
500 workers to qualify for
property-tax rebates till
the end of 2026, with
hopes of employing the
first batch of workers
during the first quarter
of 2024.
The coronavirus
pandemic
continued to ease its grip
on Johnston County this
past year. Even so, we
passed the 500 mark in
number of COVID-19
fatalities in February.
(Starting last May,
physicians and
laboratories are no longer
required to report COVID
cases to the N.C.
Department of Health and
Human Services.)
Filling job
vacancies in Johnston
County Public Schools
continued to be a
challenge despite the
pandemic's demise. The
county's Board of
Education in March
approved bonuses for all
full-time and part-time
employees starting July 1.
And while that appears to
have eased a shortage of
school-bus drivers
especially, the board
learned this month that
teacher vacancies on the
first of November exceeded
150 – up from about 90
vacancies a year ago. In
response, the board OK'd a
$2-million contract with a
national company to
provide remote online
learning to help fill the
live-teaching gaps in
middle and high schools.
An unprecedented
development on the
judicial front
was a grand jury's
indictment in April of
Ronald Johnson on three
counts of "willfully
failing to discharge
duties" as a member of the
Johnston County Board of
Education, one count of
"felony extortion"
involving a candidate
prior to the 2022 Primary
Election, and one count of
"felony obstruction of
justice." His case remains
unresolved at year's end.
Smithfield
celebrated several
completed public-works
projects in May
(the 
month of
the town's incorporation
in 1777):
• Walking trail linking
Smith-Collins Park to the
campus of Johnston
Community College.
• Reconstructed
amphitheater on the Town
Commons beside the Neuse
River.
• Additions to the Water
Filtration Plant,
increasing its treatment
capacity from 6.2-million
to 8.3-million gallons
daily as the town enters a
period of stepped-up
residential and commercial
development.
Johnston's County
Commissioners adopted an
unexpected budget
for fiscal 2023-24 in June
that fully funds both
operational and capital
requests from the county's
public schools and the
community college along
with a two-cent cut in the
county's property-tax
rate. In August,
commissioners adopted a
major rewrite of the
county's long-range
land-use plan, the exact
results of which remain to
be seen.
The
county opened its new
Detention Center
in late July, moving most
of the inmates out of in
the old Courthouse jail
Downtown into what amounts
to a state-of-the-art
prison complex on US 70
Business East.
Johnston's public
schools celebrated
academic progress
in September when annual
state testing results were
released. School leaders
pointing out that we had
the Triangle region's
largest percentage of
schools exceeding the
state's expectations for
academic growth (64%)
while cutting the number
of schools graded D or F
from 16 to eight with none
receiving an F.
Smithfield-Selma High and
West Smithfield Elementary
were able to raise their
grades from D to C,
Wilson's Mills Elementary
maintained its C rating,
but South Smithfield
Elementary and Smithfield
Middle continued to be
graded D.
Johnston Community
College reported record
enrollment of
4,803 students in its
degree programs for the
fall semester, and in
November celebrated the
opening of an impressive
state-of-the-art building
for its engineering
program.
The Town of
Smithfield saw a high
number of police
vacancies this
past year – a situation
that prompted the Town
Council in November to
authorize incentive
payments of $5,000 for
recruitment and $7,500 for
retention. At last check,
the Police Department had
13 vacancies among 37
enforcement positions.
Johnston has a new
way of electing school
board members –
by residency districts
subject to approval by
voters countywide – and
that has drawn 14
candidates (including
three incumbents) seeking
four seats on the
seven-member board that
are up for election in
2024. Looking ahead into
the new year, it appears
we're headed toward a
political donnybrook
dominated by a fiercely
contested national contest
for President....
VIEW the
N.C. Board of Elections
list (county by county
in alphabetical order)
of all the candidates
whose names will be
appear on 2024
ballots>
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BUSINESS
SPOTLIGHT
Keith
Dimsdale has been working
this month with his
successor, Karla
Reinertsen, who will take
over the Smithfield
franchise January 1.
Keith
Dimsdale finishes
25-year Chick-fil-A
venture
He
was running his own
dental-lab business when a
member of his church in
Fayetteville approached
him about opening a
Chick-fil-A franchise up
the road in Smithfield. "I
began to pray about it, to
see if that's where the
Lord's leading me," Keith
recalled during a
conservation with the
Weekly Sun last
week.
"In a matter of weeks," he
had applied for the
franchise, gone through
intense screening by the
parent company, and gained
approval – a process that
"normally takes two to
three years," Keith said.
He opened the Smithfield
restaurant on December 17,
1998 – exactly 25 years
ago this month.
With about 1,700
transactions daily, sales
this year are eight times
what was achieved the
first year, Keith noted.
Profits are split evenly
between the franchise
holder and the parent
company.
Keith said Chick-fil-A's
founder, the late Truett
Cathy, envisioned a chain
of fast-food eateries
mostly housed in large
shopping malls, starting
in his home territory
around Atlanta. "This was
almost a test market,"
Keith said of the
Smithfield location since
it's outside a major
metropolitan area and
lacks the demographics
generally associated with
suburbia.
What boosted prospects for
the Smithfield venture was
its location across Bright
Leaf Boulevard from
Wal-Mart. "We would draw
off their traffic," said
Keith.
His venture here has also
gotten a boost from
Chick-fil-A's growing
national popularity. "Now
other businesses want to
be near us," Keith added.
He also credits the
culture of the parent
company for ensuring his
success, and that includes
involvement in local civic
life. "Supporting our
community brings business
to us," said Keith.
His Smithfield business
has been a sponsor of
numerous local causes and
events, chief among them
the annual "Flame for
Learning" recognition of
Johnston's public-school
teachers, the Three Little
Pigs Triathlon that raises
money for Smithfield's
Friends of the Parks and
the Central Johnston
Rotary Club, and that same
club's annual golf
tournament that raises
funds for college
scholarships. (Not
surprisingly, Keith is one
of Rotary's leaders.)
Regarding the Smithfield
franchise's transition
from his watch to that of
his successor, Keith again
credits the parent
company. "They have been
very dedicated to make
sure the culture and the
company have smooth
transitions," he said.
Karla Reinertsen has won
approval to succeed Keith
as the franchise holder
here. She's a 15-year
employee with Chick-fil-A,
mostly recently in Forest
City, N.C. not far from
her hometown of Shelby and
before that in the Raleigh
area. Since 2015, she and
her husband, a general
contractor, have resided
in Johnston County's
Cleveland community.
Meanwhile, what will Keith
Dimsdale be doing after
the first of the year? "No
plans," he replied. "We'll
see what develops." Given
Keith's drive, that
doesn't sound much like
retirement.
Linwood Parker tells his story of the
iconic WHITE SWAN
restaurant
Another
in a series of interviews
done by GARY
RIDOUT for the
Weekly Sun with
folks who've had
long-lasting impacts
around here.
It's on this
edition's FEATURE
PAGE>
WHAT'S COMING UP
County
Commissioners meet
Tuesday instead of
Monday
Because
next Monday is New Year's
Day, the Johnston County
Board of Commissioners
will hold its
first-of-the-month morning
and evening sessions on
Tuesday at the Courthouse.
• The 10 a.m.
session
includes a public hearing
on a county incentive
grant for "Project Red
River," a proposed
"manufacturing
distribution and
processing facility" by an
unnamed company on an
unidentified site in
Ingrams Township (Four
Oaks area). Following that
is a request for county
funding participation in
road improvements as well
as water and sewer
extensions for Four Oaks
Industrial Park off I-95.
Commissioners will also be
asked to approve the final
draft of a county
Nonprofit Agency Funding
Policy. VIEW the
complete agenda here>
• The 6 p.m.
session
includes a public hearing
on the proposed renaming
of NC 42 from Clayton
westward to the Wake
County Line as "Veterans
Parkway." That section of
the road is to be
renumbered as NC 36 to
avoid confusion with
renumbering of the US 70
Clayton Bypass as
Interstate 42. Public
hearings are also
scheduled on requests for
business zoning for two
tracts in Cleveland
Township and one in
Pleasant Grove
Township. VIEW the
complete agenda here>
Town
Council puts off its
monthly meeting till
next week
In
setting its schedule of
meetings for 2024, the
Smithfield Town Council
agreed to put off the
January regular session
until the second Tuesday
of the month rather than
the normal first Tuesday
because of the New Year's
holiday on Monday. As a
result, the agenda will be
published in next week's
edition.
Board of Elections to hear request to
disqualify candidate
The
Johnston County Board of
Elections has scheduled a
special meeting for 9 a.m.
next Wednesday (Jan. 3) to
consider a challenge to
David Marshburn's
candidacy for a seat on
the county's Board of
Education. Incumbent
Ronald Johnson, one of
four candidates seeking a
Clayton-area seat on the
board, filed the
challenge, contending Mr.
Marshburn recently changed
his address from another
district and hasn't yet
established permanent
residence, according to a
story in the JoCo Report.
The Board of Elections
session will be held in
the Commissioners Meeting
Room in the Courthouse and
will be live-streamed on the
county's YouTube
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A
WORD (OR TWO) FROM THE
EDITOR
Winding
up a fifth year of
filling a journalistic
void
This
is the 260th edition of the
Smithfield Weekly Sun,
which I launched by myself
as an online newspaper in
January 2019 in the wake
of the McClatchy Company's
cruel annihilation of The
Smithfield Herald
and several other
community newspapers in
our region. I say "cruel"
because they shut down
those newspapers without
giving anyone else a
chance to keep them alive.
As I tell everyone who
thanks me for the
Weekly Sun, it's a
fulfilling project for a
retired newspaper editor
but it's not nearly what
this community needs,
which is what the Herald
provided for more than 125
years (almost 100 of those
years under direction of
the Lassiter family).
My efforts remain centered
around coverage of local
government based on
actions by the Smithfield
Town Council, the Johnston
County Board of
Commissioners, and the
Johnston County Board of
Education. I'd like to
include more coverage of
Smithfield's business
community, and will make
an effort to do better in
that realm in the year
ahead.
What remains lacking is
coverage of
interscholastic sports and
our judicial system. For
now, we'll have to rely on
other sources for that
(and right now there's not
much of it pertaining to
Smithfield and Johnston
County).
Another deficiency I'm
working to overcome are
public and private
organizations' reliance on
Facebook to get the word
out about achievements and
events. Pictures are nice
but more often than not
are posted without names.
If there's one compelling
ingredient that draws
readers to the media, it's
names, names, and more
names!
I can't let this go
without a word of thanks
to my faithful sponsors:
business people who pay
for advertisements in the
Weekly Sun on a
regular basis throughout
the year. While space for
these "commercials" is
limited in an online
newspaper like this, I
still welcome others who
want to make sure readers
know about their services.
If you're
interested, here's the
link to my advertising
sizes and rates>
Subscribers
to this edition: 1,489
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A PREVIOUS EDITION?
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find it in the
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