Vance County has a new chief animal control officer, County Manager Jerry Ayscue announced Monday night during the meeting of the Board of Commissioners.
Alexander Hargrove’s first day on the job was Monday.
“He hit the ground today on a busy Monday morning and became indoctrinated quickly into animal control,” Ayscue said.
Hargrove takes a job that has been a source of controversy in Vance County for years. Mike Grissom resigned the job in early 2002 after facing relentless criticism over conditions at the county animal shelter. Johnny Jones took over in April that year and was hailed for cleaning up the shelter and overhauling the animal control program, only to resign and face a criminal charge of obstruction of justice last year after a pit bull he was ordered to destroy turned up alive in Granville County.
Hargrove is a longtime Vance County resident. He thanked Ayscue for the opportunity to serve as chief animal control officer. He did not discuss the sordid recent history of his new office.
“My first goal as the new chief is to change the stigma that the dog kennel has as being dog catchers and dog kennels,” Hargrove told the commissioners. “I want to change it to make it an animal control facility.”
“Welcome aboard,” Commissioner Deborah Brown said.
To help Hargrove’s department run more smoothly, Ayscue recommended that the commissioners reorganize the three-person staff. Instead of the chief and two entry-level animal control officers, the board unanimously approved elevating one of the officers to animal control officer II, creating a clear hierarchy and career path in the department.
The upgrade, effective last Friday, comes with a $2,292 raise, but because of vacancies during the year, animal control has more than enough money in its salary account to cover the extra amount for the final three months of this fiscal year.
Also Monday night, the six commissioners (Eddie Wright was absent) voted unanimously:
* To allow the Department of Social Services to fill two positions, a caseworker in the Medicaid unit and an aide who’ll do chores to help keep the elderly and others from being institutionalized, and to allow the Fire Department to hire a firefighter/emergency medical technician.
* To spend $4,600 from the contingency fund as soon as possible to replace a large air conditioner at the Henry A. Dennis Building on Garnett Street.
* To let Ayscue or County Attorney Stubbs Hight enforce the ambulance services franchise ordinance that the commissioners passed last month. Under the ordinance, a business must obtain a nonexclusive franchise for ambulance runs that begin and end in Vance County. Ayscue or Hight will send any violator a letter to cease operations until obtaining a franchise agreement with the county. Ayscue said ambulance services operating before the ordinance was passed are grandfathered in and may continue operations.
* To award a $12,500 demolition contract to T.L. Murphy of Centreville, a female contractor, for an old mobile home at 458 Skenes Ave. and a $68,687 contract for a replacement three-bedroom modular home at the site to John Foster Homes of Henderson. The money will come from Community Development Block Grant funds.
* To apply for a $50,000 state Community Development Block Grant for a pilot individual development account (IDA) program. Under the program, planned by Team Vance and to be administered by Rick Seekins at the Kerr-Tar Regional Council of Governments, roughly 40 families will be recruited for a homeownership savings-and-education effort to last two years. The goal after two years is to have 20 families that each saved $1,000, cleaned up any credit problems, and learned how to be homeowners. The state grant and Team Vance’s Duke Endowment grant then each will provide a $1,000 match to the families, and the program will help them use the $3,000 total as a down payment for a house purchase.
The state grant, if received, will require a $10,000 local match through in-kind services. Vance will not have to put up any cash, and the in-kind services can come from the COG and Team Vance. Only Vance residents will be eligible, and they must agree to buy homes within Vance.
The commissioners approved the grant application after a second public hearing on the IDA plan.
“If you do this incrementally, one, two, three, five years, hopefully it will roll over and keep going, over a period of time it will make a huge difference,” Jack Blackburn, a real estate agent who specializes in first-time home buyers, said during the hearing. “I think it’s a great program.”