The commissioners’ second March meeting was canceled due to severe weather warnings. They picked up again on April 5 for their first meeting of the month. This is what we saw.

Mac Rubel, the chairman of the Pamlico County Rescue Squad, presented the organization’s budget to the commissioners. Last year, the Rescue Squad received $1,397,000 from the county for services. For the upcoming fiscal year, they are requesting an increase to $1,850,000.

Rubel explained that the increased costs were due largely to a need to expand services. “We are getting to the point where we have a critical service deficiency on the weekends,” he said. Call volume has increased by 85% over the last decade and is expected to continue to grow at around 5.6% per year. Eighty percent of days see four calls or more, with an average of one call every four hours.

Currently, they only have two ambulances available on weekends. This can mean serious delays in service while patients wait for rescue workers that come from neighboring Craven County through a mutual aid agreement.

“The expression in our business is ‘time is tissue,’” Rubel said. “And especially when you’ve got strokes or heart attacks, things like that, the cost of that delay is sometimes serious.”

The rescue squad, which operates as a nonprofit, is asking for funds to cover three ambulances 24 hours a day.

Dr. Zach Schnell talked to the commissioners about Pamlico Community College’s upcoming AI Fest, scheduled for April 15 and 16. April 15 will be a day for local high school students to engage in a guided tour of the Innovation Gallery, where student AI projects will be on display.

April 16 will be open to the entire community. Attendees will be able to choose between multiple tracks that include small business, education and general AI use. There will also be food trucks and live entertainment. This event is free to the public.

PAWS volunteer Mary Hiatt spoke to the commissioners about the ongoing efforts to expand animal services in Pamlico County. She thanked the commissioners and county manager for meeting with her and PAWS president Jackie Schmidt to help them understand the challenges facing the county. At the current time, the county is limited not just by the hours available for animal services officers, but by the number of animals the shelter in Craven County is able to take.

“Our feeling is that Pamlico really needs its own shelter and a comprehensive approach to animal services,” Hiatt said. After acknowledging that the complex issue would not be solved overnight, Hiatt proposed a solution. “I am the vice president of Friends of the Pamlico County Library. We built a library, but we had the county’s commitment to operate it as they had been doing. So, this is a little bit different, but that’s a model that maybe we could look at.”

Licensed wildlife rehab specialist Abby Byland of Merritt also addressed the commissioners.

“I got a call a couple of weeks ago, and it was a woman in distress,” she said. “Her daughter was a punching bag for a gentleman and she wouldn’t leave the home because she has two dogs. And she called the local shelters in Craven County, and they would not entertain bringing the dogs there.”

Byland went on to say that the woman had no place to go but was afraid to leave because she was afraid that the man she was living with would kill her dogs. “So yes, we care very much about the animals, but there’s a people component here as well that we need to be aware of.”

Byland confirmed that she was able to work with local volunteers to find foster homes for the dogs and that the woman was able to leave safely. “But,” Byland said, “it took a lot of underground calls to make this happen.”

Anyone who’s attended a county commission meeting is familiar with the quirks of the building’s existing heating and cooling system. County Manager Mark Brewington said that they had their current maintenance company assess the condition of the HVAC system and provide a quote for a total replacement.

Their quote came to $385,648, so the county will be looking for additional quotes in that range.

Pamlico County policy calls for pay increases for employees who attain specific professional training. Two employees hit those milestones before the April 6 meeting. Kathy Wall of the Tax Administrator Office passed the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) Course. Will Hart from the Water Department passed his B-Well Distribution State Certification Exam. The commissioners approved 6% raises for both.

The following agenda items were passed without discussion:

The commissioners went into closed session to discuss a legal issue requiring attorney/client privilege.

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