Three Rutherford College Council incumbents will seek re-election

Rutherford College Mayor Yates Jensen and incumbent council members Starr-Nell Bowman and Darel Malcolm will be seeking re-election in November.

A fourth incumbent, Councilman Kress Berry, said he is undecided about seeking another four-year term, but has not ruled it out.

The incumbents made their intentions known at Monday evening’s meeting of the Town Council when questioned by a reporter for The Paper.

The filing period for municipal elections — Rutherford College and Hildebran are the only Burke municipalities voting this fall — opened on July 6 and will continue through noon on July 17.

The Board of Elections office, where candidates must file, will be closed for repairs on Friday, July 10.

Council members Carroll Hoyle, James Huffman, and Mark Stinson are in the middle of their four-year terms on the council and will not be seeking re-election this year.

Jensen, a retired educator and coach who served at East Burke and Draughn high schools, has been active in town government for two decades.

Bowman is an executive in the health insurance industry, having earned both her bachelor’s degree and her masters of business administration degree at Gardner-Webb University.

Malcolm, the son of Rutherford College’s first mayor since its reincorporation in 1977, Zeb Malcolm, worked in nursing for decades before retiring and starting his own home improvement company.

Berry is a senior financial officer at the State Employees Credit Union in Rutherford College.

Otherwise, the agenda for the meeting was a light one, with the bulk of the time spent with the council in executive session to discuss “the possible location or expansion of industries/ businesses (in the town) including negotiating tentative list of incentives.”

Following the closed-door session, Jensen said no announcements were immediately forthcoming. He and other council members declined to say what sort of business/industry was being discussed.

Council also heard a proposal from the Lenoir law firm of Wilson, Lackey, Rohr & Hall to provide legal services for the municipality.

The law firm’s staff includes N.C. Speaker of the House Destin Hall and provides legal services to both Caldwell and Burke counties, as well as the municipalities of Lenoir, Cedar Rock, and Cajah’s Mountain.

“We have the knowledge and experience to handle zoning,” said Dylan Laws who spoke to the board, “including quasi-judicial hearings, as well as code enforcement, public-record requests, contract, real estate, and open-meetings law issues.”

Laws went on to explain that if selected the firm will charge a retainer of $500 per month, which would include attendance at the council’s regular monthly board meetings.

Any additional work, Laws continued, would be billed at a rate of $300 per hour.

Michelle Lippert, of the Morganton firm of Beyer&Lippert, currently serves as the town’s attorney, but is running for a district court judgeship in the upcoming November elections.

Town Manager Jessica Bargsley said the council will take some time and consider its options before choosing a new attorney.

The next meeting of the Rutherford College Town Council is set for Monday, Aug. 3, at 7 p.m. at Town Hall on Malcolm Boulevard.