Agenda - 02-16-2016 - 4-b - Re-naming of the Central Orange Senior Center to the Jerry M. Passmore Center

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Attachment 4 11 r �,ai the Schur i�„fib 'z c�F FRIENDS of the SENIOR CENTER .f<vii ,..x .) for CENTRAL ORANGE, INC. 103 Meadowlands Drive P.Q. Box 8181 e, � Hillsborough, NC 27278 'hd�ar-,.-, `''`p ig�' 99.9-243-2015 bran„e 1' I March 17,2015 Orange County Board of Commissioners P.O. Box 8181 Hillsborough,NC 27278 1�f , ' Dear Co C r+ t -' •iS; The Friends of the Senior Center for Central Orange,Inc.authorized me to respond to a letter from Barry Jacobs dated October 21,2014. 1 have included background information for the Commissioners who are new and may not be aware of our efforts and the desire of the people to rename the Senior Center of Central Orange the Jerry Passmoxe Center. I am a former employee of Orange County serving as Clerk to the Board for nearly 20 years. When I was hired the Board requested that my main priority be to change the image of what people thought about County Government. 1 took this very serious and embarked on a customer service campaign. I worked with a small committee and came h a,:. up with the slogan"You Count in Orange County",We then put action to these words. We worked with citizens who called with complaints with the goat of helping them in any way we could. We sometimes had to put aside rules,regulations and ordinances because they did not fit the particular situation. We helped citizens by doing what was right and best for them. I was also hired because I was teaching word processing at a community college. I started using word processing and this new technology was quickly followed by the Planning Dept.and the Manager's office and it grew from there. We were the first County in the State to have election results on line for our citizens,At that time it was necessary to contract everything out because we still had a mainframe person in our Information Services Dept I was so fortunate to have a Board who supported my C efforts to improve the image of County Government and to help the citizens. We developed a training program and the County Manager made it mandatory that every County employee take this training. The Manager was not a computer person but gave me permission to launch the intranet which took about a year but we did it. 1 was allowed to do the first Report to the People which was distributed countywide and had all kinds of useful information in it for our citizens. I did this a second year and then funding was not available to continue. I could go on and on with how we helped our citizens by doing the right thing but I know your time is limited. F Beard Members: Beverly Blythe(President),iota McIver(1T?),Marie McAdoo(Secretary), HelenMiller(Treasurer),Harold Russell(Asst.Treasurer), Rebecca Walker(Past President),Myra Crawford,Leslie Crews Donna Cantrell,Charlie Foote,lriviau Hemden-Lata,A.lioiaRek,Donna Rose,Vicki Tilley, Tracey Boley&Jerry Passmore, Ex-Officio: Carroll Hawkins,Leo Allison,Sam Truax,Haryo Marsosudira&Deletes Simpson.