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~5~4 Commissioner Richard Whitted stated he hyped the Board could resolve this issue before the 14th as that was the date of the Area Mental Health Hoard meeting. ~ The meeting then adjourned. Sam Gattis, Acting Clerk a7"( ~7 a~ Flora R. Garrett, Chairman THE MINUTES OF THE ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF CQM^1I55IONERS May 13, 1975 The Orange County Board of Commissioners met in special session on Tuesday, May 13, 1975, at 7:00 p.m. in the Commissipners Room at the Courthouse in xillsborough, N. C. Members present: Chairman Flora Garrett, Commissipners Nprm Gustaveson, Tan Pinney, Norman Walker and Richard E. Whitted. Members absent: None. Also present were 5. M. Gattis, County Administrator; and Betty June Hayes, Clerk to the Hoard. A. B. Coleman, Jr., County Attorney was absent due to an emergency. Chairman Garrett referred to Item #1 on the Agenda: (Acquisition of Northside School Property from Chapel Hill Board of Education) Commissioner Walker read the following comments: "1. As you all know I was appointed by the Hoard along with the County Manager, Sam Gattis, to negotiate with the Chapel Hill Schpol Board the purchase or acquisition of the Northside School property. 2. The Chapel Hill School Board wanted $100,000. for the property. I tried to reason with them that they had nothing to sell but a liability. My propositipn was the County would accept the property for the development of a Mental Health Center and other County related office spaces. Negotiation at this time broke down. 3. About this time we were getting a lot of pressure from Mental Health to pur- chase the property as they would lose the State grant of $350,000, if we did not move fast. This prompted me to take a look into the Grant application as I had never heard of a grant being approved so quickly especially since it had not come before the County Board fpr formal approval. (Sept. 15th - Dec. 2nd) 4. Pat walton stated the County Board did not have to approve the Grant that the Area Mental Health Board had the authority to do so and she quoted a Statute giving them the authority to approve $50,000. in County money for matching funds. This was proven not tp be true. Mr. Whitted and Pat walton further stated that the area Mental Health voted unanimously for its approval.. After careful study of the Mental Health Area Board Minutes and talking to members o£ that Board, they assured me they had never voted on the'.issue. 5. (A) The application states that Orange County has approved $50,000. in its ,1974'75 bddget period. This was known to be false information as the money has - not yet been appropriated. (B) The application further states that Person and Chatham Counties approved $11;765. for their share of the matching funds. After talking with members of the Person and Chatham County Board:':s of Commissioners they had not approved any money for a.'joint venture into an Orange County project. It is my understanding that by law this cannot be done except by a three County agreement which no attempt has been made thus far (by County Boards of Cpmmissioners) Person and Chatham Counties were not aware that the application had committed them to the money just mentioned. I have the letter from Dr. N. P. Zarzar (Director) congratulating the County Commissioners for their cooperation in approving this money. (That has not been approved).. 6. The application falsely states that the Area Mental Health Board has lease- hold interest fpr 25 years at $1.00 per yeaz. (on the Northside School property). 7. In bringing this to the attention of the Hoard they agzeed after much dis- cussion to bring in the persons from the State GranL• Office and others involved to ask if they were aware of the false and irregular procedure in which the