State Sen. Doug Berger will hold his second Vance County town meeting Thursday, July 21, at 7 p.m. in the county commissioners’ meeting room on the second floor of the old courthouse on Young Street.
The main topic for the night will be issues related to the state budget, which remains stalled over disagreements between the House and Senate. But Berger will be prepared to discuss any concerns of Vance residents. The freshman senator represents all of Vance, as well as Granville, Warren and Franklin counties.
Berger held a similar meeting May 18, but with little notice and a conflict with Wednesday night church meetings, the Youngsville Democrat’s visit drew only Commissioner Deborah Brown, County Manager Jerry Ayscue, Marvis Henderson-Daye and two reporters.
Still, the meeting produced lively conversation, as well as a promise by Berger to vote for any budget that protects school construction money, children and state employees.
Ayscue urged Berger to fight for a change in the funding of Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health care for the poor. Action this year by New York will leave North Carolina as the only state that requires counties to pay a share of the costs of Medicaid.
A legislative study committee recommended phasing out the county contribution, which hits poor counties such as Vance particularly hard. Several bills were introduced to relieve counties of that burden, but none got far this year in Raleigh.
Henderson-Daye’s concern was youth programming. She raised the familiar complaint that Vance lacks recreation and other things for young people to do, and she asked Berger what he was doing to make things better.
Berger responded that Vance is far better off than the other three counties he represents in terms of recreation. The other counties don’t have facilities comparable to the Aycock Recreation Complex or the Henderson Family YMCA, he said; if location is a problem, that’s a transportation issue.
He also noted the new courthouse and the construction on the library and said the other counties don’t have the new facilities to match Vance County — except in schools. Berger pointed to the bond referendums Franklin and Granville passed to finance school construction and said that instead of taking such action, Vance asked for a special sales tax of up to 1 percent to pay for new schools.
Berger said that until Vance County shows a commitment to its schools, it won’t be able to compete with Franklin, Granville and other counties in economic development.