Robbinsville – It’s back to the drawing board for the Robbinsville Board of Aldermen to fill the top staff position at Town Hall.
Robbinsville Mayor Shaun Adams said Annette Carver – who the board hired to be the town’s finance officer – has already stepped down from the position.
Adams was unaware of Carver’s status going in to the Jan. 4 board of aldermen meeting, when he announced Carver as one of two new employees at Town Hall. A hint came when aldermen had two items affecting her position later in the agenda – adding her as a check signer and sending her to a notary public course – pushed into closed session.
Following closed session, the board announced that the finance officer position was once again vacant and that the town would be considering outsourcing accounting functions to an accountancy firm.
On Dec. 19, 2022, Carver accepted the job after she declined a similar offer in October 2022. The job pays $19 per hour, with benefits. Carver had been keeping the books at A-4 Home Center and earlier was an administrative assistant for the Graham County Sheriff’s Office.
For her part, Carver said training was the issue that led to her abrupt departure.
“The training should have been better,” she told The Graham Star. “The job is so in-depth that you cannot learn a job like that by having training over the telephone …,” she said. “You need someone to show you correctly how things need to be posted.”
Sonya Webster was the town’s last finance officer. The board of aldermen released her from the position on July 14 without public explanation. Town Clerk Shari Birchfield filled in as finance officer during the interim, but she is retiring at the end of January and is training her own replacement, Amanda Gyongyos, who was hired in December.
Old town hall
In another matter, the board continues to inch its way forward over whether to sell the old town hall building on North Main Street.
Kenny Wheeler, owner of Wheeler’s Performance on Tapoco Road, has made an offer to buy the old Town Hall building. Wheeler wants to open a bicycle and pinball repair shop in the building. Terms of the offer were not disclosed. The issue has appeared on the board’s agenda for months now, with slow-to-little progress.
In this month’s update, aldermen learned that the tax value of the building will increase from $36,340 to $59,300, with the increase likely attributed to the fact that the basement level was included in this year’s evaluation. What the valuation apparently doesn’t take into account is the poor condition of the building.
Aldermen plan to tour the building before taking the next steps.
Town Attorney M. Ellen Davis has advised the board that there will be steps necessary before it could consider any offers. First, the town must determine whether it has any further use for the property and get the building appraised. If the property is declared surplus, the town could advertise for sealed bids, negotiate an offer or hold a public auction.