By Jackie Seabolt
Enterprise Record

COOLEEMEE – Town board members failed to agree on code enforcement after a lengthy discussion last week.
For the last four years the town has contracted with Benchmark of Kannapolis to provide inspection and enforcement of housing codes. Board members said they want to get rid of Benchmark and hire someone locally in hopes they can clean up the town and get tougher on repeat code violators.
Mayor Lynn Rumley presented board members with a job description for a part-time code enforcement officer. The officer would work a 10-hour week and receive $15 per hour.
“The one thing we haven’t done this year is fix our broken code enforcement,” Rumley said. She showed pictures of locations around Cooleemee that were in violation – a home with no internal support walls, a vacant home with a junked car parked behind it, a refrigerator sitting outside a home, and a home in foreclosure with trash in the front yard.
“We have become a mowing service for some landlords,” Rumley said. She said that violators ..