Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Jim Buice

For the Clemmons Courier

BERMUDA RUN — Besides the agenda items and presentations, there was breaking news from last Tuesday night’s Bermuda Run Town Council meeting, courtesy of Brian Barnett, Davie County’s manager.

Along with updates on the various initiatives in the county, Barnett offered this tidbit to those in attendance at Town Hall: “You guys may have heard this morning there was an incident involving Davie County Schools,” he said. “So I’m happy to report earlier this fall that we had a very successful active shooting training with Davie County Sheriff’s Office and the school system. 

“Unfortunately what went down went down, but I feel very confident if anything on the extreme case does go down, they have been properly trained and the sheriff’s office can handle things based on the training they went through.”

In a country, where these kinds of things are becoming more frequent and widespread, that was certainly good news. However, Barnett didn’t complete the loop on what actually transpired and  was asked later for more details by council member Jeff Tedder, who said he missed what happened earlier in the day.

“They had a social media threat, and they were able to track down and I think make an arrest early this morning before school even started,” Barnett said. “So the sheriff’s office is taking care of that.”

Or course, further reports gave more details that tips early that day led to the arrest of Michael Blevins, a Mocksville teen and former student at Davie High, for posting online threats that there would be a shooting at the school. He was charged with communicating threats of mass violence on educational property.

As an unofficial public service announcement, Barnett offered another way for the community to stay better informed regarding such incidents: “If you haven’t heard or had an opportunity yet, you can go to Google Play or the App Store and download the Sheriff’s Office mobile app,” he said. “It’s a great source of information as the Sheriff’s Office pushes out updates throughout the community, including what happened today.”

Barnett’s presentation included a number of bullet-point items, including the sheriff’s office K-9 unit being reinstated, Davie County Library book lockers recently being moved to the Habitat Restore in Bermuda Run, the opening of the county’s fourth EMS station, starting the process of purchasing land for an agricultural center in the county, and the Summer Reading Program being up 300 percent – with the possibility of adding a Summer Reading Camp this year. 

Christy Schafer, who was appointed to fill the open spot on the council created when Mike Brannon vacated his position on the board after being elected as mayor in the November election, said she was excited to learn about that the surge in the reading program.

“The library should be applauded for pushing that effort, and thank you for bringing that to our attention,” Schafer said.

Barnett concluded his remarks by thanking Bermuda Run for having him and being a true partner in the governmental process.

“It’s great to be able to work with somebody like Andrew (Meadwell, Bermuda Run’s town manager, who understands county through his experience,” Barnett said. “If you don’t know, we as a local government meet once a month to hash out and talk about what’s coming next. A lot of counties and a lot of municipalities cannot say that they do anything of that nature. Mayor Brannon meets with the Economic Development once a month, and then we also bring together all of our mayors and chairs together to meet. So it’s a great working relationship.”

Dep. Mike Foster, the town’s community officer, and Davie County Sheriff J.D. Hartman were both at last Tuesday night’s meeting. Foster said he did some research on current events and crime trends but couldn’t find anything out of the norm.

“You’re going to have your property crimes, but you just have to lock your stuff up,” Foster said. “We still have some issues with speeding on 158. I guess you already know that. I’m working what I can do to get that controlled. And our neighborhoods, we have to stop at these stop signs. If you roll through there, I’m going to stop you. It’s a safety issue.”

Brannon, in his comments, noted that the February council meeting was the first recorded meeting using a new system installed by Zirrus.

He reported recent and upcoming meetings with Davie Medical Center administrators, including some “exciting things” coming, meeting with Duke Energy representatives regarding some recent challenges with power outages and discussions about infrastructure improvements, along with talking with fire chiefs from Advance and Smith Grove, and with Pat Ivey, Division 9 engineer, on local and area road projects.

“I continue to make the pitch for the roundabout at 158 and 801 and going to keep making that pitch, but it will probably fail miserably,” Brannon said. “But I still think that may be a great place for one.”

In other highlights from last Tuesday night’s meeting, the council:

• Approved a budget amendment to amend the 2023-2024 General Fund budget to accept $2,000 from the Davie County Community Foundation as revenue and expend $2,000 for expenses to the 2023 Christmas in the Town of Bermuda Run.
• Appointed council member Rae Nelson to be the town’s alternate member of the Transportation Advisory Committee of the Winston-Salem Metropolitan Planning Organization consisting of elected officials from each governmental unit within the planning area. Brannon is the TAC member representing the town.
• Heard from Brannon regarding The Flags at the Blue Heron Trail project that is “nearing the finish line” in the work done by the Vision Fund Committee with a deadline of March 1 to make a tax-deductible donation of $100 to purchase an engraved brick paver to be placed at the plaza to be constructed near the U.S. 158 roundabout.
• Heard from Brannon, who passed along condolences to the family of Sherry Gardner (wife of the town’s first mayor, Clyde Gardner, and a longtime co-chair of the Crosby Golf Tournament), who died on Feb. 9.