By Nicole Bowman-Layton

EDENTON — The Town of Edenton will begin accepting applications on Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, for a new fire chief to replace Billy Bass, who is retiring at the end of May.

The Edenton Town Council also heard an update on the town’s ongoing smart electric meter installation during Monday’s special meeting and committee meeting. They took action on a property annexation, a state-required water supply plan and the mayor made a housing authority reappointment.

Fire Chief Recruitment

The Administrative Committee Chair Craig Miller (at-large) gave an update on the search for a new fire chief to replace Billy Bass, who is retiring at the end of May. The town has contracted with Mercer Group Associates, a Georgia-based management consulting firm with locations throughout the country, to manage the recruitment process.

Town Manager Corey Gooden said applications will open Friday through the Mercer Group and will be posted on the town’s website and social media. He said the town expects a mix of candidates.

“I think we’ll see some regional candidates as well,” Gooden said. “But as we’re kind of growing and evolving, I think it would be interesting to also see what type of candidates within the Southeast with certain training from larger areas may also make good sense for us.”

Mayor Hackney High took a moment to clarify council’s role in the process, noting Edenton operates as a manager-managed town.

“We don’t hire a fire chief,” High said. “We hire you, you hire everybody else … We set policy and set big picture stuff, and the day-to-day operations — we don’t get into the operational things.”

Per the project calendar presented by the Mercer Group, on-site interviews are scheduled for April 27, with an estimated start date no later than the week of June 1.

Nexgrid Smart Meter Update

Council members also heard a detailed presentation from Electric Director Hunter Chamberlain on the town’s Nexgrid advanced metering infrastructure rollout. As of Monday evening, 1,644 of the town’s meters had been replaced.

Chamberlain explained that the new meters do more than track electricity usage — they monitor transformer efficiency, detect outages in real time and measure temperature at five points on each meter.

“We’ve already had a couple of instances where somebody’s been out to dinner, the text comes in, we get a text and says, ‘Hey, this meter’s out of power,’” Chamberlain said. “We already know there’s an outage that’s occurred. We send a truck and start rolling it to that call before they’ve ever even called in.”

A key safety feature of the system, Chamberlain said, is the meter’s built-in thermal cutoff, which disconnects service at 311 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent fires. The meters also have a warning-level threshold at 220 degrees, at which point staff will contact customers before service is interrupted.

“We’re trying to catch everybody at the 220 so that we can have those issues resolved before they ever cut off,” Chamberlain said.

Since installation began, the town has identified approximately 10 warning-level temperature alerts and three critical-level faults among the meters installed so far. Gooden said meter socket replacements, which must be performed by a licensed electrician, typically cost between $350 and $450.

The system has also revealed significant inefficiencies in the town’s transformer network. Chamberlain said one transformer was found to be operating at only 27% efficiency.

“If you have a 27% transformer, it’s still sucking all the juice to use it (at full capacity), so it’s costing us money on the wholesale side,” Chamberlain said. “If we can start utilizing our transformers correctly, then we’ll see reduction in that long term.”

Gooden said the town plans to introduce a customer portal that allows residents to monitor their own usage in real time and is also considering a video public service announcement explaining the town’s budget billing option to help residents manage electric costs through seasonal fluctuations. The next round of meter installations, which include a hub to expand meter communication coverage, is scheduled for next week. Chamberlain said the crew plans to begin installing meters in the Oak Hill area once coverage in the core town area is complete.

Budget billing

High used the Nexgrid presentation as an opportunity to encourage Edenton residents to look into the town’s budget billing option for electric service, which averages a customer’s last 12 months of bills and charges the same amount each month regardless of actual usage.

“High electric bills are on everybody’s mind with the winter weather that we’ve had,” High said, adding that the budget bill option can help residents avoid bill spikes during heavy-use months. “Some months, I feel like I hit the lottery … but it’s certainly nice when you have those high usage months in the winter and summer to have a bill that you can handle.”

Gooden said relatively few customers outside of the town limits currently take advantage of the option but suggested the new smart meters could make it more appealing, since customers will soon have access to more consistent, detailed usage data through an upcoming customer portal.

Residents interested in signing up for budget billing can either visit town hall at 400 S. Broad Street or fill out the online application on the town’s website.

Annexation

During the special meeting, the council unanimously approved Ordinance 26-01, annexing 3.54 acres at 316 Old Hertford Road into the town’s corporate limits. Council members Elton Bond and Aaron Coston were absent from the meeting.

The annexation, requested voluntarily by the property owner, will take effect June 30, and the parcel will retain its R-10 residential zoning.

“A lot of times we don’t have people who voluntarily ask to be annexed,” High said. “This property owner has asked to be annexed, and that adds to our tax base and it also adds to our population.”

Water supply plan

The council also adopted a resolution approving the 2025 Local Water Supply Plan, as required by North Carolina General Statute 143-355. High noted that the resolution itself was a new requirement from state regulators.

“We’ve always had a plan, and we’ve never been required to pass a resolution adopting that plan,” he said. “But NCDEQ (North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality) has asked that we begin passing resolutions to approve it.”

The plan will be submitted to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources and revised at least every five years.

Housing authority reappointment

High announced the reappointment of Percy Foxwell to another five-year term on the New Edenton Housing Authority Board of Commissioners. Foxwell’s current term expires at the end of February. The reappointment was requested by New Edenton Housing Authority Executive Director Denise Mercer-Williams in a January letter to the mayor.

Miller praised Foxwell’s contributions. “He’s an asset to the New Edenton Housing Authority. He has somewhat of an intellectual curiosity, always asking questions, very knowledgeable, and I’m so happy he’s seeking another term on that board.”