EDENTON — The Edenton Town Council meets in special session Monday night to launch design work on a new fire station, sort out an easement dispute tied to the old Chowan County jail property, and take up two grant-funded budget amendments, along with committee business on employee mileage rates and the town’s shaky standing with state finance regulators.
When council meets at 6 p.m. in Council Chambers at 504 S. Broad Street, Council’s biggest decision will be whether to approve a request for proposals that would set in motion the design of a new fire station campus, a project years in the making for a department that has long outgrown its current home. The RFP, prepared under the direction of Town Manager Corey Gooden and Special Projects Manager Carlton Jackson, calls for a firm with experience in public safety facilities and historic preservation, since the plan is to fold an existing historic building on the site into the new campus rather than tear it down. That building would be renovated to serve as the department’s administrative offices and public-facing space, including a possible museum area for historic apparatus and memorabilia, while new construction around it would house the working end of the department.
The specifications laid out in the RFP are detailed. The town wants at least six drive-through apparatus bays, tested against a fleet that includes one ladder truck, four fire engines, two pickup trucks with trailers and a utility terrain vehicle, with the design required to show a feasible path to expand to eight bays as the department grows. Bays would need source-capture exhaust systems, floor drains, and high-speed doors, plus a dedicated wash bay and gear-decontamination area built to National Fire Protection Association standards, with contaminated PPE storage and cleaning kept separate from clean linens, sleeping areas and public space.
NICE — Sleeping quarters would be individual or semi-private rooms rather than open bunk-style dormitories, unless the town later approves otherwise. The program also calls for a commercial-grade kitchen capable of handling multiple shifts, a large dining area, a fitness room, and a wellness and recovery space with potential sauna and cold-therapy features — reflecting a broader national push toward firefighter health and decontamination practices. Administrative space would include separate offices for the fire chief, fire marshal and captains, a public lobby with camera monitoring and controlled access, and training and meeting rooms with modern audiovisual equipment.
Given Edenton’s location on the water, the RFP puts heavy emphasis on resiliency. Design teams would be required to work with the town to determine how long the station needs to keep functioning during and after a hurricane, then size backup power and hardened electrical and mechanical systems to match. The RFP also calls for the station to be built with flood-resistant construction where needed and for site drainage designed to handle storm surge and heavy rain, along with protections for critical utilities and equipment.
Firms responding to the RFP will be scored on a 100-point scale, with the heaviest weight — 25 points — going to experience with historic preservation and public safety facilities, followed by 20 points for experience with coastal and emergency-operations facilities. Relevant project experience generally accounts for 15 points, with the remaining points spread across methodology, firefighter wellness and resiliency planning, technical capabilities such as 3D rendering, and the ability to manage cost and schedule. Proposals would also need to address compliance with the federal Build America, Buy America Act, which requires certain project materials to be domestically sourced.
If the council approves the RFP Monday, the town plans to issue it October 5, with proposals due back November 5 and a firm selected by November 23. Project kickoff is targeted for early January.
Also on the special meeting agenda is a request from the North Carolina Department of Administration for a set of easements connected to the state’s planned acquisition of the former Chowan County jail and sheriff’s house, located near 304 Court Street. According to correspondence included in the council’s meeting packet, the state’s real property office has been working with the town and county attorneys to nail down access rights before the state takes possession of the property.
The request breaks down into four parts. First, the state wants clearly written and recorded terms for maintenance easements that already appear on a recorded plat near the jail buildings — a 10-foot and a 5-foot easement that, according to the correspondence, have been discussed for some time without formal terms ever being put in writing. Second, the state wants an additional strip of land, described in the documents as squaring off the back of the parcel, added to that same easement for the same purposes: vehicle access, renovations and general maintenance. Third, the state is asking the town to put in writing an easement through what is currently surface parking but is planned to become a parking deck, intended for larger work vehicles, with language acknowledging the deck is coming and that the space won’t be reserved exclusively for state use. Fourth, and most involved, the state is asking for a driveway easement through the adjoining hotel parcel so staff and visitors can reach designated staff and ADA parking near the jail property. State officials have asked the town to confirm whether that access already exists as a formal recorded easement, or whether it has simply been used informally over the years — in which case the state says it will approach the hotel property owner directly about putting something in writing.
Two budget amendments tied to state grants round out the special meeting. One would add $850,000 to the Electric Fund, recording a Rural Infrastructure Grant from the state Department of Commerce earmarked for lighting improvements. The other would add $125,000 to the General Fund from an Office of State Budget and Management grant that will pay for engineering and design work tied to the Fire Department’s planned renovation project at 115 W. Hicks St. — separate from the new station RFP, and apparently intended for improvements to the department’s existing facility.
Following the special meeting, two council committees are scheduled to convene. The Administration Committee will take up a proposed increase in the town’s mileage reimbursement rate for employees who use personal vehicles for work travel, from the current 70 cents a mile to 76 cents, matching the IRS’s updated standard business rate for the second half of 2026. Gooden is recommending the increase and a matching update to the town’s travel policy.
The Finance Committee will hear a presentation from Gooden and Finance Officer Virginia Smith on the town’s classification under the state’s Unit Assistance List, a designation the North Carolina Treasurer’s Office uses to flag local governments under financial stress. Edenton landed on the list for the second consecutive year after its available general fund balance, measured as a percentage of general fund expenditures, fell to negative 3.18 percent for the fiscal year that ended June 30 — a steep drop from the 8.37 percent recorded the year before, and well below the state’s 34 percent benchmark for financial health.
Town officials characterize the decline as largely a timing issue rather than a structural budget problem, pointing to reimbursements from FEMA, the electric fund and airport capital projects that were still outstanding as of the audit date but have since come in. More than $1.1 million in receivables has been collected since December, according to figures included in the presentation. Because of the classification, the town has been assigned a coach from the Local Government Commission for the coming year, with an initial meeting already held in late September, and both Gooden and Smith are required to complete state-mandated training in fiscal management under the Local Government Finance Act. The presentation also credits a two-year cost-of-service study behind recent electric rate increases — with another round set for next July — with helping stabilize the Electric Fund over time.
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