Health Department, DSS moves to new, downtown location

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Gloria Spruill, a child protective services employee for the county's Department of Social Services, moves her supplies into the Edgecombe County Human Services Building Friday morning. For The Daily Southerner

October 29, 2012

Health Department, DSS moves to new, downtown location

The Daily Southerner MIRANDA BAINES The Daily Southerner Mon Oct 29, 2012, 01:54 PM EDT

TARBORO — Teamwork was the name of the game Friday — “moving day” for Edgecombe County’s Health Department and Department of Social Services (DSS) employees.

“It’s great to see how everybody came together for a common cause,” said Derek Sheppard, a solid waste employee for the county. Sheppard was happy to do some heavy lifting, along with several other county maintenance workers, to help get the job done by the end of Friday’s business day.

Earlier that morning, Work First staffers transported carefully labeled boxes of office supplies and rolled copiers up the ramps of the Edgecombe County Human Services Building at the corner of St. Andrew and East St. James Street in Tarboro.

As the afternoon drew to a close, Karen Lachapelle, the county’s health director, commented that the move had gone smoothly.

“Everybody just kind of fell into their job,” she said.

Assistant county manager Eric Evans helped maintenance workers unload large items from the truck Friday afternoon. At one point, county manager Lorenzo Carmon climbed in the truck and grabbed a dolly loaded with boxes as staffers cheered him on. He said his plan was to have the human services building operational for today’s business day.

Standing six stories, the human services building is the tallest structure in the county and has the capability of housing all 200 health and DSS employees under one roof, Carmon said.

“We’ve got facilities that we’ve literally outgrown,” he said. (Health and DSS workers previously were housed in one of two separate buildings or in trailers that were added to the property.) Lachapelle said the old health department was set up like a public health department from the 1980’s and 1990’s, and the space in the new building is set up to take patients by appointment.

“It’s more efficient than what we had,” she said. Carmon’s goal is that the newly-acquired building will take care of the needs of the office for the next 25 or 30 years.

“We’re just fortunate that we were able to take 80,000 square feet and reuse it,” said Carmon.

“This building could have been added to the inventory [of vacant downtown buildings], but we’re glad it’s not. Even with the downturn of the economy, this project was a shot in the arm for Edgecombe County.”

Carmon said the 1971 building was offered to the county at a “good bargain” from the telephone company (Embarq) and the county could not have constructed a new building equally equipped to handle the needs of the office at a comparable cost.

“The telephone companies have always been good corporate citizens and this is another example,” said Carmon.

He said he wants the building to be a “one-stop shop” for county citizens — a place where they can apply for Medicare and Medicaid, have a pre-employment drug screening, and, eventually get their teeth cleaned once plans to relocate the dental unit on Western Boulevard to the new office building are complete.

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Carlos Vivas takes a close look at a grave marker in the Community Cemetery in Princeville. Vivas along with several other volunteers meet Saturday in an effort to discuss methods of restoring the cemetery back to perpetual condition.

Monumental task
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Edgecombe Events May 23
Edgecombe Events should be submitted by noon the day before publication. Items eligible include notices of local meetings and activities of non-profit organizations, clubs, schools and civic groups in the community. Information should be brief and typewritten, neatly printed or via e-mail. Questions? 823-3106 or e-mail: events@dailysoutherner.com. Leave a daytime contact phone number.

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