NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY

1977 SESSION

CHAPTER 1235

SENATE BILL 988

AN ACT TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS TO PERMIT THE INSTALLATION OF A COMPREHENSIVE SECURITY SYSTEM IN THE TRYON PALACE COMPLEX AT NEW BERN.

Whereas, the Tryon Palace Complex at New Bern has been adjudged throughout North Carolina history to be one of the most significant historic properties in the State of North Carolina; and

Whereas, through the interest and the estates of Maude Moore Latham and John and May Gordon Kellenberger of Greensboro the historic Tryon Palace Complex, including many surrounding buildings, has been preserved, restored, and reconstructed giving the State of North Carolina and her citizens one of the most outstanding historic restorations in the nation; and

Whereas, since 1945 through the beneficence of Mrs. Latham and the Kellenbergers the Tryon Palace Commission has expended more than ten million dollars ($10,000,000) of private funds in perfecting this unique complex, all improvements of which have been transferred to the ownership of the State of North Carolina; and

Whereas, believing that the complex should be provided with the most advanced security system available to protect the priceless buildings and their contents, the 1975 Session of the General Assembly appropriated forty thousand dollars ($40,000) for the installation of such a system; and

Whereas, since the appropriated funds will provide less than half the cost of installing the type of security system required, the Tryon Palace Commission has offered to pay from private funds one half the cost of the system (whose current low bid is approximately one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars ($125,000) inclusive of design fees) if the State of North Carolina will pay the remaining half of the cost; and

Whereas, in view of the recent death of May Gordon Kellenberger with the establishment in her will of a fund for the permanent care of Tryon Palace and in honor of the great contributions she made to Tryon Palace both in life and death, it is appropriate that the General Assembly of North Carolina should make possible one of her final objectives for the care and protection of the complex; Now, therefore,

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

Section 1.  There is hereby appropriated from the General Fund to the capital improvement budget of the Division of Archives and History, Department of Cultural Resources, for the fiscal year 1978-79, the sum of twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars ($22,500) to be combined with a previous appropriation of forty thousand dollars ($40,000) and with a like amount of sixty-two thousand five hundred dollars ($62,500) to be provided by the Tryon Palace Commission for the purpose of installing a complete security system in all of the buildings of the Tryon Palace Complex.

Sec. 2.  This act shall become effective July 1, 1978.

In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 16th day of June, 1978.