At the end of December, the Board of Commissioners unanimously issued an ultimatum to selected Sampson’s municipalities — unless they adopted resolutions regarding fire and building inspections in line with state law, such inspections would cease in those towns on March 1.

Some municipalities had already adopted resolutions at that time — Newton Grove, Roseboro and Clinton — while several others had not.

Earlier this week, interim county manager Susan Holder said the towns of Autryville, Salemburg and Garland had since adopted resolutions requesting the county perform inspection responsibilities within their municipal planning and zoning jurisidictions. The only two remaining towns, Turkey and Harrells, had the matter on tap for their next meetings.

“Both of those boards have it on their next possible agenda,” Holder noted.

The county voted to cease inspections unless the towns provided the county with action taken by their respective boards to adopt the new arrangement. Notice of the impending action was also to be sent to the towns.

Each of the resolutions adopted by the municipalities states that any county inspector exercising the duties of an inspector within the municipality shall be considered a municipal employee. As such, the municipality will have any potential liability for those inspections as it does with an employee of the town, the county will not.

The Sampson County Board of Commissioners signed off of Newton Grove, Clinton and Roseboro in December. It approved requests from Autryville, Salemburg and Garland at its meeting Monday.

Officials said the county’s ordinances simply do not apply in any of the municipalities. When inspections are conducted within the municipalities, the county’s inspectors are enforcing the building and fire codes on behalf of those municipalities.

“When a fire inspector is conducting a fire investigation in the municipality, he’s not doing it for the county, he’s doing it for the town,” former manager Rick Moorefield explained in December. “This (resolution) acknowledges while he’s doing that work, he’s essentially a municipal worker. If he did something wrong, he was not doing a county function. It was a municipal service.”

Chris Berendt can be reached at 910-592-8137, ext. 121, or by email at sicrime@myclintonnc.com.