WHITE LAKE — The White Lake Town Council voted unanimously to adopt a resolution of support for the construction of a new correctional facility in Bladen County. Councilman James Melvin was absent from the meeting.

“We were contacted and advised by the Department of Corrections they are looking for sites for a new facility to be erected about April 2015,” said Mayor Goldston Womble.

According to Womble, the new facility is projected to have about 1,000 beds.

“We have asked our engineers to check and see if we can accept the increased water and sewer,” said Womble.

The new facility is expected to bring about 300 jobs with benefits to the area. According to Womble, Senator Tony Rand and Rep. William Brisson are both working with the town on the project.

According to the resolution, the state owns about 400 acres of land adjacent to the current facility at White Lake. The resolution requests the N.C. DOC consider locating the new facility on that property.

Both the Elizabethtown Council and the Bladen County Board of Commissioners have already adopted similar measures.

In other business, the council voted unanimously to approve a resolution requesting an act by the legislative delegation in Raleigh to sponsor a local act to revise the town’s charter during the 2009 N.C. legislative session.

Womble told the board the town’s charter has not been updated since 1951 and is in “serious need of revision.”

According to Womble, some of the revisions needing to be made to the charter pertain to the town’s current form of government, corporate boundaries, method of election and a listing of the town’s officers and employees.

The request to amend the charter was originally presented at the town’s November meeting but was tabled to allow the town staff time to verify that property owned by Clearwater Enterprises had been properly annexed into the town’s corporate limits. According to Womble, the staff determined the parcel was duly annexed on Oct. 11, 2005.

The board voted unanimously in favor of the request.