Wilmington City Council awards two Medals of Valor, approves $2.4M+ in roadway improvements

The Wilmington City Council held a meeting on Tuesday night, approving every item on the agenda.

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The Wilmington City Council held a meeting on Tuesday night, approving every item on the agenda.

One of the first items on the agenda was the recognition of a handful of city employees, including two Wilmington Police officers who were awarded the Medal of Valor.

The first recipient was Sergeant David Pellegrino. During a routine traffic stop, he came upon a man who was in distress and had a gun in his lap. The man told the sergeant he had planned to point his gun at him to attempt suicide by cop. Pellegrino managed to de-escalate the situation. The man surrendered the gun and Pellegrino went with him to the hospital for evaluation.

This was Sergeant Pellegrino’s third Medal of Valor.

The second recipient was Lieutenant Joe LaChapelle. After a shots fired incident, Lieutenant LaChapelle was in a car pursuit of the suspect. In order to get the car to stop, the lieutenant used a technique called a “PIT maneuver” to get the car to stop. This caused the car to turn fully around and Lieutenant LaChapelle used his own car to push the suspect’s car into some parked cars to keep the suspect inside their vehicle.

Mayor Saffo says LaChapelle put himself in danger to keep the community safe. LaChapelle says he believes the man getting away was more dangerous than attempting to forcefully stop him.

“It’s a great honor. I mean, they don’t give these awards out every day so I’m extremely appreciative to the department for recognizing me,” LaChapelle said.

Lieutenant LaChapelle has worked with the department for 17 years and this was his second Medal of Valor.

The council then moved on the pubic hearing portion of the meeting.

One item being discussed was a rezoning request that allowed a commercial mixed-use property on Oleander Drive. The council had voted unanimously to approve the development that would be part commercial, part residential with a small percentage of the residential piece being workforce housing.

One condition was the workforce housing had to be the “same as” the market value housing. The developer asked to clarify this after the council voted, sparking a debate about how similar the workforce housing should be to the market value housing. The board ultimately approved the item, with the condition that the workforce units would be “reasonably comparable to” the market value housing.

The council approved several other items including:

• Reducing the speed limit to 25 from 35 in the Clearbrook neighborhood
• The withdrawal of the request for proposal to redevelop the old Wave Transit Maintenance building on Castle Street to create affordable housing. This was because an agreement was not reached with the developer. City staff is not redrafting a new request for proposal.
• Allowing the city manager to request an additional $2.4-million from the WMPO with a required $600,000 match from the city for the Hooker Road multi-use path, Hinton Avenue multi-use path, and Wrightsville Avenue/Greenville Avenue intersection improvements.