SALISBURY — Rowan County resident Joe Teeter and his wife, Donna, on Tuesday became the first people to write a check for a portion of legal fees commissioners must pay in a federal prayer lawsuit.

Teeter presented a check and a CD to the Rowan County Board of Commissioners during Tuesday’s meeting. The check was for $100. He said the CD shows a tour of the U.S. Capitol that proves there were weekly church services in the building when Thomas Jefferson was president.

“My wife and I would like to thank you for the hard-fought battle,” Teeter said about the suit. “The day after the Alamo was fought, it looked really ugly. The battle that we are fighting, for the truth, we know who wins in the end.”

Teeter said the check was a “small token” to help pay the prayer suit’s bill.

Rowan County’s total bill for legal fees is $285,000 — an amount that will be paid to the North Carolina ACLU, which represented three Rowan County residents in the prayer suit. The case started in North Carolina’s Middle District court, where the commissioners’ prayer practices from 2007 to 2013 were ruled unconstitutional; continued into the 4th District Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel ruled the prayer practices constitutional; and was appealed a second time to all 15 judges for the 4th Circuit, which ruled 10-5 in 2017 that the prayer practices were unconstitutional.

The commissioners appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in 2018 the court declined to take the case. That left the 4th Circuit’s 10-5 ruling in place and commissioners on the hook for legal fees incurred by the ACLU. Commissioners were represented at no cost by the National Center for Life and Liberty.

Others have offered to help pay for legal fees incurred by the county — including Cornerstone Church Pastor Bill Godair, who offered $10,000 — but Teeter’s is the first to come in, said Commissioners Chairman Greg Edds, who declined to comment further.

Instead of donating to the county, Godair says he spent the money on items such as billboards in support of the commissioners.

Asked Tuesday, Commissioner Craig Pierce and County Attorney Jay Dees said they are unsure whether county government could accept a donation from a church to help pay for legal fees in the prayer suit.

Asked about Teeter’s donation, County Manager Aaron Church said commissioners could accept it. Church said Teeter’s check would be deposited within 24 hours into the county’s general fund, from which a number of expenses are paid. However, county staff at the request of the person donating can earmark the money for a specific purpose, Church said.

Finance Director Leslie Heidrick said the staff plans to pay for the $285,000 in legal fees out of a risk management fund. The Board of Commissioners can ask that Teeter’s donation be directed into the same fund, Heidrick said.

After Tuesday’s meeting, Pierce told the Salisbury Post that he believes the prayer lawsuit and resulting $285,000 in legal fees to be a more worthwhile proposition than a number of previous county endeavors. It’s roughly $2 per resident, Pierce said.

Saying he wasn’t speaking only of the commissioners in office, Pierce said Rowan County has “wasted a whole lot more than that” on other projects in the past.

In other business on Tuesday:

• The commissioners approved a tax incentive package for an unnamed business that’s considering Rowan County for a $45 million, 35-job expansion.

The number of jobs and total investment accompanying the expansion, code-named “Project Care,” has dipped from last year — when the job figure was 59 and investment total was $68 million.

Rowan County Economic Development Corp. Vice President Scott Shelton said the decrease is not due to decision-making at the local level. The transfer of a production line from elsewhere — which would result in $20 million in investment and 20 jobs — has been “put on hold indefinitely.”

Still, by the end of 2022, the unnamed company is projected to employ 254 people in Rowan County.

Commissioners Vice Chairman Jim Greene said the business in question is a “very stable member of the community already” and that the expansion would further straighten its presence in Rowan County.

The incentive package will rebate 75 percent of taxes assessed on new property value over a five-year period. If the company does not meet projected enrollment numbers, Dees said, the tax incentives could be prorated.

In a presentation on Tuesday, Shelton said Rowan County would collect $1.35 million in taxes over the five years and provide tax incentives of $1.01 million

• Commissioners voted to rename three roads in the area of an Interstate 85 exit under construction in south Rowan County.

As a result, what’s now Old Beatty Ford Road will be split in two, bisected by I-85 once a bridge is removed. The west side of Old Beatty Ford Road will become an extension of nearby Bostian Road, which affects more than two dozen addresses.

On the east side, the name will be Chalk Maple Road, named after a grove of a type of tree nearby. That renaming affects three dozen addresses.

The new road, on which an interstate exit will be located, will be called Old Beatty Ford Road.

A section of Lentz Road will also be named Old Beatty Ford Road, which affects about 14 addresses.

• The commissioners approved a rezoning of a two-acre tract at 5025 U.S. 601 from rural residential to neighborhood business.

The Rowan County Planning Department staff report states Traci Kinser has owned the property since 2006 and sells playground equipment and mulch. Kinser is seeking the rezoning to increase the operational area of the business and add other commercial uses to the property.

The property is in Rowan County’s Franklin community, north of Salisbury.