Lonnle Sprinkle ? - ? <*i?liiiiiir ft ????win PAGE 4 -A, THURSDAY, MAY S. 1994 Three Towns, Different Issues, Same Questions Call it growing pains or call it coincidence, but all three South Brunswick Islands beach towns have experienced recent public discord between the people and their elected representa tives. ? At Holden Beach, residents and property owners are com plaining about the process by which a new mayor pro tem and commissioner were selected after Mayor Wally Ausley passed away. Gay Atkins appropriately was chosen to serve as mayor; she'd been named mayor pro tem after the November election because she was top vote-getter among commissioner candidates. But the board disregarded (radition and failed to appoint Commissioner David Sandifer, the next highest vote-getter in November, as mayor pro tem; its members then ignored the logi cal suggestion ?o appoint Jeff 1 who lost the election by osly three votes, to fill the empty commissioner seat Instead, Com missioner Sid Swarts was named mayor pro tem, and Maiiam? Thomas, who did not run for election in November, was appoint ed to the board. One resident who wrote to this newspaper called it a "obvi ous railroading job" and a "pre-planned set-up to.. .override the voters' choice." The town's first mayor, John Holden, argued that the commissioners "ignored the votes of the residents of Holden Beach." Still another writer is "confident (the com m issinnerc) will continue to take more heat and hopefully (be) ousted" in the next election. The Holden Beach beard thus far K-'j. takes so public mea sures to explain its actions to the disgruntled townspeople, nor have any townspeople used this newspaper's forum to voice sup port for the board's choices. ? At Ocean Isle Beach, commissioners must decide whether to replay on May 10 their earlier 3-to-2 vote to leave the planning board at five members and allow the two extraterritorial area rep resentatives to vote Gu all towfi planning ami tuning matters. The board's April action contrasted sharply with the expressed feel ings Of those speaking at n public hearing en' the action. Five spoke, all in opposition; none spoke in favor. "Who are the commissioners representing?" asked one writer. Another proposed that "three members of the planning hrvarrl rram fmm n>?iHrntc orKn am nnt in?nlv>H direct!" CT ?sd? rectly, with the development of Ocean Isle." Commissioners Kendall Suh and Ken Proctor argued that it is a commissioner's job to do what the townspeople say they want done, and not to adopt a "we-know-bettcr-than-you" attitude to ward municipal government it will be interesting to see on Tbesday whether any of their colleagues have come around to that way of thinking, too, and if this issue serves as a catalyst to intensify public input on municipal government there. ? At Sunset Beach, whnr mmdtfnn tn tlv Inum rnnnril *? organized and ever-predictable, battles are fought not just with letters but with lawsuits. There, the issues are more of the big picture type: Will a new bridge and/or a sewer system ruin a trea sured way of life, or are they necessary to protect public health ??! ?mViy in > inuni nrnmb can't help being attracted to? Cbaacg says it's willing to amass a war chest to defend itself against a threatened Sunset Beach Taxpayers Association lawsuit to halt the sewer system. A dear majority of voters gave the sewer plan their approval in h?? reces! efeciics, but council is bcisg mXm *> u. ^ IX ?_a_a_ * |v ?l. .A -J- - -i - *- J uuuc iiku ouahuiuwk um uuijr i u mc vuicis wuu wcucti id members, but to the thousands of property owners who don't live there and can't wn?? these . All three instances illustrate the eternal question for those we elect to represent us: Does icpreacnting us mean we invest you with the power to act in what you deem to be our best interests? Or does it mean you set aside your personal convictions and bias es and do what it appears a majority of us want you to do? They're tough questions, but nobody said it would be easy. OuICmmS wvaaO caawaa't fviilsu^ wD uj tv 5SSUCS aaC?MJ~~Oli now are likely to be forced to do so at election time. GUEST COLUMN New In Education: Advise Or Dissent BY THOMAS C- O00U5Y There s x new xauvement afoot in public education and, at fint gj?rr it seems to be in Ike right direction. Bat of all it does not involve hiring move bureaucrats or Tie new movement la parental ? it's not rimotv more oawimwiiifji for PTA gripe sessions or fond-rais ers sold as parental involvement. The latest invention for getting par ents l?w 4 in the public educa tion Iwmw * As the education technocrats fi that the sjmen i^nkL and?k?t gtfting any better, attempts are siowty nfiig mine vo aeccouiuK mm mmum zyassn. r is ?? ftts whs sss numb from complaining may finally have a rhinnr to* voice an opinion in tin ihi iiitn mutiag jwnrnm Hundreds of schools across the ?w jjwjgmig *w. est advisory tesass to "advise"' the trfHwl nthontiet oo important it sues audi as atndent safely, course ?election* and (be creation of ap pi enlicnhip propann. However, these parent gronps have no official Aoriijr lowing ,7i u reside with the Wa** |L- - ITS,, , ?? *^?4 nnncmiiR mn n* ipmhv ?s* imjm school arhnmisimurs find it bard not to listen. Maybe a lesson in reai power is starting to kick in ? parents ate vot ers and tan pa yen*, and many of theni don 't leei that they are getting their money's worth of education for their children. If no ?"* listens to the concerned parents, then they may take matters into their own hands at the polling booth by electa^ "radical" school ? Ft m !? ? ? I t I ? T ?? I ? i SSSU ZSSTSSSSZ VsZSO SSSSpzy dean hor? "Has is the biggai km for the education bureancrats. As move and more parents get in volved in the government-ran edo catice systsss ssd sse whs: s sssss we have, one an only hope that these moras and dads will roll op their sleeves ?d go to work. The public schools must realize that the advice of parents is much better than Currently, the U.S. spends more money par student on education than wiy ffimwtfy ?w annm* Switzerland, and gets leas back for iL If simply spending large sums of but dollars were the answer, we would be heading towards raising a nation cf Rintrin;. rn fcsr thsa s land of Jugheads. Caring and concerned parents who will force public education to "do its job or dee" are our beat hope for raising future generations who sure givers rather than "uneducated taken and Mr. Goolsby, an attorney, lives in Wilmington and is m low sor at Campbell University Waste Is A Good Thing To Mind A mother called a comervitivt radio show a few weeks ago to com plain about The Planeteeta," a tele vised cartoon program whoae credits indicate its idea originated with Mom worried that kids ate being indoctrinated with an anti-capitalist bus hy Hw> -???-*? rr!L- ^ characters like rat-Awed monsters and snaggle-toothed villains who operate in concert with earth-fouling industries to spill oil and spew tox ins throughout the world. The Planeteers, a group of ethni cally diverse adolescents accoasju nied by a pet chimp, possess magic rings which bear the powers of "earth, wind, water, fire and heart!" They touch their magic rings togeth er to summon "Captain Planet," who rushes in to save rain forests and blow poisonous clouds off into spate. Ai ihc end, a buxom brunette Mother Earth appears to dispense pearls of wisdom on topics as di verse as composting and gang vio lence. It i? a bit much. I can't help won der if young children are capable of sorting out the fantasy of evil mutant subhumans with rodent tails from the heady idealism of a world free of filth, greed, destruction and waste. Lynn Carlson i But it's probably safe to assume that by the time they reach college age, ntasy of those boys and girts will have figured out that while oil com passes ssd defense contractor; psy good wages to smart engineers, the classified ads aren't exactly brim ming with listings for tree-huggcrs. They say we're bringing up a generation of eco-tots who come home from school to educate their parents about the difference in HDra and FETE plastics ? kids bearing mimeographed maps to all the county convenience sites. And while I can't help sharing the radio mom's discosafort with the anii business message, I'm glad kids have become conscious of the need to "reduce leum mH wrvrl? " ? the catch-phrase goes. It's not, after all, a radical new notion that waste is a bad thing ? not just environmentally, but morally and fiscally. In my own lifetime, we've made much rongrcM in some areas and re gressed shamefully in others. In grammar scbuui i often rode in can driven by my friends' parents who would encourage us to throw our wiiik Dud boxes and Lance cracker wnmwn nut rhe window so we didn't trash up the family station wagon. On the other hand. I can remem ber struggling to the J&J Superette with a six-pack fiiU of empty Pepsi bottles to get 18 cents credit from the proprietor. (This was at least a decade before Pepsi opened a large cannery in my town to produce the "Tfcste of the Carolinas" in wildly popular disposable aluminum cans.) If fhllcs back then were less than foresighted about chucking ihcii leavings onto the roadside, our el ders had their own and their parents' experiences with leaner times to keep tuCtu frugal. A neighbor of ours would send over little gifts of cookies or brown is: ss ?L=tk fcs-T. supcrrr^rtc; trays which had once held meat from the supermarket She washed every one and found a new use for it My generation seems w wmm been skipped by the " make-it-do, I use-it-again" ethic After ail, we came along in the age is which you flicked vow Bic m threw ii ?way ? the era cf tfcs 19 ctni ball point pen and cheap dirpossbfc ra zors. During my formative yean, pia.MK luio IM Lyijf ?? placed wax-paper wrapped sticks of butter, plastic nibs of Cool Whip supplanted real whipping cream and plastic Zip-Loc bags look over far reusable freezer containers. And though there must be others like roc, who'u love iiOihiiig iSwc than to have the time to preserve oar own home-grown freshly picked veggies in sterile Ball jars, the reali ty of our lifestyle necessitates Mop ping by the store a couple of times a week to pick up a Stouffer *s spinach souffle ? to bs ???!cr kg I handy plastic container which is not iocally recyclable. While it's okay to be proud of ourselves for taking the effort to clutter up our back porches and spare rooms with recycling bins, we I use need to fpvc o?sr o?vn !m| ? I iiniiiw I urv uiu ubuni CWMBN WRAH-HSKT UP TO ELECTION IW1 WOW-HW/OTAttBW* '| CWBUSN^F? IMEEtKIMN?! ? He Left Us Stronger Overseas, But Wounded, Divided At Home ??*? ? tJu m mtf . . ...9 . _ imi Kwnirrj wwivuiNV tununv Hfe'w finally on our own This j mucr / hear the drumming Four dead in Ohio ? Graham Nash No one wtio came of age during the tumultuous 1960a and 70a could IOIWW# tfcft rtMf 37e5e President Whether you supported or de spised him, you couldn't name a leader ia the past half century who had a move significant impart on America ? both positive and nega tive ? than Richard Milhous Nixon. In the deferential days following his passing, amidst images of the flag-draped coffin and 21 -gun nonnaiKZwoo of rcunoos. lutt mooths later, Nixon md Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the first Strategic Anna limitation (SALT) Treaty Paradoxically, by playing the "China cant." Nixon also exploded tL. ? . . ,?L , * iL ? H S- - ? M . J 7 . , ^ jjjjjj jjjjj w?j5 in mortal oonflict with a monolithic "Communist bloc" of nations bent on smothering democracy world wide, a belief that fueled a foreign ? ? *a_ on ftAA |MUtJ MM WlttUI UIINC III? OU,UUV American Uvea were sacrificed in Which brings as to the tarnished side of Ninon's legacy. He ccrtainly _ ^ n ri a t ? * M ? - L J? ? S ctraoo nxsiortcai pviiK ioc fits cnpto matic achievements. Bat Nixon also continued a policy of sending tfanu deaths in V^rt^^ilf'wa^ng'aa illegal guerrilla war at home against his political rivals. When Ninon waa elected presi dent in 1968, there were a half-mil lion U.S. troops in Vietnam. Yet we were no closer to victory than we had been five yean earlier. Sensing Assrist's wtarlsec of the cor.f.ict, politicians were nawi>!in? to sp prove the massive escalation neces sary to win. The rtsin? cf ssti-Vnu scuti meet gave such momentum to the "Peace Now" candidacy of Eugenr. McCarthy that President Lyndon Johnson was forced to withdraw from his re-election bid. If not been for the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the Democratic Partv's mK HMjrecsiss zl the CTiicagn convention, it is very likely that a different iTUi president would have been elected, one who pledged to withdraw from Vietnam immedi ately. Instead we get Richard Nixon and four more years of U.S. casual ties (21,000 during hi? presidency). No event did more to deepen the ? wjv emm between genera tions than the ugliness of Campaign 1968. (Except perhaps for the fatal shooting of four student war protest ers by National Guard troops at Kent State University two yean later.) By then, those outside his so called "silent majority" saw the Nixon administration as a gang of ULl-.Il., -*TpirrtCM his contempt for youthful critics through his attack-dog Vice Presi dent Spiro Agnew, who publicly de rided w ? "naM^ring nabobs of neg auvam" ana ~an effete corps of im pudent snobs." So it cane as no great surprise to many when Agnew was exposed for taking bribes and Nixon's henchmen were caught burglarizing the Demo <:ratic party headquarters. All the sordid details of Water Olfr? At JJjj *^- j"' ? ?n# hush money payments, the domestic spying, the "dirty tricks campaign." the other burglary at Daniel Ells berg's psychiatrist's office? merely proved what some had assumed about Nixon all along. Faced with certain impeachment, Nixon resigned "to spare the na uun." Then he had himself spared from vn mi 11 n prosecution possi ble imprisonment by the man he ap pointed after Agnew resigned in aia g> Ke lt will be for future historians to decide whether the positive effects of Nixon's diplomatic ventures out weigh the damage he did to America during the Watergate era. The rip ples of both continue to radiate to day. Who can say how long the Soviet empire would have lasted without Nixon's brilliant China-policy flank ing maneuver? We would certainly feel a lot more nervous today about North Korea's refusal to allow nu clear weapons inspections if Nhr?? hadn't broken the ice with the Chinese (who sided with Kmea amin* United Nation* tmnps the last time around). Nixon's effect on American poli tics is easier to measure and impos sible to ignore. His lies to Congress and Us ille gal attempts to thwart the Whteig m investigation deepened Americana' distrust of public officials. His "eae mies list" of ana ite investigative lepomng brought down his presidency ed a generation of news gatherers who constantly assume the wont of all ndasias. The Gary Hart affair. The Con gressional humiliations of Supreme Court Justice nominees Robert Both and Clarence Thomas. The lran Contra investigations. And now the witch-hunt into the Clintons' White water land dealings All have their roots in the skeoticum spswssd fey Watergate. Richard Nixon may have luinght us a momentary edge in post- World War II geopolitics. Bat we paid dearly forte.