Page 4 The Shoreline January 2009
Street Address
Continued from Page 1
The requests for voluntary action have
yeilded few results. With this in mind
the board of commissioners this past
September amended the street ordinance
to make it mandatory that a post bearing
the house number be placed at a specific
spot next to the driveway of a residence.
The amendment provided for a three-
month compliance period. There was
not much of a stir immediately following
passage of the new requirement, but as
the compliance date, December 9, drew
closer, elected officials started to get more
and more phone calls from homeowners
complaining that for one reason or another
the requirements were too restrictive.
Many reported it would be impossible
to place the post as specified because an
impediment existed. Time was also a
concern because owners of second homes
who had not been in the area for the past
several months were not aware of the
requirements or the deadline. A frequent
complaint was that a mailbox prominently
displaying the house number was already
doing the job the post would do. And,
Commissioner Vince Larson reported,
some volunteer firefighters opposed the
change because it required the numbers to
be posted too far back from the street.
Faced with a goodly number of legitimate
concerns, the board of commissioners
decided to revisit the issue. They did so at
the board's December 9 regular meeting
with the passage of an amendment to
the earlier amendment that it is hoped
will clear the way for compliance. The
new requirements by and large follow
language suggested by Commissioner
Ted Lindblad.
For one thing, mailboxes qualify as long
as the numbers on them are easily visible
from the street and they are in the right
place. There is an exception, addressed by
a suggestion from Commissioner Clark
Edwards. If all mailboxes are on one side
of the street, as is the case in many spots
in PKS, then a separate post bearing the
address must be placed on each respective
property "no closer than six (6) feet and
no farther than ten (10) feet from the street
pavement..." The earlier amendment
required a placement no closer than ten
feet to the roadway, too far back in the
minds of many, including Police Chief
Joey Culpepper.
The time constrictions were also
addressed, with a new compliance date
of next April 30 being set, providing time
to try to insure that even out-of-towners
are brought up to date. The board also
provided a pretty painless method of
complying for those who have to install
a numbers display. Homeowners may
request, either in writing or by phone,
that town fire/EMS staffers install, for
a reasonable fee, a sign that satisfies
the ordinance. Fire Chief Bill Matthais
suggested that that fee be $30.
As for the numbers themselves, they
must be at least three inches high and be
of contrasting color to the background
on which they are mounted. Reflective
numbers are recommended.
S)id yxui JOtow?
PKS has a Heritage Tree designation program. In a town known for its beautiful
trees, the program is important because it encourages participation in the recognition
and preservation of our unique environment. Any person may nominate a tree to
be designated as a Heritage Tree. A tree is officially identified as a Heritage Tree
upon a finding by the PKS Community Appearance Commission (CAC) that it is
unique and important to the town for any of the following characteristics:
• It is an outstanding specimen of a desirable species
• It is one of the largest or oldest trees in PKS or NC
• It has a distinctive form, size, age or location
• It has historical significance
For further information or to make application contact CAC Heritage Tree committee
member Kathy Werle 725-2211.
Energy Drive
Continued from Page 1
comparisons started in August were
more than 18 percent greater than the
November increase of 11 percent. There
is hope for better cooperation from Old
Man Winter in the next few months.
The goal of the energy conservation
campaign is to achieve an overall
reduction of 10 percent in electrical usage
in the community by next July. To help
promote conservation on the part of
residents a tip on practical ways to use
electricity more efificiently is published
each month in The Shoreline.
The Tip of the Month for January,
you will note, suggests keeping the
thermostat in your home at 68 degrees
for a satisfactory comfort level and a
good degree of efficiency. CCEC, which
compiled the list of tips, once again
stresses the importance of changing the
filters in your home HVAC system. Your
heat pump will have a lot less work to do
if it doesn't have to contend with clogged
filters.
Changing a couple of filters regularly
might not seem like something that will
add up to real savings in energy. That
would probably be true if it only occurred
in a house here and there. But consider
if almost everyone in town followed
the practice. On that kind of scale small
things can add up to big savings pretty
quickly.
While small things are really important
when it comes to conserving electrical
energy in our homes, CCEC and the
other electric cooperatives in the state
recently took a big step toward moving
the nation along the road to energy
independence. All of the North Carolina
electric generating and transmission
organizations are under a state mandate to
achieve specific levels of conservation on
two fronts, first by phasing in renewable
energy resources such as wind and solar
and second by promoting efficient use
of electricity.
The conservation component of the
equation is well on the way through
programs such as that in Pine Knoll
Shores. The renewable resources part
of the mandate presents real challenges
because facilities such as large scale
wind and solar farms are still being
perfected and developed and will not
be readily available in this section of the
country until they can be effectively and
affordably put to use.
To help meet their renewable resources
mandates the North Carolina cooperatives,
through their statewide organization,
recently banded together with electric
consortiums from five other sections of
the country to participate in operation
of a large wind farm that recently
began generating power in Iowa. In
return for their participation the electric
cooperatives involved will receive
certificates that can be used as credits
towards compliance with their renewable
resources mandates.
CCEC General Manager Craig Conrad
said that "this project, while located in
Iowa, presents an opportunity to gain
further insight into large-scale wind
energy resources, an option not currently
available in North Carolina." He added
that it is "an important addition to the
participating cooperatives' portfolios of
renewable resources."
CCEC also announced it is furthering i ts
renewable resources efforts in many other
ways, including providing customers with
information on the operation of facilities
they can install at their homes to further
the drive toward energy independence.
Among other things, a demonstration,
residential-scale solar PV system is being
installed at the cooperative's main office
and output data from a residential wind
turbine installed by a member on Harkers
Island is available on the CCEC website,
www.carteretcravenelectric.coop
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