The State Port Pilot_
OUR TOWN
Yaupon Beach
Commissioner Joe Broyles reports this week that a man sentenced to
perform community service work has committed 60 hours of that ser
vice to Yaupon Beach.
The offender cleaned-up after the Christmas-by-the-Sea parade, has
painted the ABC store trim and has trimmed traffic island plantings.
Town officials report an 87-percent tax collection rate as of this time
and say that is good.
Commissioners Monday transferred funds for the purchase of a new
police car for chief Aubrey Hickman. Funds were also appropriated for
the purchase of a new computer printer at Town Hall.
Town officials Monday granted Southern National Bank permission
to cross under Ocean Drive to establish a nitrification field to service
the former Captain’s Hut restaurant. The bank acquired the restaurant
property in a foreclosure proceeding.
Commissioners refused to allow a petition for a second Oak Island
bridge to be displayed in Town Hall. Although Yaupon Beach has rep
resentatives on a committee to promote a second bridge to the Mid
dleton Street area of Long Beach, commissioners said it was "in
appropriate" to petition the state for the bridge through town offices.
Long Beach
Commissioners and staff are consumed with preparations for the pro
posed March 31 bond referendum to allow public sewer system devel
opment.
Staff is looking at different types of sewer systems. Commissioners
and staff members traveled to Surf City on Monday and went to see
Shallotte’s public wastewater management system on Tuesday.
"You go to see the similarities and the differences and you weigh
them against one another," town manager David Poston said.
Officials are particularly interested in grinder pumps and the relative
benefits of the combination pressure and gravity sewer collection sys
tem consulting engineers Boney and Associates of Raleigh have pro
posed.
Big news in Long Beach Friday is the interlocal government social
commissioners have planned for their counterparts in other
municipalities. Get this: Long Beach will host all elected officials in the
region at a "get-to-know-one-another” affair. Southport, Yaupon
Beach, Caswell Beach, Boiling Spring Lakes, N. C. Baptist Assembly
and Southeast Brunswick Sanitary District officials are expected to at
tend.
Long Beach Volunteer Fire Department has about 30 members right
now. That number is up from 12 at this time last year. Chief Tim
Pittman gets a lot of the credit for recruiting.
Southport
Southport’s rescue squad will sponsor a class to train emergency
medical technicians. Classes will be held at 7 p.m. most Tuesdays and
Thursdays at the squad building on Nash Street with instructors Bill
Sherrod and Ellen Dorsett. Registration must be made by January 16.
A daytime EMT training class is also planned for February. More in
formation can be obtained by calling Dorsett at 457-5493.
U. S. Congressman Charles G. Rose has nominated Southport to
receive the All-American City award. Mayor Norman Holden made the
announcement Thursday night and aldermen directed city staff to pro
ceed with an application process.
Aldermen will travel to Bald Head Island on Saturday, January 25,
for a retreat and first discussion of possible budget strategies for 1992
93. The site of the retreat was secured by alderman Jim Brown at no
cost to the city. He said he had arranged for a home to use on the is
land, through his employment as property manager for the island devel
opment company. Aldermen are to retreat from 9 a.m. to noon and
again from 1 to 3 p.m. The cafe on Bald Head Island will cater the af
fair, Brown said.
In other matters, Holden appointed aldermen Meezie Childs, Bill
Crowe and Bill Delaney to serve as a committee to review a proposed
pay classification plan for city employees.
Southport Volunteer Rescue Squad chief Tom Florkiewicz has asked
the city to purchase two defibrillators for use on city-owned am
bulances.
Caswell Beach
Commissioner Bill Boyd was re-elected mayor pro-tern by his peers
as Caswell Beach commissioners met in regular session Thursday.
Commissioners also noted that violations of the town’s new sign or
dinance in the marsh near the Oak Island bridge have been abated and
the area has been cleaned up.
Caswell Beach’s response to vested property rights legislation
enacted by the state General Assembly in its last session will be the
subject of a public hearing on February 13, as will a proposed develop
ment plat of OceanGreens subdivision’s phases II-IV.
It was announced Caswell Beach has won a Governor’s Highway
Beautification Council Certificate of Appreciation for a clean-up pro
ject on Caswell Beach Road in October, 1991. Commissioners will at
tend a Carolina Power & Light Co. system assessment program on Jan
uary 23, and a U. S. Department of Agriculture representative will pres
ent a program on erosion control and test plantings of beach grass on
January 30. That presentation will be made at 9 a.m. at Town Hall.
In their only formal action Thursday, commissioners approved an in
crease in three-quarter-inch water tap fees from $300 to $350.
The town planning board will meet tomorrow (Thursday) at 7 p.m. to
further review the OceanGreens proposal.
Boiling Spring Lakes
Wetlands will be the subject of discussion when Wayne Wright of the
U. S. Army Corps of Engineers’ enforcement division visits the City of
Boiling Spring Lakes Friday.
Wright is to conduct a session at City Hall at 10 a.m. that day. The
discussion of allowable projects in wetland areas grew out of public
works director Thurston Cumbee’s concern for the impact of mosquito
control projects in areas designated as wetlands. Though Wright is
scheduled to advise the city on that specific concern, Cumbee said all
citizens with questions about wetlands management are invited to pose
their questions to Wright
City Hall will be closed Monday, January 20, in observance of Martin
Luther King’s birthday.
i '
MEMBER
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
ASSOCIATION
Could EMPA
plans for city
short-circuit?
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
A representative of the Eastern
Municipal Power Agency has asked
Southport aldermen to stand good
for four-fifths of one percent of the
projected $ 142-million cost of
building three natural-gas-fired
power generating plants to provide
supplemental power to that 32-city
consortium of municipal power
‘...we're going to
have to go over it
and over it again
before I’m con
vinced it’s the best
thing for the City of
Southport.’
Nelson Adams
Southport alderman
buyers.
The construction of the three
plants — two of them by 1995 and
the third by 1997 — is expected to
save member cities between 0.5 and
2.5 percent of the total cost of sup
plemental power purchases
projected through the year 2010. In
real numbers the savings over that
time will range between S25 million
and $125 million, said Art Huber,
the project manager assigned by
Electricities, the management arm
of the two power agencies operating
See Short-circuit, page 6
By this time in the season seagulls have enticed
flocks of people to visit Waterfront Park each day
fmemm
and either toss food into the air or drop it on the
ground, where it can be easily eaten.
City to answer dispatch call
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
Southport emergency service dis
patchers will be kept on duty at least
until June 30, 1993, aldermen de
cided Thursday night.
That unanimous decision extends
by one year the life of the city police
department’s dispatching effort.
With a county 911 emergency noti
fication system due to come on line
this year, Southport aldermen, in
budget formulation sessions last
year, decided to abandon local dis
patch services in favor of the county
system. The action also comes as
some Southport dispatchers are en
tertaining employment opportunities
with the county’s new emergency
services department.
"Several employees have talked to
me about talking to you about dis
patch," city manager Rob Hites told
aldermen. The deadline for applica
tion for county dispatch jobs is Jan
uary 31, he said. "I understand some
of our local dispatchers would be in
terested in it."
As aldermen debated budget mat
ters in April, May and June of last
Last year, city
manager Rob Hites
estimated the cost of
dispatch services to
be about $120,000
per year
year, they decided city-employed
dispatchers would be released this
month — the original target date for
911 operation from a central dis
patch point near Bolivia.
When construction delays forced
the county to postpone its planned
911 on-line date, aldermen agreed to
retain city-employed dispatchers
through the end of the current
budget year, June 30.
"I’m convinced we need to con
tinue dispatch, so I will move we
continue dispatch in 1992-93,"
alderman Meezie Childs said. Her
motion was seconded by alderman
Bill Crowe.
Mayor Norman Holden said the
action means aldermen were stating
their intent to fund dispatch services
through June 30,1993.
But, aldermen will have to take
one more step to finalize the com
mitment to city dispatch services.
"Basically, all you are doing is ex
pressing your intention," city at
torney Mike Isenberg said. "You’re
going to have to enact a budget or
dinance." By state law, every local
government unit in North Carolina
must adopt balanced budget or
dinances by June 30 of each year.
That means aldermen are by June
going to have to come up with the
cash to pay for dispatch services in
an admittedly tight budget year. Last
year, city manager Rob Hites
estimated the cost of dispatch ser
vices to be about $120,000 per year.
Aldermen scheduled a public hear
ing on the dispatch issue for March
5 at 7:30 p.m. At that time aldermen
will ask county officials to explain
further the proposed 911 emergency
system and will seek input on how
911 and local dispatch efforts will
See Dispatch, page 6
ADM donation helps in
restoring log structure
A $1,000 donation from Archer
Daniels Midland Co. has brought
the Southport Historical Society one
step closer to moving a log structure
which dates back to the early 1800s.
The building was donated to the
historical society nearly two years
Perry Sellers (left), safety coor
dinator/administrative assistant, and Jane Wescott
(right), business manager, present Archer Daniels
Midland’s donation of $1,000 to Don Johnson and
Don Tucker of the Southport Historical Society.
The money will be used to relocate an early-1800s
• log structure to a site near the old Brunswick
County jail in Southport
ago by Pfizer Inc. and still sits on
Pfizer-owned property off N. C.
211, outside Southport city limits.
The company has asked that the
building be moved but funding for
the project, estimated to cost about
$5,000, has not been easy to come
by. President Don Johnson said the
society now has about half the
money in hand and anticipates bor
rowing the rest once bids for the
move are received in the next few
weeks.
The two-story log structure is
believed to date back as far as 1810,
according to the N. C. Division of
Archives and History. Because it
matches the description of early
"shacks" along the Cape Fear River,
it may have been a fisherman’s or
pilot’s home built by ship’s car
penters, Johnson said.
The building was later moved to
its present location, where an 1864
map indicates it served as a school
house on the Old Georgetown Road.
The cedar shingles which now cover
the exterior were added about 1900.
One of its last known uses was as a
tobacco bam.
The society plans to move the
building temporarily to city-owned
property near the old Brunswick
.County jail on Nash Street. Johnson
said he hopes someone will donate
some land where the historic struc
ture can be permanently restored
and serve as an educational facility.