Volume 61/ Number 44 Southport, N.C. June 17,1992 / 50 cents
Nothing final yet on budget
Poston will leave Long Beach post
By Jim Harper
Staff Writer
Saying he was approaching the end of a two-year trial
period and "it’s time to move on,” Long Beach town
manager David Poston Tuesday night announced he’ll be
leaving the position with a target date of August 6.
Poston, who came to the Long Beach job on September
17, 1990, revealed his plans after informing the council
in an executive session during Tuesday’s long evening of
governmental considerations.
Starting with a budget workshop, moving into two pub
lic hearings and the regular monthly council meeting,
then on to a second sitting of the workshop group, the
council recessed until June 25, and went home with an
empty manager’s post foremost in their minds.
Poston went home, as he noted while packing his
papers after the meeting, "happy to be the first town
manager to leave Long Beach not being fired or resign
ing under pressure."
In his announcement Poston said his two-year contract
was coming up for renewal, and he was asking for no
renewal.
"My decision is a result of a two-year evaluation," he
said. "When I came down (from an assistant manager’s
post in High Point) I made an agreement with myself to
try it for two years. Now the two years are up. We’ve
made lots of progress, done lots of good things.
"My decision not to seek a renewal of my contract is
not because of politics, not because of personnel matters
or individuals in the audience or members of the board.
It’s the perfect time to leave — everything is going
good."
Mayor Joan Altman said Poston surprised her with his
decision earlier Tuesday.
"I feel he’s done a very fine job for Long Beach," she
said. "We’ll miss him and his talents. And I appreciate
his efforts to make as smooth as transition as possible."
While the 26-year-old Poston identified August 6 as his
proposed date of departure, he said he would be available
to stay longer to aid in the transition to new management.
Apparently ready to take a new job but unwilling to
discuss it, Poston said after the session he was "not at
liberty to say" where he might work next, and at other
moments said he had "plenty of options to consider" and
that he was "very well taken care of."
The council budget session which started at 6 p.m. was
recessed for intervening matters and finally ended around
11:30 p.m. with the group in accord over the cuts and ad
ditions they’d made, but not precisely sure what they
See Poston leaves, page 6
Long Beach town manager David Poston packs
his papers after Tuesday night’s council session.
Wayne Strickland is one of many volunteers preparing the South
port Maritime Museum for opening on June 27. The display of model
rnoio Dy jim narpcr
ships and array of flags were donated to the museum by the late Her
bert Franck.
City ‘holds line’ with budget
By Holly Edwards
County Editor
"This budget is basically a hold
the-line budget," Southport city
manager Rob Hites said Thursday
night during a public hearing on the
proposed budget for fiscal year
1992-93. "The board’s priority was
to get through the recession and then
look at expansion.... We’re pretty
much stuck with the budget we’ve
got"
The board will approve the final
version of the budget on Tuesday,
June 23, at 7:30 p.m.
This year’s proposed $5,788,395
budget is about $500,000 less than
last year’s total, Hites said, and
there are no recommended increases
in taxes, utility fees, water fees,
sewer fees or sanitary disposal rates.
In fact, he said, the sanitary rates
will decrease from $9.60 to $9.05
monthly, and a new curbside recy
cling program would be added. The
tax rate would be maintained at 58
cents per $100 of assessed property
value.
"Sanitation pick-up is recom
mended to be made mandatory,"
Hites said. "Everyone will have to
pay for loose trash and recycling
pick-up whether they use the service
or not" Some residents who don’t
receive city sanitation services have
been putting their trash in local
dumpsters, he said.
During the public hearing, one
Southport resident complained that
people from out of town were driv
ing into Southport early in the mom
ing or late at night and depositing
their trash in residents’ garbage
cans.
"Is the board aware that people
outside the City of Southport are
bringing in their trash and putting it
in my containers?" asked Leila
Pigott. "It’s alarming. I was just
stunned."
Another resident said she wouldn’t
mind paying more taxes if it would
mean improved operation of the
city. Ruth Law said she fell down on
an unrepaired city sidewalk for the
second time at the same place.
"I called Rob Hites out of a meet
ing to see my bloody elbow," said
Law. "If I had been a tourist, I could
have sued the city up and down and
sideways. Is there some golden calf
that says we can’t raise taxes so the
city can operate better?... If there’s a
need to raise funds, go ahead and
raise taxes; I’m ready for it."
Southport resident John
Angermayer asked the board why
the city has to pay for all of its fire
and rescue services when the largest
percentage of calls comes from out
of town.
"We were hoping that the county
commissioners this year would go
with fire and rescue districts," said
mayor Norman Holden. "A majority
of citizens voted in favor of them in
last year’s referendum, but the
county commissioners let it die on
the table."
In other business discussed fol
lowing the public hearing:
•The board approved a 15-year
See City budget, page 6
Waterfront will be focal point
By Ed Harper
Pilot Editor -
Waterfront activity will come both by land and by sea this Fourth of July,
according to 1992 festival president Mike Reaves.
New to the festival this year is a windsurfing regatta, scheduled from 2 to
4 p.m. on Saturday, July 4. That will be followed immediately by the tradi
tional flotilla, a parade of watercraft decorated for the occasion.
Add those events to the military exhibits and entertainment that will be
underway at Waterfront Park, and the western bank of the Cape Fear River
becomes the most popular spot in North Carolina this Independence Day.
The windsurfing competition will be conducted from the foot of Lord
Street, one block west of Howe, and will follow a slalom course west of
the shipping channel. A skippers meeting will be held at 1 p.m. and races
will commence at 2 o’clock. The entry fee is $5 and includes a T-shirt;
door prizes and trophies will be awarded. For information, persons should
contact Neil Worden at 278-3472 or Rex Bowen, 278-6559.
The flotilla will make two passes along the Southport waterfront between
4 and 5 o’clock on the afternoon of the Fourth. Participants will assemble
at Southport Marina, proceed upriver to the Bald Head Island mainland
dock, and return.
Prizes will be awarded in sailboat and powerboat categories. Boats will
be judged on the basis of patriotic theme, creativity and originality, decora
tions and crew spirit. A captains meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. July 3 at
Southport Marina. There is no entry fee. For information, persons should
contact Lionel Todd at 457-6766 (work) or 278-4223 (home).
That’s the "by sea" part The "by land” part begins at 1:30 p.m. when en
tertainment gets underway on the waterfront stage at the foot of Howe
Street Witness, a Christian music group, will alternate with Wild Heart un
til 5 p.m., when the Embers take the stage to perform until 9 o’clock.
The waterfront activity will climax with a fireworks extravaganza ovei
See Waterfront, page 6
Yaupon wins
$ite approval
By Jim Harper
Staff Writer
The long-awaited Yaupon Beach
sewer project got a major boost Fri
day with state approval of plans to
construct a treatment facility on Fish
Factory Road.
The site on the mainland had been
proposed as a disposal site for
treated wastewater for over a year,
but permitting was held up in a
three-cornered bureaucratic hassle
that was finally resolved when the
district’s planning engineers said
they could arrange for groundwater
runoff beneath a marsh rather than
on it.
However, that site approval does
not mean an early commencement
of sewerage service for Yaupon
Beach.
Cdnstruction bids will be sought
around July 1, said Finley Boncy,
the town’s consultant. Bids will be
received in August, and construction
The state House
approved a bill this
week requiring
Yaupon Beach to
hold a referendum
before any change
in the height re
quirements in its
building code
could start by October, he said.
In that case, the system could be
operating by October, 1993, Boney
said.
Yaupon Beach mayor May Moore,
who last week lamented that "we’re
See Yaupon wins, page 6
‘Sunset’ clause may
light way for ABCs
The N. C. House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would
remove the "sunset" from a law preventing Brunswick County ABC stores
from opening within seven miles of an existing municipal ABC store.
The Senate ABC Committee will review the bill and probably will reach
a decision on it next week, said Rep. David Redwine (D-B runs wick). Con
currence with the House bill would make permanent the ban on county
ABC stores within the seven-mile radius.
The county ABC board has been trying to convince local ABC boards
that a consolidated ABC system would be in the best interest of all parties,
but municipal ABC board members say the county simply wants to en
croach upon their established businesses.
Local ABC boards asked Redwine to introduce the legislation last year
after the county board announced plans to build an ABC store at River Run
Shopping Center near Southport. A "sunset clause" stipulating that the bill
would expire in July, 1992, was added to give the county and municipal
boards time to discuss possible compromises, Redwine said.
■Binara*.
Forecast
The extended forecast"
calls for partly cloudy skies
Thursday and Friday, fol
lowed by variably cloudy
conditions on Saturday.
Highs during the period
will be in the 90s, lows in
the 70s.
Tide table
HIGH LOW
THURSDAY, JUNE 18
10:48 a.m. 4:49 am.
11:13 p.m. 4:46 pm.
FRIDAY, JUNE 19
11:28 a.m. 5:28 a.m.
11:47 p.m. 5:27 pm.
SATURDAY, JUNE 20
-a.m. 6:08 am.
12:08 pm. 6:09 pm.
SUNDAY, JUNE 21
12:24 am. 6:48 am.
12:51pm. 7:56 pm.
MONDAY, JUNE 22
1:03 a.m. 7:31a.m.
1:40 p.m. 7:49 pm.
TUESDAY, JUNE 23
1:49 a.m. 8:18 am.
231p.m. 8:49 pm.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24
2:41a.m. 9:09 a.m.
3:27 p.m. 930 pm.
The following adjuttmcnU should be made:
Bald Head Island, high -10, low -7; Caswell
Beach, huh -5, low -1; Southport, high +7,
low +15, Yaupon Beach, high -32, low -45;
Lockwood Folly, high -22, low -8.