_I
Neighbors
Long Beach got into the
festive mood with its annual
Beach Day celebration -- IB
- ■
| VOLUME 63/ NUMBER 45
SOUTHPORT, N.C.
50 CENTS |
Sports
Legion baseball playoffs
are underway and Bruns
wick is on a roll - Page 12
Our Town
Southport reduced its tax
rate but the costs of utilities
are up this year - Page 2
Thousands of N. C. Fourth of July Festival spectators gathered at the
riverside stage to enjoy performances throughout the weekend. They
Photo by Jim Harper
were grandly entertained there on Monday evening by the ever
popular Embers.
Writer
returns
to Pilot
Richard Nubel has rejoined the
staff of The State Port Pilot as
municipal editor.
The veteran reporter, who was
employed by the newspaper from
1982 to 1992, will be responsible for
coverage of government and com
munity events in Southport, Long
Beach, Yaupon Beach, Caswell
Beach and Boiling Spring Lakes.
Those duties were previously
handled by Holly Edwards, who will
move into the position of feature
editor while retaining some general
assignment duties.
Pilot editor Ed Harper said the
newspaper is "fortunate to have a
staff of award-winning journalists
who will maintain the level of
reporting and overall quality we
have achieved in recent years."
Nubel, 41, who worked for1 the
past two years with his wife Kitty in
their insurance business, has been a
resident of the Southport-Oak Island
area for 14 years. He has been active
as a community volunteer, serving
as chairman of the U. S. Open King
Mackerel Tournament in 1987 and
1988 and as president of the South
port Lions Club in 1988. He has
received 12 personal awards for
writing and reporting excellence
from the state press association.
Edwards’ new position will allow
her to pursue special topics more
thoroughly. Her assignment report
ing will include the Brunswick
County Board of Education, Bruns
wick Community College and
Dosher Memorial Hospital.
Terry Pope will continue as county
editor, responsible for coverage of
all departments of county govern
ment and the court system. His beat
also- includes municipalities in
northern Brunswick County.
Jim Harper will continue his
coverage of Carolina Power and
Light Co., Southeast Brunswick
Sanitary District and Bald Head Is
land.
Federal court tossed it
Alexander’s lawsuit
refiled in state court
By Terry Pope
County Editor
A new lawsuit filed in Brunswick
County Superior Court claims the
former clerk to the board of com
missioners was wrongfully fired
from her job because she happens to
be a black Democrat.
Previous claims were dismissed by
a U. S. District Court judge in Wil
mington but are now outlined in an
other suit filed in state court by
Raleigh attorney Martha Geer.
Regina Alexander, who is now
employed by the City of Boiling
Spring Lakes, says in the new com
plaint that she was a victim of dis
crimination and that her constitu
tional rights were violated.
She has filed suit against former
Republican commissioner Kelly
The board voted to
eliminate the posi
tion and to appoint
the county man
ager’s secretary to
a joint position,
which included the
clerk’s job
Holden and current commissioners
Donald Shaw, Jerry Jones, Wayland
Vcreen, Don Warren, Tom Rabon
Sr. and against Brunswick County.
In June, 1991, Holden, Jones and
Shaw voted to eliminate the job held
by Ms. Alexander and to hire anoth
er person to fill a dual role of clerk
and secretary to the county manager.
In a ruling last month, chief U. S.
District Court judge James Fox dis
missed a similar complaint on the
grounds that commissioners were
protected in their action by the legal
doctrine of "legislative immunity."
That doctrine recognizes that gov
erning bodies, such as county com
missions, are immune from lawsuits
for decisions made in a legislative
capacity.
But it has been tested only in fed
eral court and not state court. The
county has 30 days to answer this
latest complaint or else file for an
See Lawsuit, page 7
Line may cross waterway
Clean Long Beach water is on tap
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
No more of that grungy mess at the bottom
of your water glass. No more of that flaky
stuff falling out of your ice cubes as they
slowly pollute your beverage of choice.
These may be two among several other
benefits to Long Beach water users as
Brunswick County pursues expansion of its
water delivery system from the west end of
Long Beach across the Intracoastal Water
way to Sunset Beach.
Brunswick County engineer Robert Tucker
informed Long Beach officials in early June
of county plans to interconnect with the
town’s Oak Island Drive water main at a
point near Robin Schuster Park at the road’s
extreme western end. The line will be ex
tended some 6,000 linear feet across the In
tracoastal Waterway.
Long Beach public works director Charles
Derrick said that is good news for both the
town and water users.
"It will at least give us an outlet on the
west end in the harbor which we don’t have
now," Derrick said.
Long Beach purchases treated water from
Brunswick County. Water is delivered by
the county to the town at 79th Street, but the
town’s water delivery system is not looped
- water is not constantly circulated through
the system, rather it sits in delivery lines un
til it is used.
In the summer, when usage is high, there
are few problems. But in the fall and winter,
tVi . V- .'i :
when the seasonal population dwindles,
water sits unused for long periods of time in
delivery lines. Sedimentation forms in the
still water and is particularly present at the
extreme western end of the island and along
the beach strand.
Increased water flow out of the Long
Beach line to Sunset Harbor is expected to
go a long way to correcting the sedimenta
tion problem, Derrick said.
In the past, Long Beach has been forced to
help correct the water-line sedimentation
problem by costly flushing of the lines. Fire
hydrants are opened and water is allowed to
flow out of the lines, emptying them of the
grungy, flaky sedimentation.
"Now, this will give us an outgoing flow
and help the water quality," Derrick said.
It should also help cut the cost of line
maintenance. Rushing is expensive. Water
flowing from the Brunswick County system
is metered at 79th Street and Long Beach is
charged for every gallon of water that passes
that point -- including water that is flushed
nom water lines into the streets and
drainage ditches in the effort to remove sedi
mentation.
U)ng Beach pays $1.35 for every 1,000
gallons of water it flushes away and is not
resold to town customers.
"Last month I went out and flushed a line
on the west end. I got 600,000 gallons out of
!S 1™““ f,tone,H Derrick said- "At $1.35
per 1,000 gallons, that gets expensive. But,
we have no alternative right now.”
See Water, page 8 <■
A.ii. .-'iV.
Maybe to court
School, county
boards locked
over funding
By Terry Pope
County Editor
If school officials want more tax
dollars to operate the system this
fall, they’ll have to go to court.
County commissioners abrupdy
ended a two-hour joint meeting with
the Brunswick County Board of Ed
ucation Tuesday without offering
more money for local spending.
School superintendent Ralph
Johnston said he will 'call for an
emergency meeting of the school
board Thursday, July 7, 6 p.m. at the
Carolina Power and Light Co. con
ference center near Southport.
The school board has until mid
night Friday to ask clerk of court
Diana Morgan to mediate the fund
ing dispute between the two boards.
The schools requested about $13.4
million in local appropriations and
received $9.7 million last month.
"I think commissioners will proba
bly evaluate any additional informa
tion we received," said Don Warren,
chairman of the Brunswick County
Board of Commissioners. "They just
were not ready to make any finan
cial decisions tonight on additional
funding."
The clerk of court can either
weigh evidence in the dispute or
defer the matter to a Superior Court
judge. That was the case last year
‘We couldn’t
make an offer in
public. The two
chairmen talked,
but it didn’t work
out. That’s fine.
Maybe next time, I
don’t know.’
Donald Shaw
District 5 commissioner
when judge William C. Gore Jr. or
dered that a professional mediator
try lo reach an agreement between
the two sides.
~J,f thought tonight them was a
good, free flow of information," said
school board attorney Glen Peter
son. "I think the school board was
able to give commissioners a lot of
information they didn’t have. Even
though no resolution was reached
tonight, I felt the meeting was useful
and very, very positive."
Last year’s funding dispute went
See Schools, page 8
k. ' ;
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
&
jyfc/.
They came. They saw. They partied.
And then they crept out of town.
"This was the biggest crowd at night I’ve ever sees, without a
doubt,* Southport police chief Bob Gray said of the Monday night
Huong at the 1994 N. C. Fourth of July Festival.
By some estimates, visitors to downtown Southport may have
reached 45,000. The mega-crowd Monday night -- bigger than any
Saturday or Sunday and maybe bigger than ever - came to dance in
Kthe streets to the beach sounds of The Embers and to gaze skyward as
fireworks round-after-round burst into streams every color of the
.spectrum.
Everywhere there were people.
thePGaiIison flooded the foot of Howe Street.