«, i: >•>
South’s Lady Cougars try
for a Waccamaw conference
tournament title ~ Page 1C
—r
The history of Brunswick
County Training School is a
long, proud one — Page IB
Our Town
Long Beach councilors
table proposal that would
cut their benefits — Page 2
How old
is old?
Mobile home
ban unsettled
By Terry Pope
County Editor
County planners are not recom
mending a ban just yet on older mo
bile homes moving into the county.
Restrictions were debated by the
Brunswick County Planning Board
last week, but members could not
agree on how old is too old when
judging mobile homes.
The planning staff has recom
mended that no homes more than ten
years old be allowed to enter the
county. County commissioners will
hold a public hearing on any change
and will have the final say.
“Right now, our concern is not so
much with existing mobile homes that
are connected to sewer and electric
ity,” said Brunswick County zoning
administrator Judy Russell. “Our con
cern is the continuous number of older
mobile homes outside of the county
that are being brought in and set up
in this county.”
That leads to safety concerns and
erosion of the county’s tax base, plan
ners say. In 1996, mobile home per
mits outnumbered stick-built housing
permits by a four-to-one margin in
Brunswick County. Neighboring
counties have already banned older
units, but the county’s current age re
striction is 1976.
The ordinance also allows mobile
units built between 1970 and 1976
that bear a seal of approval from the
American National Standards Insti
tute (ANSI) showing they were built
to standards approved by the manu
factured housing industry.
The proposed zoning change would
allow manufactured homes already in
the county to move to another loca
tion if they are beyond the ten-year
limit, if a prior inspection shows ex
isting and legal electrical and sewer
service.
But permits would not be issued for
any outdated units that want to cross
the county border. Some representa
tives from mobile home sales lots
questioned the board on how they are
to handle trade-in units if they are not
allowed to locate in the county.
“I could support the ten years, but
I’d very much like to have some rea
son to support the ten years,” said
county planning board chairman John
Thompson. He has asked for further
data from the N. C. Manufactured
Housing Institute and N. C. Depart
ment of Insurance.
“We selected ten years because
that’s a number we discussed with the
building inspectors,” said Ms.
Russell. “We thought about five
years, but thought we could get ten.”
Gerald Beck of Shallotte, who
owns a mobile home sales lot, said
each unit should be examined on an
individual basis. Some older units are
in better shape than those less than
ten years old, he said.
“When somebody trades in a home,
See Old, page 6
SNEAK PREVIEW
Having completed their roles as extras in
Saturday’s filming of “The Crying Child,”
aspiring local actresses Jade Potter and Erica
Morgan peeped in the window at Port
Charlie’s Restaurant as more filming was
going on. The for-television film also will fea
ture scenes from Howe Street, Brunswick
Street and the Southport-Fort Fisher ferry
landing.

uty develops
plan to reduce
electricity cost
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
By June 30, the beginning of the next fiscal
year, city officials hope to have in place a new
formula for charging electric customers -- a for
mula that will allow many electric customers,
residential and commercial, to substantially
lower, in partnership with the city, the amount
they pay for electricity each month.
Central to the premise on which the new rate
structure will be formulated is the customer’s
willingness to help the City of Southport reduce
its own electric costs, by managing the entire
city electric load, particularly at times of coin
cident peak demand when the city’s electric costs
jump by 2,000 percent.
The formula is simple: The more a customer
allows the city to manage electric load, the more
that customer saves.
Putting the philosophy more simply: A cus
tomer will only pay electric rates in direct pro
See Power, page 8
This is the first of a five
part series in which a pro
posed restructuring of elec
tric rates charged by the
City of Southport will be ex
amined. The restructuring
plan under study will re
quire involvement of the
electric customer in a plan
to lower his costs.
In this offering, an over
view of the restructuring
plan and its goals will be
discussed. In die following
weeks, the impact of the re
structuring plan on base
rates, residential customers,
commercial customers and
commercial demand cus
tomers will be examined.
ELECTRICITY COST STUDY
for the month of July • Usage (KWH) - 2917
EXISTING RATE PROPOSED RATE PROPOSED RATE PROPOSED RATE
ACTUAL COST NO MANAGEMENT LM-AC & WH LM-100% AC&WH
Majority mav rule
Total ban on smoking
sought by DSS group
»
By Terry Pope
County Editor
A group of employees at the Brunswick County
Department of Social Services wants the building to go
smoke-free.
But the request now before the board of social services
has lit a fire under fellow workers, who brought in a
tobacco spokesman and local farmers to defend their
smoker’s rights Monday.
“We believe a total ban on indoor smoking does not
meet the needs of a significant number of our employ
ees,” said DSS fraud investigator Shirley Weston.
A survey of the department indicates that of 83
employees, 26 are smokers. Those in favor of smoking
See Smoking, page 11
‘If I had a problem with
smoke, and I saw that sign on
the door, I would think that
there would be no smoking
allowed. That’s very
misleading to the public.’
Carolynn Price
Dosher to seek
nursing facility
By Holly Edwards
Feature Editor
Dosher Memorial Hospital wants to
construct and operate a 60-bed nurs
ing home facility.
Trustees discussed the proposal in
closed session Monday before voting
to appropriate $25,000 to apply for
the required state license. Hospital
administrator Edgar Haywood said
the closed session was held to pro
tect Dosher’s confidentiality.
“Competitive health care activities
are deemed confidential by North
Carolina state law,” he said.
Dosher will compete for the beds
with the adjacent Ocean Trail Con
valescent Center and Autumn Care
nursing home in Shallotte.
Loan repayments may benefit investors
Some on swindler's list express dismay
By Holly Edwards
Feature Editor
Asked last year why he contributed large sums of money to
individuals and non-profit organizations in the Southport-Oak
Island area, businessman Michael Tessari said he gave money
only to those “truly needy and deserving.”
Tessari now faces a maximum sentence of SO years in prison
and fines of $1.5 million after pleading guilty last week in U.
S. District Court in Harrisburg, PA, to wire fraud and money
laundering charges involving an estimated $6.7 million.
“Some people relieve people of money at the barrel of a
gun -- Mr. Tessari used his considerable persuasive powers to
relieve these people of their money,” said David Barasch, U.
S. Attorney in Harrisburg.
The federal government now wants to recover as much as
possible from local recipients of Tessari’s ill-gotten gains to
repay investors victimized by Tessari’s fraud, which he oper
ated under the company name IBI Inc.
U. S. Attorneys in Pennsylvania and North Carolina allege
Tessari defrauded over 100 investors in Pennsylvania and used
a portion of the money to purchase at least 19 pieces of real
estate in the Southport-Oak Island area, two of which were titled
to local residents.
Tessari also made several large charitable donations in the
area and has agreed to help the government recover nearly
$300,000 in personal loans he says he made to local and Penn
sylvania residents.
While the amount of the loans ranged from $5,000 to
$110,000, the U. S. Attorney’s Office is not likely to seek to
recover these loans in lump sums, said U. S. Attorney’s Office
assets and forfeitures section supervisor Tom Swain. Instead,
the repayments will be diverted from Tessari to the federal gov
ernment, he said.
Similarly, Swain said he does not believe the government
will seize property local residents purchased from Tessari, but
would require these residents to repay the government. Terms
of the repayments and the federal agency to collect them have
not yet been established.
“The first thing we’ll do is give notice to the victims and
make arrangements for payments to be made to the govem
See Repayment, page 8
If the state approves Dosher’s ap
plication, trustee Gene Tomlinson
said, the facility would be constructed
on what is now the parking lot and
the parking area would be moved to
the hospital’s vacant property across
Howe Street. Or, he said, the facility
could be constructed near the future
site of Dr. Brad Hilaman’s office be
hind the Chart House Restaurant.
Tomlinson said trustees are seek
ing a state license to operate the nurs
ing home facility “to ensure the finan
See Dosher, page 11
Forecast
Warmer weather will prevail
throughout the period of Thurs
day-Saturday. High temperatures
are expected to reach near 70.