South Brunswick opens
basketball season, will meet
Wildcats, Devil Pups - 1C
December 4,1996
Neighbors 1
Entries are invited in the
Pilot’s annual cookie contest
with microwave prize — 7B
Our Town
Smith Island Land Trust
increases effort to preserve
^ Bald Head ‘point’ — Page 2
Photo by Jim Harper
Terry Wilson sets out Christmas decorations to be suspended from Long Beach utility poles. Both Long
Beach and Yaupon Beach decorations are now up, ready for the annual Christmas-by-the-Sea parade down
Yaupon Drive and Oak Island Drive on Saturday. Step-off time for paraders is 3 p.m.
Area grocery stores
VIC holds food drive
The Brunswick County Volunteer
and Information Center (VIC) will
sponsor a food drive at most
Brunswick County grocery stores this
weekend.
The drive will be conducted Friday,
December 6, from noon to 6 p.m. and
Saturday, December 7, from 10 a.m.
to 5 p.m. Volunteers will be collect
ing food for the VIC Christmas Bas
ket program.
“Please schedule your grocery
shopping so you can help the needy
in our county to have a merrier Christ
mas,” a spokesman urged. A VIC
volunteer will be outside the grocery
store and will have a flier noting the
most-needed food for the Christmas
baskets.
flees of Hope are also placed in
See Food drive, page 6
Long Beach weighs cost
County water rate
puts drain on town
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
Long Beach Town Council now
knows that it can immediately sell
1,000 gallons of drinking water for
$3 or less if it decides to develop a
wellfield and build a treatment plant.
The town also knows that its cost
to recover water from the ground and
treat it will drop over the years, as
the town sells more water to more
customers. Engineers estimate the
cost may drop to $2.50 per thousand
gallons as early as 2009 and to $2.25
per thousand gallons by 2020.
What is not known to Long Beach
is: How much will it cost to continue
buying water from Brunswick
County?
“That’s not an easy question,” ad
mitted assistant county manager Rob
ert Hyatt, into whose realm of respon
sibility the Brunswick County water
system falls.
Brunswick County has no firm pro
jection of water costs even oyer the
next two years, much less over the
next 20. . -.v • v ' ? -
Faced with Brunswick County’s
requesi lijr V3fvpe«<tettf water tate
increase this year — a request later
negotiated to a 25-percent increase
passed,to Long Beach water custom
ers - Long Beach Town Council this
y#ar appropriated up to $300,000 to
explore the feasibility of developing
a municipal water supply and treat
ing drinking water.
Two weeks ago Rivers and Asso
See Water, page 6
Long-range
plan seeks
public input
The Brunswick County Long
Range Planning Committee will dis
tribute 25,000 copies of a four-page
informational sheet this week in
hopes of gathering input from county
residents on a number of planning is
sues.
The inserts are included in this is
sue of The State Port Pilot and were
also inserted in The Brunswick Bea
con in Shallotte. All but 2,000 copies
were placed in the two county news
papers, said committee chairman
. Mike Royal.
Royal said the remainder will be
placed at county libraries, municipal
See Long-range, page 6
TOWN of LONG BEACH
it Cost — vs. Wbter Purchase'
Most squads won't
County to bill
for EMS calls
By Terry Pope
County Editor
Brunswick County began billing
patients for ambulance transports
Monday, a policy aimed at recoup
ing some of the costs for emergency
medical services and 911 response.
It is also a policy which does not
sit well with some county volunteer
units that do not want to bill their pa
tients.
Only one, Town Creek Volunteer
Rescue, has started billing its patients
for transports. So far, the others have
chosen not to participate although
county EMS agreed to help with the
billing procedure.
Revenues from ambulance service
fees will help cover part of the oper
ating expenses when Brunswick
County EMS units respond to calls,
said EMS director Tracy Jackson.
“Brunswick County is not alone^
when it comes to billing for ambu
lance services,” said Jackson. “Many
counties around the state have been
billing for a number of years.”
Jackson said the county’s service
fees are economical when compared
to the cost of medication and care pro
EMS will bill third
party insurers;
transport fees are a
normal part of most
individual medical
insurance policies
vided in the hospital environment.
Patients will be charged the same
amount, based upon level of care, re
gardless of the amount of care, num
ber of medications or number of pro
cedures they may receive while in
transport to hospitals or care facili
ties.
EMS officials studied the issue
carefully for the past year before ap
proaching county commissioners
about initiating the fees. The county
will not aggressively bill patients that
do not have insurance or can’t afford
See EMS calls, page 10
s
New school plans simple as 'ABC'
Progress is judged
by students' prior
year performance
By Holly Edwards
Feature Editor
Comprehensive improvement plans for every school in
Brunswick County were reviewed last week by the board of
education and are expected to be formally adopted Monday
night.
The plans describe specific goals and the strategies and re
sources needed to achieve them, as well as Safe Schools
plans and staff development plans.
“The school improvement plans allowed us to pull all of
the elements together into one package, said assistant super
intendent for instruction Mary McDuffie. “The primary pur
‘The plans ... seem to have more
direction in dealing with student
improvement. Our goals are
more clearly defined.’
Billy Carter
District 3 member
pose of the plans is to allow us to focus all of our energies
on student achievement, and we’ll be constantly reviewing
and updating them.”
Implementation of the plans is required by the state’s new
school improvement program, the New ABCs, which re
places the Performance Based Accountability Plans (PBAP).
While much of the PBAP goals were included in the
new plans, the New ABCs holds schools accountable for
achieving a certain level of student improvement from
year to year. The level of improvement expected will be
based upon prior student performance and will be unique
to each school as well as each grade level, McDuffie ex
plained.
“The biggest difference for us with the new plans is
that we will compare this year’s fourth grade class to
that classes’ performance last year, instead of compar
ing it to last year’s fourth grade class, she said. Each
grade will be compared with its own performance the
previous year.”
The state will hold each school accountable for achiev
ing a specified level of student improvement. Schools
that fall short will be offered assistance by the state, or in
extreme cases could be taken over by a state-appointed
team.
On the other hand, schools that exceed expectations
See New School, page 6
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Forecast
The extended forecast calls for
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will only be in the mid 50's.
INSIDE
Police report ... 8
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