6 -- The State Port Pilot, Southport, North Carolina, Wednesday, March 5,1997
County
Continued from page 1
Varner and Ms. Horne will confer
with department heads about their
requests before estimating available
revenues for the upcoming year and
trimming the lists. Last year’s bud
get was $72.6 million, including all
funds from state and federal agencies
and an estimated $39.4 million in ad
valorem taxes. It was based on a $5.9
billion valuation and 95.25-percent
collection rate.
Commission chairman JoAnn
Bellamy Simmons said the board left
the retreat and didn’t agree on every
thing. But keeping the tax rate the
same was one item on which all
seemed to be in agreement, despite
demands for additional services made
by departments and interest groups.
Varner and Ms. Home plan to con
fer with department heads on the pro
posed budget the week of April 15
18, to hear final pleas and present the
recommended version to commis
sioners at a special meeting May 12.
The board must hold a public hear
ing on the proposal and adopt a final
version before July 1.
What’s different this year may be
approaches taken to fund the county
water system and fire and rescue de
partments. Varner has been asked to
present the best approach to make the
county water system self-supporting,
to bring more water customers on line
and to make the system profitable. It
is now supplemented by ad valorem
tax dollars of up to $3 million annu
ally.
A committee, headed by District 2
commissioner David Sandifer of
Holden Beach, is also expected to rec
ommend alternate funding sources for
volunteer fire departments and rescue
squads. County fire marshal Cecil
Logan and emergency medical ser
vices director Tracy Jackson are also
on the committee along with chiefs
from county volunteer fire and res
cue squads. They will study possible
tax service districts to boost the vol
unteers’ annual budgets.
The committee will hold a public
hearing Thursday, March 6, 7 p.m.,
at the Lockwood Folly community
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building on Stanbury Road near
Holden Beach to gather public com
ments. Commissioners say they want
to develop a better plan to fund the
units. Growth has placed increased
demands on the departments, said Ms.
Simmons, but the county hasn’t been
able to increase its contributions over
the years.
Also, this board of commissioners
will study construction needs as re
quested by the schools and court sys
tem.
A facility review of Brunswick
County’s courthouse conducted by
the N. C. Administrative Office of the
Courts recommends a plan to almost
double the current size of the court
house at the county government cen
ter near Bolivia to relieve over
crowded conditions of the court
rooms, waiting areas, judges’ cham
bers, clerk of court’s office and dis
trict attorney’s space.
The county has been under pressure
by state officials to either renovate or
expand the facility to avoid disrupt
ing the judicial system. Four other
counties in North Carolina were also
examined last year for facility needs
under a grant from the State Justice
Institute.
And school officials want to build
a new elementary school in the west
ern district with $7.8 million in state
revenue bonds. However, some com
missioners say first they want to
tackle other building needs during the
upcoming fiscal year.
“We would also like to look at other
alternatives, too, in enlarging some of
our schools we have already,” said
Ms. Simmons.
Ms. Collier has specifically said she
wants to study the immediate needs
of two schools — Bolivia Elementary
and South Brunswick Middle - and
their problems with overcrowding in
the upcoming budget. After those
problems are resolved, commission
ers may feel better about going to
work on new schools.
•Cafeteria
Continued From page 1
costs — a fryer and a combination
oven and steamer.
This will allow the staff to prepare
more foods from scratch and purchase
fewer expensive prepared foods.
Equipment had restricted the menu
and often forced staff to prepare four
different entrees each day because
there was not enough equipment to
produce the required amount in the
allotted time.
As with any restaurant, customer
satisfaction determines the financial
health of the business, states the plan
prepared by Continental Management
Consultants of Greensboro. The
agency recommends an annual cus
tomer satisfaction survey, a commit
tee of campus employees that meets
periodically with the food service
manager, new menu items, theme and
holiday meals on a regular basis,
items to draw new customers and re
tain current ones and new dining
space colors, deem and table configu
ration.
During the current 1996-97 fiscal
year the county cafeteria will operate
on a $408,945 budget based on
$101,913 in sales for public meals,
$170,000 for jail meals, $66,632 for
homebound meals and $70,400 for
congregate meals delivered to senior
citizen centers.
►Debris
Continued From page 1
shipping lanes to Military Ocean Tfer
minal Sunny Point, north of
Southport, were being dumped
around the clock on the over-used
disposal site, the shrimpers said.
Debris floating from the ODMDS
snagged and tore shrimp nets in this
prime harvesting area, depriving
county shrimpers of their living. The
debris was moving ever closer to area
beaches and would leave them clut
tered and unattractive to tourists who
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annually flock to the area to vacation,
the shrimpers warned.
Initially, the corps denied the de
bris had migrated from the ODMDS,
but it commissioned studies of the
debris in an effort to identify its
source. In a February 18 memoran
dum, corps operations project man
ager Brian F. Moore said the shrimp
ers were right.
“In the past months, the
Wilmington District (of the corps) has
monitored the composition of
dredged material from the Military
Ocean Terminal at Sunny Point, com
pleted a debris sampling contract,
completed side-scan sonar work and
collected wood samples for carbon
dating,” Moore summarized. “While
not all work is complete, the
Wilmington District has sufficient
evidence to indicate that wood debris
has been transported to the ODMDS
by dredging operations and that,
while properly placed within the
ODMDS, wood debris has migrated
out.”
Moore said it was impossible to
determine just how much wood had
migrated from the disposal site and
said the two hurricanes and two tropi
cal storms which struck the Cape Fear
region in 1996 might have exacer
bated the problem.
“The corps will conduct a general
clean-up of the site,” Moore wrote.
A contractor will be required to re
trieve wood debris from the affected
area and the debris will be deposited
in a land-based disposal area. Clean
up is to be completed by June 1.
The corps said it will also seek al
ternate spoil disposal sites for its
upriver dredging activities.
“Development of a sufficient num
ber of disposal sites may significantly
reduce the amount of material placed
in the ODMDS,” Moore wrote. “This
is the preferred course of action.”
If bucket and barge dredging is re
quired in the Cape Fear River in the
future, the Wilmington District says
it will require screening of dredged
material and removal of wood debris
before spoil is transported to the off
shore disposal area.
Semans said local shrimpers and
the N. C. Fisheries Association were
aided in their effort to force a clean
up of the Cape Fear River mouth by
assistant Army secretary Martin
Lancaster, of North Carolina.
“Martin Lancaster was essential,”
Semans said. “He basically told the
corps to get in there and clean it up.”
►Wreck_
Continued from page 1
While airborne, the right side of the
truck struck a telephone pole, but con
tinued to travel another 20 feet before
striking an oak tree. The vehicle came
to rest in a yard in the 3000 block of
East Yacht.
►Occupancy
Continued from page 2
short-term lodging.
City manager Rob Gandy said
aldermen feared the proposal by the
task force would not be adopted and
Southport would be left without the
option to raise its municipal occu
pancy tax.
Even if Southport wins the
General Assembly’s approval to
raise the city accommodations tax, it
may not do so immediately.
“They said, ‘We want the option,
but we are not going to act on it
yet,’” Gandy said of the board of
aldermen’s action.
Aldermen also refined the resolu
tion they will send Redwine. An
original proposal tied the request for
a higher accommodations tax to a
need to rebuild the burned
Southport Community Building.
Tuesday night, aldermen decided
the resolution would not mention
earmarking occupancy tax money
for that project, but would indicate
that tax proceeds would be used to
promote tourism, promote economic
development and waterfront
improvements and for “other public
purposes.”
In a memorandum to aldermen
this week, Southport Community
Building Reconstruction Committee
chairman Ken Mabe warned the
board against using occupancy tax
funds for building construction.
“... I am somewhat concerned
about the message we will send to
the individuals, organizations and
businesses who have already
pledged their financial support to
rebuild the Community Building,”
Mabe wrote. “The committee’s goal
has always been to renovate/recon
struct the Community Building
without using tax dollars, utilizing
contributions from the citizens of
Southport and the surrounding com
munities.”
Aldermen Delaney and Adams
opposed the proposal to raise the
municipal accommodations tax also.
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