Sports
The State Port
Bishop is coach of year;
Green top player on all
county football team ~ 1C
VOLUME 6 7/ NUMBER 15 SOUTHPORT N.C.
wiimi
50 CENTS
Southport
Marina
sale still
possible
By Richard Nubel
News Editor
N. C. State Ports Authority has
asked attorney general Mike Easley
to render an opinion as to whether it
has the ability to sell Southport’s
Small Boat Harbor, former
Southport mayor Norman Holden
told the city’s board of aldermen
Tuesday afternoon.
Hearing this, aldermen indicated
they would weigh seriously a city
effort to acquire the valuable prop
erty on the Intracoastal Waterway.
Holden, who has remained in
close touch with Easley since he
moved from Southport to become
state attorney general in 1992, may
have also let the former district
attorney’s political plans slip while
advising city aldermen.
“Being politically involved, as I
am,” Holden said, “1 am glad you
signed a five-year agreement with
the State Ports Authority. In a cou
ple of years we’re going to have a
new governor and Southport could
be sitting right pretty.”
Holden’s inference was that
Easley planned to run for governor
at the conclusion of fellow
Democrat Jim Hunt’s present term
of office. Southport two months ago
inked a five-year deal with SPA to
oversee some functions of a con
tractor at the Small Boat Harbor.
Holden said the attorney general
was interested in how the City of
Southport viewed a potential sale of
the Small Boat Harbor. Presently,
the property is owned by the State
of North Carolina, which has rele
gated its control to the State Ports
Authority, a body which manages
the ports of Wilmington and
Morehead City.
SPA, in turn, leases management
rights to the Small Boat Harbor to
Southport Marina Inc., a private
company. Earlier this fall, city offi
cials and SPA members tussled over
terms of an agreement, originally
forged in 1989, whereby the city
oversees certain provisions of SPA’s
contract with Southport Marina Inc,
SPA announced it would quit pay
ing the city $1,500 monthly to mon
itor operations at the Small Boat
Harbor.
Aitnougn aiaie roris Aumumy
executive director Erik Stromberg
told aldermen the Small Boat
Harbor property was for sale for the
right price, SPA members later said
that was not true.
Southport grudingly agreed to a
five-year contract to monitor the
Small Boat Harbor contractor, but
will receive no compensation for
See Marina, page 13
Photo by Jim Harper
The Cape Fear pilot boat prepares to take a pilot off an outbound tanker at the Cape Fear River bar. The
small craft puts to sea approximately 1,600 times a year to serve the 800 ships which annually visit the port.
‘Decisions always painful’
Latest CP&L layoff
cuts 79 at Brunswick
Seventy-nine employees of Carolina Power and Light
Co.’s Brunswick plant at Southport were told their jobs
had been eliminated this (Wednesday) morning.
Only six of those employees were offered other posi
tions.
In all, 148 positions at CP&L’s Brunswick plant were
eliminated in this latest round of downsizing. The other
69 positions were unfilled at this time, company offi
cials said.
“While staffing decisions are always painful for
everyone involved, getting our staffing levels aligned
with other top-performing plants is the only way we can
remain competitive in today’s electricity markets,” said
CP&L Brunswick plant vice-president C. S. Hinnant.
Plant spokesman Mac Harris said notification of the
79 employees to be outplaced was to be done between 7
and 10 a.m. today. He said the staffing decisions, actu
ally made last spring, affected virtually every depart
ment at the plant. Employees were notified in July that,
See CP&L layoff, page 8
The bridge
Few are having
second thoughts
By Richard Nubel
News Editor ■ .
Long Beach resident Frances
Allen, defeated in her November
bid for a second term on town
council, asked the N. C. Coastal
Resources Commission November
20 to reject a Long Beach request
to amend its land use plan.
Allen, in a presentation to the
CRC at the Wilmington Hilton — in
language borrowed liberally from a
November 3 letter by the N. C.
Coastal Federation’s Tracy Skrabal
to N. C. Department of
Transportation environmental engi
neer Franklin Vick - asked the
agency in charge of land use plan
ning to deny a possible Long
Beach request to include a Second
Bridge to Oak Island Corridor
Planning Study as part of its
Coastal Area Management Act land
use plan.
Allen further asked the CRC to
join her call, and that of newly cre
ated Brunswick Environmental
Action Team (BEAT), for a full
Environmental Impact Study (EIS)
of the area in which the planned
second bridge to Oak Island would
be sited, including two proposed
western road corridor routes DOT
has rejected.
Long Beach mayor Joan Altman
said Allen’s arguments were
unfounded and her requests would
further delay completion of the
planned second bridge to western
Oak Island.
“I am here in a desperate attempt
to protect some very fragile and
important wetlands, watersheds
and Carolina Bays located in the
Department of Transportation pre
ferred route...,” Allen told the
CRC, asserting that she did not
appear as a Long Beach councilor
but as a member of BEAT’S board
of directors.
Reacting to a text of Allen’s pre
See Bridge, page 10
“I am here in a des
perate attempt to pro
tect some very fragile
and important wet
lands, watersheds and
Carolina Bays....’
Frances Allen
‘The importance and
need for this bridge has
been documented for
20 years and NCDOT
has worked diligently
to address the legiti
mate concerns it
raises.’
Joan Altman
School calendar
change proposed
By Holly Edwards
Feature Editor
The proposed calendar for the
1998-99 school year has students
taking exams prior to Christmas
vacation, provides more instruction
al time prior to end-of-course and
end-of-grade tests and facilitates
dual enrollment at Brunswick
Brunswick County
Caswell’s water
system accepted
By Richard Nubel
News Editor
Over the dissenting vote of District 3 commissioner Leslie Collier,
county commissioners Monday night approved a contract by which
Brunswick County will maintain and operate the municipally owned
water distribution system in Caswell Beach.
* Caswell Beach commissioners approved contract terms on November
See Caswell, page 6
‘Heritage* designation
sought for Cape Fear
By Richard Nubel
News Editor
Reluctantly, and without the sup
port of District 3 commissioner
Leslie Collier, county commission
ers Monday night directed staff to
seek federal “Heritage River” des
ignation for the Cape Fear River.
The move, District 5 commis
sioner Bill Sue said, will allow the
county to compete for federal grant
funds which may become available
for river improvement projects.
“I’m told this designation don’t
cost us anything, but we can be in
position to receive federal grants,”
Sue said. Later he told conmis
sioners, “My thought is we could
use it to clean up the river. If feder
al funds come along, only rivers
with this designation will be eligi
ble.”
But other commissioners, notably
Collier, feared federal grant funds
would bring with them unwanted
See Heritage, page 6
Community College for high school
students, said assistant superinten
dent of instructional services Mary
McDuffie.
The school year will begin
August 4 and end May 25 and will
include 180 student days and 1,000
instructional hours, according to the
proposal.
A similar calendar was proposed
for the current school year but was
rejected when parents complained
they did not have enough notice that
summer vacation would be short
See Calendar, page 8
Opinion 4
Obituaries 7
Police report 13
Business 14
Island home tour 2B
Church 3B
Schools 6B
Calendar 8B
District Court 4C
Public notices 5C
TV schedule 6C
NEWS on the NET: www.southport.net
9 I, • ‘ . . W—,»