THE STATE PORT
, F
SCT YOUk CLOCKS i
FORWARD ONE HOUR
April 5ih ar 2.*00 am
April 1. 1998
cn j
50 cer
MlW
Phone 910-457-4568/Fax 910-457-9427/e-mail pilot@southport.net
Drug bust (
Joint effort in Long fif
River pilot
Tradition on the Cat
<»w
C/lO
»
North-Soutl
Rivalry resumes Thursday - iC
*
Volume 67, Number 32
Published every Wednesday in Southport, NC
Milling
permit
■ Critics claim
amendment is
‘smoke screen’
ByTferryPope
County Editor
It’s not the size of the mining
operation that residents fear, but its
location and proximity to environ
mentally sensitive areas along with
the threat of sinkholes has many
alarmed at Martin Marietta’s plan to
dig for sand north of Southport.
At a state public hearing before
the N. C. Division of Land
Resources last week, a standing
room-only crowd told the depart
ment to deny the company’s request
to add four acres to its permit on the
Laster tract north of Bethel Church
Road.
“The operation proposed by
Martin Marietta will constitute a
substantial physical hazard to the
public through sinkholes,” said
Muffy Thomas, one of a dozen
speakers who opposed the permit
request.
Martin Marietta holds a permit to
operate a borrow pit on 4.5 acres, a
permit obtained after it purchased
the Laster tract four years ago. The
permit is not for the mining of lime
stone, as Martin Marietta has once
applied to do on its 1,000 acres
between Bethel Church Road and
the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny
Point access road. That application
has been withdrawn. There are
depth restrictions and stipulations
that no water is to be pumped off the
tract for the borrow pit.
The N. C. Department of
Environment, Health and Natural
Resources will continue to accept
; written comments until April 6 on
the permit amendment. Department
director Charles Gardner, who
attended the hearing last week, said
he will review the matter for 30
days before he makes a decision.
There are seven criteria on which
i the request may be denied. If the
nature of the activity violates
requirements of the N. C. Mining
Act, or if the operation has adverse
effects on groundwater, wildlife,
estaurine or marine fisheries, it may
be denied. If it is feared the opera
tion would result in sediment in
stream beds or if the applicant has
compliance problems at other sites,
the permit may be denied.
However, off-site noise, increased
traffic and proximity to homes
aren’t addressed under the mining
act but are matters for county zon
ing ordinances to regulate. Paxton
Badham Jr. of Martin Marietta said
there is a lot of confusion over what
the company wants to do on its
tract.
“We’ve got a couple of customers
down here that have come to us in
recent years and said they are des
perate for some source of Ell dirt,”
said Badham, “and given the fact
that we own several hundred acres
out here asked us if there was any
thing we can do to help them out.”
After Martin Marietta took title to
See Mining, page 9

Photo by Jim Harper
Leland area youngsters had a whale of a time on the Sea Ray and other super rides last week as Stine
Amusements held forth on the North Brunswick High School campus. The spring carnival was a fund-rais
er for the school PTO.
Countv board must approve
Refinancing may allow
more school classrooms
By Holly Edwards
Feature Editor
Construction of up to four additional classrooms at
Union Primary School was added to a funding package
that already included 14 additional classrooms at South
Brunswick Middle and Bolivia Elementary last week
in a special meeting of the Brunswick County Board of
Education.
School board members unanimously approved allo
cation of $1.3 million for the Union Primary project,
bringing the estimated cost of the three construction
projects to $7.5 million.
The additional funds will be allocated from the esti
mated $2.4 million the school board expects to receive
this fiscal year from the half-cent sales tax levied by
Brunswick County.
The school system refinanced its annual service debt
on Belville Elementary to free-up additional half-cent
sales tax revenues, which must be used for school con
struction projects, said school finance officer Ann
Hardy.
The school system increased its annual debt payment
for all four projects to $1.5 million - $100,000 more
than the school system was paying each year for
Belville Elementary alone — by extending the term of
the debt on the $4-million balance owed on Belville
Elementary from seven to ten years and obtaining a
lower interest rate on the debt, and by extending the
debt service on the three classroom construction pro
jects to ten years.
Brunswick County commissioners must approve the
refinancing proposal and the addition of the Union
See Schools, page 5
Value adjustment
CP&L value
loss won’t
tax county
By Tterry Pope
County Editor
A fourth-year adjustment to public
utility values may cause a $2-mil
lion drop in county tax revenue, but
officials say they won’t panic over
getting a smaller check from
Carolina Power and Light Co. next
fiscal year. , _
Tax administrator Boyd William
son said his office may project
growth of $230 million due to new
home and business construction in
the county that may offset the loss
in utility revenue and keep county
commissioners from raising the tax
rate, which is currently 68.5 cents
per $100 valuation.
Williamson said the N. C.
Department of Revenue will arrive
at a figure by April 15 on how
Carolina Power and Light Co.’s
Brunswick nuclear plant near
Southport should be assessed fair
market value. Those rates are based
on what property owners are actual
ly paying in taxes in relation to what
their homes or businesses may actu
ally be worth. Gaps exist when val
ues are left unadjusted between
revaluations, which will start on a
five-year county cycle in 1999.
The last county revaluation was in
See Thx loss, page 6
$5.8 mil
pi -'' .* ■ • . - ■ • • ;->
past due
Thx officials have submitted a
; projected tax base to county
commissioners for the 1998-99 _ i
fiscal year as a way to estimate
revenues for the upcoming bud
get. Revenue collector Nancy
Moore has also submitted a col
lection report which shows some
$5.8 million is still owed the
county in delinquent taxes.
That amount stretches over a
ten-year period, but $2.6 million
is owed from taxes due in 1997 i
alone. The county currently
stands at a 93.6-percent collec
| tion rate for 1997.
Commissioners must base the
budget on the previous collec
tion rates and on what the tax
base is projected to be. But with
t a fourth-year adjustment for util
1 ity companies, that tax base
stands to change when the exact
figure is decided by the N. C.
Department of Revenue April 15 ;
See Past due, page 6
More sign-on
Towns weigh
trash options
By Terry Pope
County Editor
Eleven Brunswick County munic
ipalities have agreed to participate
in the county’s curbside trash dis
posal plan approved last month by
county commissioners.
County attorney Huey Marshall
said Tuesday one other town is close
to giving approval, four are meeting
on the subject soon and one has
indicated it will give an answer at a
later date.
Commissioners approved the six
year, $30-million contract with
Waste Industries Inc. last month that
will provide once-a-week curbside
service for all 40,000 homes in the
county, even inside municipalities.
Thus far, approval has been received
from Belville, Boiling Spring
Lakes, Calabash, Bolivia, Holden
Beach, Leland, Navassa, Northwest,
County looks at bridge corridor plan
By Terry Pope
County Editor
Brunswick County planners will get a peek
this week at the development plan for a corri
dor leading to the proposed second bridge to
Oak Island.
A workshop is scheduled Wednesday
(tonight) at 6 p.m. by the Brunswick County
Planning Board to review the draft that coun
ty planning director Jeff Coutu’s staff has
compiled.
With Oak Island towns pushing forward
with a thoroughfare plan which includes a sec
ond bridge to the island, N. C. Department of
Transportation (DOT) officials and county
commissioners say they want to make sure the
county is in the same boat. The corridor will
lead to the community along Midway Road,
which lies in the county’s jurisdiction.
“We know the bridge is needed,” said Jo
Ann Bellamy Simmons, chairman of the
Brunswick County Board of Commissioners.
“I want to know that we are putting it in the
right place.”
A county wide thoroughfare plan, which was
to include plans for a second bridge, has been
stalled with the appointment of a new DOT
secretary amid a State Bureau of Investigation
probe into alleged misuse of funds on highway
projects. But Coutu told the planning board
last month his department is at work on the
slow, tedious process of examining data
blocks, like ones used to compile the U. S.
Census, as legwork for DOT’s engineers.
On February 16, county commissioners
adopted a resolution asking that the DOT
investigation not delay construction of the sec
ond bridge to Oak Island and stated the bridge
See Bridge, page 5
i
‘The county last
year spent $5.2
million, and all we
got was a landfill
and six months of
hauling.’
Huey Marshall
County attorney
Sandy Creek, Shallotte and Varnam
town.
The Long Beach Town Council
has scheduled a special meeting
Tuesday, April 7, 7 p.m., at the Long
See Options, page 7
What’s inside
Obituaries 5
Time and Tide 7
Police report 9
Business 10
Waterfront 12
Church 4B
Master Gardener 8B
TV schedule 4C
District Court 6C
Classifieds , 7C
■ NEWS on the NET: www.southport.net ■