June 24, 1998
THE STATE PORT
Volume 67, Number 44
Phone 910-457-4568/Fax 910-457-9427/e-mail pilot@southport.net
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Hooked on Golf / p
Youths enjoy sport of lifetiml r .;
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Published every Wednesda.
•t, NC
Yaupon
to fund
rescue
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
Concluding discussions Thursday
night, Yaupon Beach commission
ers were prepared to adopt a budget
for 1998-99 calling for no tax or
service fee increases and including
no appropriation for a contract with
Long Beach for rescue service.
Until Friday, Yaupon Beach com
missioners were prepared to have
only Brunswick County EMS
respond to emergency medical calls
in their town.
Revisiting that decision Friday
night, commissioners reversed
themselves, appropriating $19,462,
or a 14.4-percent share of the cost of
supporting the Long Beach Rescue
Squad which will be bolstered next
year by four new paid employees.
Commissioners agonized over the
rescue squad decision. The decision
to fund the Long Beach rescue con
tract came by the slimmest of mar
gins. Commissioners Dick Marshall
and Linda FranWin voted to con
tract with Long *Beach for rescue
service. The 14.4-percent of rescue
costs Yaupon Beach will pay is
identical to the share of the perma
nent Oak Island population living in'
Yaupon Beach. Caswell Beach will
pay 3.6 percent of rescue costs next
year, or $4,865.
Commissioners Bill Smith and
Marty Wozniak refused to cast a
vote on the measure. Their silence
was counted as a “yes" vote under
state law. Commissioner Roy
Johnson, who opposed the Long
Beach rescue contract last week, did
not attend the Friday session.
Town clerk Nancy Wilson was
directed to appropriate from general
fund balance the additional funds
needed to balance the 1998-99 bud
get proposal and to fund the Long
Beach Rescue Squad contract. The
pact with Long Beach will not
impact the town's tax rate, which
will remain at 37.5 cents per $100
assessed valuation in the year to
begin July 1.
Commissioners actually had been
considering the Long Beach Rescue
Squad proposal for months.
Long Beach town manager Jerry
Walters first presented the the pro
posed Yaupon Beach share of res
See Yaupon, page 11
N.G. 211
rezoning
okayed
By Terry Pope
County Editor
Commercial growth in the Long
Beach Road corridor is bringing
with it increased traffic, but
Brunswick County planners said
last week they cannot halt develop
ment during the search for solu
tions.
The Brunswick County Planning
Board voted 4-2 to approve a
rezoning request which opens a 93
acre tract on N. C. 211 just west of
Long Beach Road to commercial
low density (C-LD) development
with talk of a major retail store
looking to locate on the property
owned by Z-l Commercial
Properties Inc. of Wilmington.
“That’s a big problem in
Brunswick County - roads,” said
JoAnn Bellamy Simmons, planning
board member and chairman of the
Brunswick County Board of
Commissioners. “But I can’t solve
the problem of roads by deny
See Rezoning, page 8
Photo bv Jim Harper
Action was not only wooly but wild Saturday as senior softballers played to their
hearts’ content in a tournament of the Eastern Carolina Senior Softball League in
Smithville Township District Park.
‘Empty Seats’ filling up
By Laura Kimball
Feature Editor
Thousands of people are expected at
Brunswick Community College this weekend,
and they won’t all be students.
A four-day festival, “No Empty Seats,” will
begin Thursday and end Sunday. All sorts of
music — from beach and bluegrass to gospel
and southern rock — as well as arts, crafts anc
food are on the agenda.
The name of the festival, “No Empty Seats,”
has a philosophical and a practical meaning
behind it, said John Holleman, executive pro
ducer of the festival and director of institution
al resource development.
“We don’t want any empty seats at the col
lege, and we’re planning to have a sell-out
event,” he said.
The festival is a fund-raiser for students who
wish to pursue their education but need finan
cial assistance.
“We are the first community college in the
state to offer to every senior the opportunity to
come free of charge, including tuition, books
and fees, to the college. We wanted to remove
all barriers,” he said.
Holleman and others are leaving no stone
unturned in promoting the festival. They plan
See Seats, page 15
Budget hearing
City aldermen weigh
rec, dispatch concern
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
Critics of the City of Southport’s pro
posed $7.06-million budget for 1998-99
zeroed-in on two proposed general fund
expenditures at a public hearing Thursday
night: The proposed $180,900 budget for
the city parks and recreation department;
and, a proposed $180,000 purchase of a
new fire truck to replace a 34-year-old
pumper.
Aldermen also heard several appeals from
agencies outside city government which
either wanted appropriations or increases in
appropriations the city’s budget committee
had recommended. Representatives of
Southport Maritime Museum, Southport
2000 and the Southport-Oak Island
Chamber of ’Commerce made appeals for
more money.
Hearing an earful, aldermen delayed
action on the budget proposal. The board
has scheduled a workshop session for 6
p.m. Thursday at which members have
asked to hear again from Mary Strickland of
the Southport Maritime Museum and city
department heads. Action on the budget
proposal may not be taken until as late as
June 29; midnight June 30 is the deadline
for budget adoption.
Debate of the parks and recreation depart
ment’s proposed $180,000 budget for the
See Concern, page 11
Beach Road area
Residents object
to Yaupon plan
for annexation
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
Their message was short and to the point
and almost unanimous: We don't want to be ,
part of Yaupon Beach.
Perhaps it was the two-minute time limit
on comments before Yaupon Beach com
missioners at the Moose Lodge Tuesday
night, but residents of the Long Beach
Road, Airport Road and Fish Factory Road •
communities — the communities targeted in
a resolution of Yaupon Beach's intent to
annex -- took only 45 minutes to deliver
their forceful message.
With the exception of two speakers, resi
dents of the southern portion of Southeast
Brunswick Sanitary District told Yaupon
See Annex, page 7
‘It is a legitimate
concern of the town
to seek to expand its
borders to protect its
economic base.’
Roger Lee Edwards
Yaupon Beach attorney
Managed care dilemma
Dosher wants say
in lease proposal
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
No agreement to lease Brunswick
Community Hospital will contain any pro
vision detrimental to Dosher Memorial
Hospital.
Dosher's administration and trustees said
Brunswick County commissioners and
members of the county hospital authority
have offered that assurance as the two bod
ies seek to negotiate Brunswick Communi
ty Hospital's management future. New
Hanover Regional Medical Center, of
Wilmington, has offered to purchase assets
of Brunswick Community Hospital from
Columbia/HCA, which holds a 40-year
lease of the facility. Brunswick County
built the hospital facility in the late 1970s
and the deal must be approved by the
Brunswick County Hospital Authority, an
11-member appointed body which serves at
the pleasure of county commissioners.
While county commissioners have ex
pressed concern that management of the
Supply facility be kept local and that the
hospital not be utilized as a “feeder” facili
‘The worst-case sce
nario is Columbia
keeps the hospital.
The other scenario is
they work out new
lease to New Hanover.’
Edgar Haywood
Dosher administrator
ty for the larger NHRMC, Dosher's con
cerns are more specific.
“We don't want to be cut out of the man
aged care market,” Dosher administrator
Edgar Haywood told trustees Monday.
“That doesn't appear to be a problem. We
also want them to recognize the traditional
boundaries of the Dosher hospital service
See Dosher, page 8
y.
(jgou\i Pintsi Light r'
&\#nSianxPusT
fen Thousand Dollars
J I
1*!8W
S 10,00000
Carolina Power & Light Co. Brunswick Nuclear Plant vice-president Jack Keenan (right
and manager of communications Ann Mary Carley present a $10,000 check to Southport offi
cials alderman Paul Fisher, city manager Rob Gandy and mayor Bill Crowe in support of th<
community building reconstruction project CP&L has made a five-year, $25,000 commit
meat to the project. »
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