November 18, 1998
Phone 910-457-4568/Fax 910-457-9427/e-mail pilot@southport.net Volume 68, Number 13
THE STATE PORT
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esday in Southport, NC
Long Beach
Services
question
at hand
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
Recycling, banking and billing
procedures are all likely to be
impacted by the planned consolida
tion of the towns of Long Beach and
Yaupon Beach as the Town of Oak
Island on July 1, 1999.
Long Beach Town council
appeared keenly aware of that fact
Tuesday night as it postponed
action on a recommendation of the
town's recycling committee and
moved slowly and carefully to
embrace a new utilities billing pro
cedure which must be coordinated
with the banking services of an
institution still not chosen.
Recycling committee chairman
Bob Boyd brought a proposal
before council to begin once-week
ly recycling from curbside. The
committee recommended recycling
be done on the same day that refuse
is collected. The additional service
would cost an additional 40 cents
per household per month.
When added to the $1.96 monthly
recycling cost Long Beach cus
tomers now pay, the cost of recy
cling becomes $2.36 per month or
$7.08 each quarterly billing cycle.
Town manager Jerry Walters said
the proposal would add about
$20,000 to the town's annual con
tract cost for services provided by
Waste Industries Inc.
Boyd said the recommendation
came in response to the three most
frequent complaints the recycling
committee had received: Every
other week collection is too infre
quent; bins are too small to handle
recyclables; collection dates are too
confusing.
"To solve what seems to be the
most urgent problems, the recycling
committee recommends once
weekly recycling on trash day,"
Boyd said.
Mayor Joan Altman noted the
recycling committee had not yet
met with representatives appointed
to that body from Yaupon Beach in
anticipation of Consolidation. She
also contended the recycling pro
gram, begun in August, had not
been on-going long enough to
develop baseline data on participa
tion. She recommended that data be
compiled first so the town could
gauge increases in participation.
Council declined to take action on
the recycling committee's request
until the Yaupon Beach representa
tives are consulted.
Mayor Altman said recycling
problems could be combated and
participation could be increased
through a consumer e ducation pro
See Long Beach, page 6
Early
edition
Next week’s edition of The
State Port Pilot will be pub
lished a day early, on Tuesday.
The early printing will facilitate
delivery to local subscribers and
many out-of-county subscribers
before the holiday.
Deadline for real estate adver
tising remains Friday at noon
and classified advertising
Monday at noon. Display adver
tising also must be in the news
paper office by noon Monday
this week.
Deadline for news material is
noon Monday, but earlier sub
mission is suggested to ensure
publication in the Thanksgiving
edition.
FALL HARVEST
Photo by Jim Harper
Last week’s freezes in the Southport-Oak Island area did not discourage lantana blooms, nor the last
of the butterfly migrants passing through the community. Seasonable weather is expected through the
balance of this week.
State DOT session
New documents may
pave way to progress
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
Representatives of 17 state and federal agencies
charged with environmental review of N. C.
Department of Transportation projects are now mulling
over new information relative to the siting of a road cor
ridor to a proposed second bridge to Oak Island. That
information is said to be supportive of placing the
bridge roadway corridor between Middleton Street and
N. C. 211 at Midway Road.
The information about development trends between
the area opposite Oak Island's Yellow Banks and N. C.
211 was provided by DOT engineers and their consul
tants Thursday in Raleigh. While there is no hard and
fast time-frame by which their reaction to new facts at
hand must he made, the agency reps will submit their
written comments on corridor siting to the U. S. Army
Corps of Engineers, under terms of an agreement which
consolidates federal and state review efforts.
“The corps will then decide if we can proceed with a
corridor selection from the alternatives we have, or if
we have to develop other corridor alternatives,” said
See State DOT, page 6
Waterfront storage
City to weigh options
for more water access
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
Under terms of a motion aldermen
may or may not have meant to
adopt, Southport Maritime Museum
may for 365 days store equipment in
the old Caroon Crab Co. building on
Bay Street at the foot of Kingsley
Street.
Aldermen, however, said they
would schedule a workshop .to dis
cuss permanent plans lor the old
crab factory building and the land it
occupies.
Maritime museum director Mary
Strickland Thursday appeared
before aldermen seeking use of the
Caroon building as a temporary
storage facility for equipment the
Brunswick Town State Historic Site
will otherwise discard as part of its
renovation, now underway. She said
if the museum were given use of the
Caroon building on Bay Street for a
long period of time, it would be con
verted into a preservation laborato
ry, in addition to a storage facility.
In a letter to aldermen last week she
See Storage, page 10
Unified front
County urges
Midway route
for new bridge
X
By Terry Pope
County Editor
County officials have taken a
stand on a preferred second bridge
route to Oak Island and will invite
Department of Transportation offi
cials to see first-hand some prob
lems with county roadways.
Last week's proposal to delay
construction of the second bridge
along with Brunswick County's
portion of the Wilmington bypass to
Interstate 40 for five years angered
the Brunswick County Board of
Commissioners. They now want
DOT secretary Norris Tolson to see
for himself traffic conditions in the
county.
Commissioners say they are left
without a local voice on the DOT
board following the resignations of
Ocean Isle Beach developer Odell
Williamson and Wilmington attor
ney Michael Mills. Williamson's
family owns acreage in the vicinity
of the proposed bridge corridor and
offered to donate the right-of-way
for its construction.
'“He told me that he (-Tolson) and
Doug Bowers (DOT district engi
neer) would represent us." said
District 5 commissioner Bill Sue of
Leland. “So we're calling him down
here as our representative."
Commissioners did not like what
they heard at a meeting last week
with DOT representatives. District
3 commissioner Leslie Collier of
Long Beach suggested to her board
that it is time for the county to take
an official stand on the preferred
bridge corridor route and to contin
‘We’re as entitled
to bridges to the
island as they are
all up and down the
coast. Somebody
needs to start mak
ing a decision
about where it
needs to be.’
JoAnn Bellamy Simmons
Commission chairman
ue fighting for construction of the
Outer Loop in northern Brunswick
County.
The loop would he a four-lane
bypass ot Wilmington and would
route traffic north of L.eland and
Navassa. sending it on an express
way to 1-40 near Pen lev County. H
would connect to L. S 17 near
Town Creek.
The hoard officially endorsed
alternatives A. B or C' for the second
bridge corridor with a desired route
of B. rather than a route of D or E
that would take traffic through
Sunset Harbor. A. B or C would exit
Middleton Street on the island and
See Midway, page 10
County adopts bridge corridor plan

‘Dawson’s Creek’
Photo b\ Jim Harper
No, it wasn’t the U. S. Open Sailfish Tournament at the yacht basin last
week, but the filming of a “Dawson’s Creek” episode for television in a
setting that residents and frequent visitors were sure to recognize.
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