Newspapers / The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, … / Sept. 24, 1992, edition 1 / Page 4
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Opinion Page THE BRUNSWICK#ftACON Edward M. Sweatt and Carolyn H. Sweatt Publishers Edward M. Sweatt Editor Lynn S. Carlson Managing Editor Susan Usher . News Editor Dong Rutter Sports Editor Maijorte Megtvern Associate Exit tor Eric Carlson Sta ff Writer Peggy Earwood Office Manager Carolyn H. Sweatt .....Advertising Director Ttmberley Adams. Cecelia Gore and Linda Cheers Advertising Representatives Dorothy Brennan and Bnenda Clemmons Moore ..Graphic Artists Wllllain Manning Pressman Lonnie Sprinkle...,. Assistant Pressman Tim Gibson Photo Technician Phoebe Clemmons and Frances Sweatt Circulation PAGE 4- A, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1992 Committee A Good Step ? Toward Fair Regulations The Brunswick County Board of Health was wise in forming a bn>ad- spectrum committee to study and make recommenda tions regarding proposed regulation and certification of local mo bile home parks and campgrounds. The committee has 16 members, including representatives of affected businesses, health board members, health department staff and other concerned citizens. They will study the proposed regulations and make recommendations to the health board and its Environmental Committee. While the formation of ad hoc committees can sometimes make the wheels of bureaucracy grind more slowly, in this in stance it's a good idea. The regulations being proposed would, for the first time, grade mobile home parks and campgrounds for the sanitation of their premises, water supply, sewage and solid waste disposal, animal control and general maintenance. Too stringent an ordi nance would unfairly squeeze out small businesses, as well as tenants who may not have the means to make other arrange ments. Recommending too lenient an ordinance would defeat the group's purpose, since the plan probably would be rejected by the health board. Study by a committee like this one ? in which the people to be regulated have some say ? will make policing the eventual regulations go more smoothly. At the same time, it helps ensure that the ordinance's goal ? better protection of the health and safety of tenants ? is reasonably met. One doesn't have to look too far for evidence that mobile homes are a touchy subject in some Brunswick County circles. Only a few weeks ago, language which insulted many dwellers of mobile homes was removed from the county's draft land use plan. They justifiably resented being characterized as a poorly educated and low-income underclass of Brunswick Countians. They made their case eloquently in speeches before county gov ernment leaders and in letters to this newspaper. Now, Varnamtown's governing board has passed rules which set a minimum lot size for manufactured homes and which pro hibit travel trailers from being used as permanent residences. While some residents cried discrimination, others said such rules will serve to protect the value of property in the town and help shape its future. Many, many Brunswick Countians, either by necessity or choice, live in mobile homes. They deserve a voice in the devel opment of regulations with which they must live. Triangle's In Polite Company North Carolinians can be proud that the Raleigh-Durham area came in at the top of the list of America's most polite cities. But perhaps it should have been named the area in which people are least likely to make a scene. Here's how it worked: Maijabelle Young Stewart, described by the Associated Press as an "internationally known etiquette authority" received nominations from 2,702 people who attended her etiquette seminars across the country. They picked Raleigh Durham. As a litmus test, Young did a little testing of her own. ?She went to a beauty shop and was intentionally rude, showing up early for an appointment and fussing when the beau tician was not on time. The beautician never lost her composure. ?She butted in front of 18 people waiting for pizza at a shop ping mall food court, saying she was late for an appointment and couldn't wait. No one complained. ?Finally, she walked behind a man reading a newspaper in a hotel lobby and began reading over his shoulder. When he started to turn the page, she told him to wait, that she hadn't finished. He waited without protesting. Cheeky? Indeed. Congratulations, Triangle. You have more patience than most of us. Humble Pie Bitter, But Victory Sweet Humility, that low sweet root From which all heavenly virtues shoot. ? Thomas Moore Humility is the most difficult of all virtues to achieve; nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself. ? T.S. Eliol Humility, schmumility, virtue, schmirtuc. WE WON! Bathed in more sweat than Richard Nixon in the Kennedy de bate, Susan and I outlasted and out spelled 13 ? count 'em ? pairs of competitors to triumph in the Bruns wick County Literacy Council's Adult Spelling Bee. We beat two financial institutions, the school system, the community coiiegc, the hospital, the phone co op, Ma Bell and a multinational electronics corporation? a veritable Who's Who of this community's corporate and human service hon chos. Lynn ! 5 Carlson But most importantly, wc stayed in the fray and saw every other newspaper competing in this circula tion/advertising market go down in defeat, a fact which should not be lost to all you beloved current and prospective subscribers and adver tisers. Yes (and I say this in all humility and virtue) wc gave the Sun a sun stroke and made the Star see stars. "Wc live to spell," they said in their opening remarks. "Words are uui business, our only business." HA! Then slither back to your glitzy metropolitan newsrooms and tell them you couldn't spell "parliamen tary" or "perseverance" while those two Beacon bumpkins made it through a dozen more rounds ? through "escutcheon, bivouac, ren dezvous, archipelago, beneficiary, forfeiture, equivocator and belli cose" to bring home the gold! Tell them you'll think twice be fore you brave the wilds of the greater Supply/Bolivia area again! Tell them you think the asplialt might be greener in your own. back yard! During the intermission prior to the final round. Holly and Amit, our colleagues from the Pilot, were in shock at their incredibly bad fortune. In a cruel twist of fate, they were given the word "schlemiel" to spell, which understandably caused their downfall in the third round. It was the first documented utterance of a Yiddish word in the history of the greater Supply/Bolivia area. Yv c have iu iianu it to those de ceptively mild-mannered she-devils from Comprehensive Home Health Care, who nearly spelled curtains for us. If both teams hadn't both missed "fuchsia, lackadaisical and whip poorwil!," Wynn Caison and Rosic Scarborough would have bragging rights as we speak. For Susan and me it was, as those of us say who can spell it, a Pyrrhic victory due to the nearly intolerable conditions inside the Bee Dome, which doubles on other days as the Brunswick Community College Student Center. It seems there is some type of sclf-dcstruct mechanism on the air conditioning which is programmed to detonate at the same time every evening. Consequently the heat, couplcd with the fever pitch of com petition, was adequate to turn our make-up to sludge puddles on our collars. But wc p-e-r-s-e-v-e-r-e-d (snicker, snicker). To our newspaper colleagues: See you next year in the Bee Dome for the grudge match. If you practice re _i i i 1 u .. ~ a u ?u iidiu aiiu UC glAJU ?1115 aiiu uup, perhaps you can write a column next year reminding us, as the Psalms do, that "pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Tce-hee... HAMLET FIRE VICTIMS (?W2. Housework Is Where You Find It OK guys, help me out here! In last week's Beacon you may have read (probably not) a load of bull that my wife Lynn, the man gling editor, served up as her excuse for a column. (Don't waste your lime looking for it. Capt. Jamie's fishing column was sooooo much better.) How lame. With all the important stuff going on in the world ? like Mia Farrow and the Woodman, the war in Bozz-Kncc-A-Hcrshcy-Go Beany-A, the Braves closing in on the pennant ? she decides to write ahout some cockamamie study that claims men don't do enough "house work." Sure. Right. Like when do you think Lynn last changed the spark plugs and oil on that fancy German "Far Fig Newton" car of hers? And who mows the lawn? Who put up all the fancy-schmancy louver blinds on the windows? And who ran the Eric wm Carlson cable into the bedroom so she could eat cookies and watch "The Love Boat" on Wednesday mornings? Now I'm not saying I spend the same amount of time doing laundry and tidying up around the house. But when the really nasty jobs come up, like pulling big gray ticks off the dog or burying another cat or scrap ing years of accumulated food goop out of the sink disposal, who do you think she calls? And who's she gonna call the next time she finds a tree frog in the sink or a mouse peering up at her from ihc trash can or a 1 2-foot ana conda wrapped around the washing machine agitator? Me, that's who. Women don't seem to understand the historically accepted exchange rate for household chores. One oil change, for example, is the equiva lent of at least 25 laundry loads. Installing anything that requires an electric drill is equal to ten bathroom cleanings. And ridding the home of any intruder ? insect, rodent, am phibian, reptile or college buddy ? credits the guy with a minimum of six nag-free Monday Night Football viewings. The reason women do more housework than men is that they find more of it to do. Which all boils down to a basic chromosome-linked perceptual difference in how we de fine words like "mess" and "clutter" and "dirty." Men tend to respond to an obvious need, while women arc more into preventive maintenance. Left to our own devices, most guys make the bed whenever we do the monthly sheet change. Dishes get washed when we run out of forks or glasses. Dusting naturally occurs whenever something spills on the surface in question. And the garbage, like the dog, will generally let you know when it wants to go out. Consequently, married guys rare ly do housework because there nev er seems to be any that needs to be done. 3efore things around our house ever got to the point where I thought it was messy, Lynn would have already called from somewhere on the road with Thelma and Louise. It's not that we guys don't appre ciate living in a civilized atmos phere. We just forget how it got that way sometimes. So Lynn. Need any help with that? Hold on, I'll get the drill... LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Watts Did Not Speak For Sunset's Wastewater Advisory Committee To the editor: I, as chairman of the Sunset Beach Citizens Advisory Committee on Wastewater, disassociate my self from all comments and opinions offered by Mr. John Watts at the recently held Sunset Beach Taxpayers Association meeting as reported in the Sept. 10 edition of The Brunswick Beacon. To date, the committee has developed no con clusion regarding the implementation of the program; nor will we until all data have been received by this committee and reviewed in detail. The committee, the members of which were ap pointed by Mayor Mason Barber to include representa tives from various neighborhoods within Sunset Beach and the extraterritorial jurisdiction, has been charged with the task of assembling as much information and da ta as possible with regard to the needs and costs and pros and cons of providing centralized wastewater col lection and treatment. After thoroughly analyzing the same, we are to make recommendations to the town council as to how to proceed with the program, if we are of a consensus that the program is in the best interest of the town. According to the Beacon article, Mr. Watts told the Taxpayers Association "It would be a S25 million sys tem." No such dollar figure has been implied or dis cussed in any of our meetings. Mr. Watts also advised that "they'd need the island to make it work." Quite the contrary, at our last meeting of Sept. 1 5, we learned that the island was set as a high priority due to environmental concerns, but that inclu sion of the island in lieu of other neighborhoods needing service may significantly reduce the potential for grant funding for the overall project. Furthermore, the island is logistically more difficult to accommodate than certain mainland neighborhoods. The program might work more efficiently if the island were not included, particularly in the first phase of a sewering program. Mr. Watts stated that "a 5300,000 stormwater runoff system might be adequate." But, all the informa tion the committee has reviewed shows that pollution is likely occurring from both stormwater runoff and im proper wastewater management, and that remediating ei ther problem exclusively will not result in an overall im provement of water quality. Both pollution elements need to be addressed. Furthermore, no study has been performed to date on the cost of a stormwater remediation program, and any dol lar figure suggested at this point in time is entirely spec ulative. Mr. Watts also stated that a "sewer system would bring in, if not high-rises, overdevelopment." It is my opinion that overdevelopment of the island is the present case, given the current platting of the island with 50-foot wide, 5,000-square fool lots. This present case overde velopment has led to the need for much more effective wastewater and stormwater management I am also of the opinion that limiting sewer service is not the appropriate means of accomplishing control of growth, and that other tools are available to the town to limit the further development potential of the town. One needs only to review the newspaper articles on the recent developments in Holden Beach with regard to wastewater management to observe the chaos which can result from trying to use wastewater as a means of limit ing growth and/or occupancy. Nonresident homeowners should particularly take note. In our initial organizational meeting, we elected a chairman, and decided to follow parliamentary proce dures in the conduct of our meetings. The engineering firm of Powell Associates has attended our meetings to provide information on an as-requested basis. In accomplishing the tasks assigned to us, we, per haps excluding Mr. Walts, will review all information and data in an objective manner. Once we believe we have learned all that is rele vant, we will form and make our recommendations to the town council, based on what we deem to be in the best interest of the town, its citizens and cur neighbors. Along the same line, I urge all citizens of the town to keep an open mind on the sewer program until such lime as all the facts arc known. Furthermore, the committee sincerely desires par ticipation in the committee by representatives of the homeowners on the island who can maintain the objec tivity required to accomplish the tremendous task we have at hand. George Knott Sunset Beach She'll Share Column With Her Boss To the editor: Eric Carlson's Aug. 20 column ("Yankee Go.. .Easy") was great. I'm wailing on my boss and his remarks aboul the South; then I'm going to hand him your article. He's from Indiana and Chicago, and you can imagine what 1 used to have to listen to until we had a few words. 1 asked him who invited him down here and he replied, "Robert E. Lee." Also, another co-worker from Alabama loved your article and said he was hanging onto it. Linda Calhoun Greensboro (More Letters, Following Page)
The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, N.C.)
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Sept. 24, 1992, edition 1
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