Wrestling with the never-ending issue of shoaling in Dare County inlets has brought the need for more transparency in county government to the forefront in recent months.
More transparency is what the new chairman, Bob Woodard, promised when he was sworn in at the Dec. 1 meeting of the board shortly after a sweep in the November general election gave the Republicans a majority on the board for the first time in decades.
However, that’s not what has happened.
As the county and two of its advisory panels pushed for long-term solutions to the problem of keeping inlets, especially Oregon Inlet, open to boat traffic, two problems have become apparent.
Not only have the solutions been pursued largely out of public view, but now some are questioning who is really in charge of this pursuit at the county level — the board or Oregon Inlet stakeholders who hold most of the seats on the advisory panels.
And, to make matters worse, the inlet discussion has reignited another issue that many thought was put to rest decades ago — the issue of Hatteras Island’s parity with the rest of the county.
“The public has a right to know how these issues are playing out,” Sandy Semans, a retired newspaper editor and freelance writer, said during public comment at the May 4 meeting of the Board of Commissioners.
“It’s the law,” she added.
Instead, we’ve been surprised several times this year when major inlet dredging issues and funding sources that were not on the published agenda were discussed.
And most of us were surprised to learn after the fact that the April 21 meeting of the Dare County Oregon Inlet and Waterways Commission would apparently be its last and that advisory panel would be merged with the county’s other advisory panel, the Oregon Inlet Task Force.
Furthermore, the newly created merged group, we learned, might not have a representative from Hatteras Island, even though Hatteras Inlet is struggling with its own shoaling problems.
First, there is the issue of how to pay for long-term inlet maintenance now that the federal government is apparently out of the business of funding dredging projects. It’s been clear that the state and local governments are going to have to pick up the costs going forward, so Dare County started looking into funding sources.
So far, so good.
In February, Sen. Bill Cook, who represents Dare County in the General Assembly, was drafting a bill, Senate Bill 160, that would, in part, set up a program to pay for the state’s share of dredging of shallow-draft inlets.
On Thursday night before the Monday morning, March 2, meeting of the Dare Board of Commissioners, Woodard got an e-mail from Cook’s legislative aide with language that had been added to the bill. That added section would allow Dare County to use part of the 6 percent it collects in occupancy taxes to pay for inlet dredging.
Woodard said that was the first he knew of the section on occupancy taxes. But, no matter, he sent it to the other commissioners and he asked the clerk to the board to add it to the agenda for Monday’s meeting.
Woodard’s e-mail started getting copied all over the county over the weekend.
Dare’s occupancy tax is now designed by law for uses other than inlet dredging. Three percent is split among the county and municipalities and goes into their budgets to pay for the added services and infrastructure needed to serve the county’s huge tourist population in the summer. One percent goes to the Tourism Board to market the county as a tourist destination. And 2 percent is earmarked for beach nourishment projects.
Tourism and town officials, representatives of the tourist industry, and concerned citizens showed up at the March 2 meeting to protest or raise red flags about using these occupancy funds for dredging.
The board voted 6-1, with Beverly Boswell against, to ask Cook to remove the Dare County section from the bill.
At that meeting, the commissioners decided to use the equivalent of its share of the 3 percent of the occupancy tax — about $3.5 million — for dredging and to get that money out of the General Fund.
The occupancy tax language was eventually removed from SB 160.
At a special meeting on Friday, March 27, the commissioners voted in favor of a resolution asking Cook and Rep. Paul Tine to support legislation to allow the county to levy a 1/4-cent sales tax, without a referendum, to pay for dredging.
Tine introduced the bill the next week and it sailed through the House in a matter of days. However, it went no where in the Senate, and word back to the commissioners was that it wasn’t going anywhere, that the Senate did not support increasing the sales tax.
Fast forward to the weekend before the Monday, May 4, meeting when Woodard gets another e-mail from Cook’s aide — this one raising the possibility of adding a section to SB 160 that would again allow Dare County to take part of the occupancy tax for dredging. This time, the section would allow the county to take it only from the beach nourishment funds.
Again, word that the occupancy tax was back started spreading on Sunday, and some folks showed up to address it again on Monday morning.
This, of course, was not on the agenda at the May 4 meeting, and, for a while it looked as if it might not come up.
However, finally, at the very end of the meeting, in county manager’s business, Bobby Outten explained to the commissioners that taking this money from beach nourishment was again on the table and that he and the county finance director had figured out how that could happen without harming any of the four nourishment projects that are currently being planned. It would entail some risk, he said, but it could be done.
Commissioner Warren Judge noted that he was not comfortable taking the money from beach nourishment. He also reminded his fellow board members that now, for the second time, they were discussing this very important and somewhat controversial issue without it having been on the agenda.
This time, the commissioners voted to ask the General Assembly to allow them to use $5.5 million in the beach nourishment fund that came from an old sales tax — a so-called “sand tax” that was in effect for only six months before it was voted out in a referendum. This money would be “re-purposed” for dredging.
The vote on that was 4 to 3 with Commissioners Boswell, Wally Overman, and Margarette Umphlett voting against.
However, last week, Cook’s legislative aide, Jordan Hennessy, said that re-purposing that money would unconstitutional. So far, there has been no response from the board or the county manager on that issue.
Obviously, how to pay for long-term dredging is still very much up the air, undecided, unknown.
Ironically, before it took up the dredging issue that was not on the agenda on May 4, the board tabled one that had been on the agenda.
The commissioners had been intending to discuss the merger of the two county advisory panels on inlets.
However, in a hastily called meeting on Friday, May 1, it became apparent to the three commissioners in attendance that Oregon Inlet stakeholders would not welcome a merged committee if it meant including the problems of Hatteras Inlet in its mission and reflecting that goal in its name.
Dare County apparently did not consider that a public meeting even though all of those who attended were either commissioners or members of one of the current panels.
After the item was removed from the agenda, a number of Hatteras islanders spoke at public comment in favor of including Hatteras Inlet in any future advisory panel and having Hatteras representation. It was only fair, they said. And several also mentioned that future planning for an inlet advisory panel — or funding dredging — should be more transparent.
During a break in the meeting, the commissioners apparently discussed how they could best handle the issue of merging the two advisory groups — now that it was clearer to them that this might not be so easily accomplished.
After the break, Woodard announced the appointment of three commissioners to an ad-hoc committee to make recommendations on a merger of the groups. They are Judge, Hatteras Island Commissioner Allen Burrus, and Boswell as chairperson.
That ad-hoc committee met Wednesday evening, May 13, for the first time.
By most accounts, the meeting was contentious. About 20 members of the advisory panels and the public attended and spoke for most of the two-hour meeting. Oregon Inlet stakeholders made it clear that there was an emergency in the inlet, they had worked hard for funding for a long-term solution, and that Hatteras Inlet users should form their own task force.
The meeting ended with no consensus and no mention of another meeting. The ad-hoc committee was given 30 days to report back to the board.
Also, this week, a Senate committee put the occupancy tax language back into SB 160. The revised bill includes a provision that the county may use up to $3 million per fiscal year from the 2 percent occupancy tax currently designated for beach nourishment until the fiscal year that begins on July 1, 2021. The proposed use of the revenues is designated as ?maintenance of waterways.?
The next meeting of the Board of Commissioners is Monday, May 18, at 5 p.m.
There is no mention of inlets, inlet maintenance, or the county advisory panels on the agenda, which was published on Wednesday.
Will it come up again, without public notice?
Furthermore, there are meetings of each of the current advisory panels scheduled for Tuesday, May 19, according to the county website.
The Oregon Inlet Task Force meets at 9:30 a.m., and the Oregon Inlet and Waterways Commission meets at 7 p.m.
The commission meeting has been scheduled even though the minutes from the April 21 meeting of that group indicates that the four members who were present voted 3-1 to disband the group and the chairman said he would not schedule another meeting.
At this point, it certainly seems clear that the county’s efforts on its inlets are scattered, unfocused, and not very transparent.
It makes you wonder who’s in charge.
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SEASHORE SUPERINTENDENT IS GUEST ON RADIO SHOW
The guest on Sunday, May 17, on my Radio Hatteras interview show, “To the Point,” is David Hallac, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
In the interview, which is broadcast at 5 p.m., we discussed the alterations in wildlife protection buffers that have been proposed by the National Park Service in response to legislation passed in Congress last December.
Last week, the Park Service hosted five meetings to present its Environmental Assessment on the alterations and to explain them to the public. The meetings were in Ocracoke, Buxton, Raleigh, Hampton, Va., and Kitty Hawk.
In the interview, Hallac talks more about the proposals, the meetings, the public’s reaction, and other seashore issues.
You can tune it Radio Hatteras on the island at 101.5 and 99.9 FM or you can listen via live streaming at www.radiohatteras.org.
Furthermore, the newly created merged group, we learned, might not have a
representative from Hatteras Island, even though Hatteras Inlet is struggling with its own shoaling problems.
First, there is the issue of how to pay for long-term inlet maintenance now that the federal government is apparently out of the business of funding dredging projects. It’s been clear that the state and local governments are going to have to pick up the costs going forward, so Dare County started looking into funding sources.
