Let this blog serve as a reminder that some important dates are coming up the first of next week.
We’ve all been busy on Hatteras and Ocracoke with the influx of Memorial Day visitors and the unwelcome arrival of tropical cyclone Bonnie, which managed to hang around the better part of the week with heavy rainfall that flooded the islands’ roads.
Meanwhile, those of us on Hatteras — and especially any of us who own property on or near the Buxton oceanfront — need to pay attention to the Dare County commissioners who are meeting Monday, June 6, for a public hearing on the 2017 budget and perhaps a vote on establishing a special service district in Buxton to help pay for next year’s beach nourishment project.
And those of us on both Hatteras and Ocracoke need to remember to vote in a second primary election on Tuesday, June 7.
DARE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS MEETING
The agenda for the Dare County Board of Commissioners meeting on Monday, beginning at 9 a.m., includes several items of interest.
The commissioners will consider a resolution to establish a special service district in Buxton to help pay for the 2017 beach nourishment project.
The board had a public hearing in Buxton at its last meeting on Monday, May 16, on establishing the special tax district, but took no action at that meeting.
The proposal for the special district would require the owners of 147 parcels of land in the triangle bordered by Old Lighthouse Road, Highway 12 (and a few properties west), and the ocean to help pay for the $25 million project to nourish about 2.9 miles of beach from about the Canadian Hole/Haulover area to the former site of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. The value of the properties is $41.4 million.
At the Monday meeting, it is likely that the commissioners will vote on the resolution to establish the district. The majority of the board members are on the record as favoring the special district as a matter of fairness, since taxpayers in northern towns that are also getting beaches nourished next year will be paying increased taxes to pay for their projects.
If they do establish the district, the matter of how much, if any, tax Buxton property owners should pay for nourishment in 2017 will be considered as the board works on the budget for next year.
Currently, the 2017 budget includes a tax in the special district of 25 cents per $100 of property value.
Dare County’s base tax rate is 43 cents per $100 of valuation. Property owners also pay additional taxes for fire service districts and some also pay for community center districts. There is no proposed tax increase, other than the Buxton special district.
Dare County manager Robert Outten said in an interview last month that at this point, the 25 cents per $100 is “just a proposal” for the service district.
“It’s a place-holder for budgeting purposes,” he said, noting that the commissioners have neither given final approval for the district nor have they given him guidance on how much the tax might be if they do move forward with it.
Outten said he chose the 25 cents because it is close to the average that is being paid for nourishment by oceanfront property owners in special tax districts in the county’s northern beach towns that also propose projects for next year.
The commissioners will have a public hearing on next year’s budget at 10 a.m. on Monday.
Also, on the agenda for discussion by the board are funding options for dredging of the Connecting Channel in Hatteras Inlet, which has been besieged by shoaling for months now.
Hatteras islanders can now make public comment at the meetings via a live hookup between the Fessenden Center in Buxton and the commissioners’ meeting room in Manteo.
On Monday, there will be two opportunities for comment.
The first will come with the public comment period that regularly happens near the beginning of each board meeting — shortly after 9 a.m. The public can comment on any topic, whether it’s on the agenda or not, but should hold their comments on the budget until the hearing.
The second opportunity will come at the 10 a.m. public hearing on the budget, which must be approved by the board by the end of June. The board has one more meeting scheduled for June — at 5 p.m. on Monday, June 20.
You can also listen to a live audio of the meeting or watch a video, which is usually posted the day after the meeting, on the Dare County website, www.darenc.com — scroll down and look on left hand side under Board of Commissioners heading
At the end of this blog, there is a link to the agenda and the agenda packet, which includes supporting documents. The packet is very long, but you can scroll down the agenda items on the left hand side of the screen and go right to the topic you want to see.
THE SECOND 2016 PRIMARY ELECTION
On Tuesday, June 7, North Carolina voters will go to the polls for yet another primary election that can be chalked up to the excessive polarizing politics in the state.
Voters on Tuesday will find a ballot that isn’t exactly crowded.
There are only two races.
The first is a primary for the Third District seat in the U.S. Congress, the seat now held by 11-term Republican incumbent Walter B. Jones. And the second is a non-partisan race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court.
The congressional race was included in the March 15 primary because a federal court ruled in February that the First and 12th districts had been improperly drawn and relied too heavily on race. The plaintiffs in the case claimed that the Republican-dominated legislature had engaged in racial gerrymandering.
After the U.S. Supreme Court refused a stay of the lower court ruling, the state was forced to delay the primary.
The North Carolina Supreme Court seat is also on the ballot because of a court case that challenged legislation passed by the Republican-controlled legislature that would have put only incumbent Supreme Court Judge Robert Edmunds on the ballot to give voters a chance to accept or reject him before he had to face challengers.
When that case reached the state Supreme Court, Edmunds recused himself and the court split 3-3 on the constitutionality of the new law. That, in effect, invalidated the law, so now Edmunds must face challengers in Tuesday’s second primary.
Got all that straight. If so, we can move on to who is on the ballot.
Republicans will have a choice of three candidates for Congress — Jones and two challengers — and Democrats will choose between two candidates.
Running against Jones are Phil Law, a former Marine who worked as a computer technician for a Defense contractor and is a community emergency response team trainer, and Taylor Griffin, who worked for N.C. Sen. Jesse Helms and in the administration of President George W. Bush and then founded his own public policy consulting firm.
The Democratic ballot pits David Allan Hurst of Newport against Ernest T. Reeves, a retired Army officer and former United Airlines pilot.
There are four candidates on the ballot for the seat on the Supreme Court, which is officially a non-partisan race.
Incumbent Judge Edmunds, a registered Republican who has held his seat on the court since 2000, will be challenged by two registered Democrats — Mike Morgan, a Wake County Superior Court judge, and Dan Robertson, who is in private practice — and one unaffiliated candidate, Sabra Faires, a lawyer in private practice.
The June 7 election will narrow the field of four to two candidates, who will run against each other in November.
The polls are open from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Click here to go to the agenda packet for the June 6 Dare County Board of Commissioners meeting.
RELATED ARTICLES
Dare proposed budget leaves tax rate unchanged — except for north Buxton
Commissioners hear comments on Buxton tax district, take no action
Congressional Primary Election set for June 7
