THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 6, 1994 TAG: 9407060382
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DeGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: Long : 153 lines
After two years of planning, at least three open meetings, a direct-mail survey and a publicized public hearing, the Dare County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday decided to solicit even more input before adopting the 1994 Land Use Plan.
Commissioners voted 4-3 to hold another public hearing on the airport expansion section of the planning document.
The hearing will be held at 7:30 p.m. July 18 in the commissioners' Manteo meeting room.
``I'm neutral on this issue,'' said board Chairman Robert V. Owens Jr., who voted for the second public hearing with commissioners Clarence Skinner, Sammy Smith and Doug Langford. ``We'll take it back to the people.''
Commissioners had been scheduled to adopt the five-year Land Use Plan at their regular monthly meeting Tuesday.
But after Planning Board Chairman Elmer Midgett announced that his group unanimously supported the document, Airport Authority attorney Robert Hobbs took the floor.
Hobbs criticized a sentence in the Land Use Plan which says: ``Dare County does not support the expansion of the Dare County Regional Airport at its current location.''
He urged commissioners to delete that portion of the plan - or at least modify it.
Although Owens said the public comment period for the plan closed after the June 22 public hearing, commissioners listened to Hobbs and two Airport Authority members for about 15 minutes.
No one opposing the airport's expansion attended Tuesday's meeting.
``I was looking for a way to go into executive session to discuss this. But we can't do it,'' Owens said Tuesday morning after conferring with the county attorney. ``We've only had three executive sessions so far, you know. We'll bring this up again during the course of the day.''
At 9:55 a.m., Owens called for a 10-minute break. Board members adjourned to a back meeting room and closed the door. Attorney H. Al Cole Jr. said commissioners were ``only in there eating donuts and drinking coffee.'' But County Manager Terry Wheeler refused to let a reporter into the room.
Owens reconvened the meeting a half-hour later. Commissioners met for 20 minutes but did not discuss the Land Use Plan. The board adjourned for lunch at 10:45 a.m.
When commissioners returned for the afternoon portion of the meeting at 1:35 p.m., the Land Use Plan was the second issue they discussed.
``Before lunch, I wasn't sure where the board was coming from. I needed to get a consensus from the board. And I was getting nothing,'' said Owens, who ate lunch with the other commissioners at RV's Restaurant.
``There wasn't any heavy talk about the plan over lunch. I just casually mentioned it. `What are we going to do with the Land Use Plan?' I asked them. That was my prerogative.''
Owens admitted that ``the perception'' about commissioners meeting in secret ``might be there.'' But he denied improperly discussing the plan behind closed doors. Skinner said board members ``did not talk about the plan'' during the morning break.
In the course of their afternoon discussion, Skinner tried to get commissioners to revise the plan's language about the airport. He suggested ``does not support expansion'' be changed to ``discourages expansion.''
And he asked that the recommendation be downplayed by adding a phrase that would allow county leaders to expand the airport at its existing Roanoke Island site if another suitable location could not be found.
Owens said that despite discouraging news last week from a Washington, D.C.-based consulting group, relocating the airport to Dare County's mainland still may be possible.
Both of Skinner's amendments to the Land Use Plan language were voted down 5-2. Skinner and Smith, who also are members of the Dare County Airport Authority, cast the favorable votes.
``The time for public comment is over with. Those guys were supposed to be in there today as commissioners - not airport authority members,'' said attorney Chris Seawell, who spoke against airport expansion at the June 22 public hearing. ``I don't think some of the commissioners have heard what the people have been saying.''
At the last public hearing, Seawell delivered a petition signed by about 300 people who opposed expanding the airport. Other people spoke out against the expansion at Land Use Plan meetings. But until Tuesday, airport authority members had not overtly objected to the Land Use Plan.
``Airport supporters had just as much a right and chance to get their people to those meetings as the expansion opponents,'' said Commissioner Geneva Perry, who voted against holding a second public hearing on the plan.
``The people of Dare County certainly don't support expansion of the runway into the Croatan Sound.''
Airport Authority Chairman Richard Mapp said he had hadn't spoken against the Land Use Plan earlier because he was misinformed about the document's scope.
``I consciously ignored the Land Use Plan because I was advised that it pertained only to unincorporated areas of Dare County,'' Mapp told commissioners Tuesday. ``We serve the whole county. So I didn't think it pertained to us.''
Although the airport serves the entire county and is underwritten with $300,000 in taxpayers' money annually, the facility sits on an unincorporated area on the north end of Roanoke Island.
``The airport people - myself included - have done a very poor job of selling the importance of aviation to our people,'' Skinner said after Tuesday's meeting. ``Each person in Dare County stands to benefit personally from that airport.''
Although Seawell and other airport expansion opponents said they were disappointed that commissioners did not follow their own procedures and reopened the public comment period for the plan, most said they were not surprised.
``The commissioners don't give a damn about what the people of Dare County want. They just want to do what the elitists of this area want,'' said Chuck Elms, a Republican running for county commissioner in November. The Roanoke Island resident served on the airport authority until commisioners ousted him last fall. ``The public has a right to reject even the best plans in the world. But some commissioners have illusions that they know what's best for you.
``Their actions Tuesday are exactly what I expected.''
Owens promised that his board will adopt the entire 1994 Land Use Plan immediately following the July 18 public hearing.
In other business Tuesday, the commissioners:
Unanimously adopted a local ordinance making it illegal for anyone to discharge a rifle, handgun or other firearm ``within 300 yards of any occupied residence or mobile home, except by permission of the occupant'' and ``on or across any public road or highway.'' Infraction of the law, which went into effect Tuesday, is a misdemeanor, punishable by up 30 days in jail and/or $50 fines.
Unanimously agreed to appropriate $20,000 for a state girls' softball tournament, scheduled for July 27 on Roanoke Island. At least 54 teams from throughout North Carolina will compete on the Manteo High School and middle school fields. The county money came from unspent funds which had been designated in the 1993-94 budget for Emergency Medical Services personnel salaries.
Awarded five contracts, for a total value of $2.9 million, to bidders who will build the new Rodanthe-Waves-Salvo reverse osmosis water plant and water system. The new system, which will cost an estimated total of $4.5 million, is scheduled to be completed by fall, 1995 and serve about 800 customers. The remaining eight contracts probably will be awarded in October.
Re-appointed Glenn Futrell and Commissioner Skinner to four-year seats on the County Airport Authority.
Re-appointed Wayne Gray to a two-year seat on the Oregon Inlet & Waterways Commission.
Announced that the N.C. Utilities Commission will poll Dare County residents in September to see whether they would like to have extended area service. The billing option would make all calls within county limits toll free. Currently, calls between northern areas of the county and Hatteras Island are long-distance.
Announced that at 1:30 p.m. July 14, the Dare County Tourism Board will unveil results of a $52,000 study about whether the area needs a multi-use convention-type center. The private study, which was done by an Atlanta firm, was financed with restricted funds from the county's occupancy and meals taxes. Results of the study will be discussed in public session at the Kill Devil Hills Town Hall.
Heard from state Department of Transportation officials that the new Wright Memorial Bridge over Currituck Sound will open by the beginning of the 1995 summer season - even if renovations to the existing span have to wait a few months. by CNB