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riental gets a new Town Board tonight, December 3. With the swearing in, the Board will have three new commissioners: Charlie Overcash, David White and Sandy Winfrey. They’ll join current commissioners Larry Summers and Barbara Venturi who, like Mayor Bill Sage, won re-election in November. This will be Sage and Venturi’s fourth term and Summers’ second.

The newly configured Board will hit the ground running. Here are a preview of the meeting and some of the items before the Board.

Choosing Planning and Adjustment Board

One order of business for the new Board will be to fill four empty seats at the Planning Board and to seat five people on the Board of Adjustment. Two of the vacancies were created upon the election of incoming Commissioners Overcash and White. Overcash has been chair of the Planning Board and White served on the panel as well.

So far, seven people have applied to sit on the Planning Board. They are: David Kibbe, Cecily Lohmar, Jackie Mahan, Jim Barton, outgoing Town Commissioner Michele Bessette, Eric Dammeyer and former Planning Board Chair Dee Sage who is currently employed at Pamlico County’s Economic Development director. One of the seats is for a full term, two would expire in June 2015 and one in June 2014. One current Planning Board member, Mindy Schmitz, would remain.

Meanwhile, seven people have sought seats on the Board of Adjustment, the panel which advises whether the Town’s zoning and development standards should be waived and exceptions made, on a case by case basis. The applicants are: Doug Carmichael Pappy Khouri, Bill Marlowe, Warren Johnson, Paul Olson, Ken Small, and Joe Valinoti.

Voting Could Be Secret But Has To Be Revealed

At the Agenda meeting held on Tuesday November 26 there was discussion of having the new Town Board cast paper ballots on December 3 – with the applicants with the most votes getting the seats. That method of voting in secret would be a departure from the usual voting protocol at Town Board meetings, in which Commissioners voice their intentions or raise their hands. North Carolina law, however, requires that the ballots be signed and be available for the public to view right after the meeting in order to learn who Commissioners voted for. (To view NC GS-143-318.13(b), click here.)

Ban On Overnight Stays At Dinghy Dock and Two Other Small Boat Sites

Also coming up for discussion is a Proposed Rewrite of General Ordinance, Chapter E, concerning the Town’s docks, as proposed by the Harbor Waterfronts Committee. Among the changes it would make is a restriction on what hours the Dinghy Dock at South Water Street, the small boat launch/ramp at the end of Midyette Street and the wall between the Hodges Street Town Dock and Oriental Marina may be used. As proposed,the boats would be able to tie up there only between the hours of 5:30a and 12:30a. Dinghies and other small boats would not be allowed to be tied off there from 12:30a to 5:30a.

Those touting the change say it’s one way of addressing the homesteading of bigger boats in Oriental’s anchorage. At least one of those sailboats appeared to be using the anchorage as a free storage spot; the dinghy tending to that sailboat was left at the dinghy dock for extended periods of time. (In late November, that boat, Southern Cross, was moved to Greens’ Creek just on the other side of the Oriental bridge; its dinghy now is tied up at the small boat launch dock at Midyette Street.)

The Harbor Waterfronts Committee’s dinghy dock approach will likely get support from the Town Board at the upcoming meeting. Four members of the incoming Board — Charlie Overcash, David White, Larry Summers and Barbara Venturi — served on the Harbor Waterfronts Committee which crafted that provision.

Harbor Waterfronts Plan

Still looming is the bigger issue of how to keep boats from homesteading in the anchorage, a topic that has brewed since the summer and prompted calls for a time limit for anchorage stays. The Town Board has taken no action on it. In order to put a time limit on how long the vessels may stay in the anchorage, it has been said that the Town first needed to establish jurisdiction over the waters there.

In its list of priorities to be presented to the Town Board at an upcoming meeting, the Harbor Waterfronts Committee cites jurisdiction as a top priority. It does not, however, explicitly speak of imposing time limits in those waters as a way to give more boaters a chance to visit Oriental.

Meanwhile, a group of students and faculty from Duke Law School has started studying the issues and looking over the Town’s charter. One faculty member suggests the town may already have some jurisdiction. That research is a work in progress. If the Town does not have that jurisdiction – or enough – it would have to seek it from the Legislature which meets next May.

There was some debate at the Harbor Waterfront Committee’s meeting on December 2 as to how early in 2014 the Town would have to ask its Legislative delegation – Representative. Michael Speciale and Senator Norm Sanderson – to present such a bill in the General Assembly.

Commissioner Larry Summers said the Board had to act by January; Committee Chair Barbara Venturi questioned what the Town would be seeking. There was some discussion among other on the committee about how to get the Pamlico County Commissioners to sign on before the Town sought legislation. One argument floated: if Oriental got jurisdiction of its waters, it could make the Town more inviting for boating tourists, whose spending would help the county coffers in taxes paid.

Other Public Places To Tie Up A Boat

Elsewhere in the Harbor Waterfront Committee’s list of project priorities, are public restrooms and showers at the lot and dock the Town got from the Chris Fulcher land-swap, next to the Oriental Marina.

Also on the list of priorities, suggestions for developing more places for boats to tie up so that their crews can visit town, if only for a few hours. The idea of a landing area at the end of Hodges Street, on Camp Creek has been revived. A new idea that emerged from this fall’s work by the Harbor Waterfronts Committee was to extend a floating dock from the dinghy dock – at an angle – in to the anchorage area. In its report, the Harbor Committee also suggests the Town might consider leasing some of the slip area on the outer wall of Oriental Harbor Marina’s A Dock.

On Bagging Yard Waste Bag Program

Also on the agenda for the new board’s first meeting, Interim Town Manager Wyatt Cutler is expected to report on returning more than 500 yard waste bags to the manufacturer because the Town ultimately decided not to provide curbside pickup of the waste.

The previous Town Manager, Bob Maxbauer, had lobbied for the program and at his urging, the Town spent more than $4,000 on the purchase of 565 plastic bags which would hold a cubic yard (39”x39”x45”) of vegetative debris. The idea was that residents would fill the bags over time and when topped off, bring them curbside and call the Town for pick up.

A dozen of the bags were distributed before it was determined that the bags would weigh so much that it would take more man hours from the Public Works Department than anticipated. At the November 26 agenda meeting, it was noted that even if Oriental did find a way to pick up the yard debris and proceed with the program, it would have to then get a permit to run a composting pile on Town land near the Recreation Field.


Faced with that, the Board appeared ready to put that venture behind them and get back whatever money it could. One of the incoming Commissioners indicated a desire to cut the losses and return the bags. (The Town would not get all of its money back. The restocking fee will be 10% – or more than $400.)

One rationale for setting up the vegetative debris program had been to reduce the amount of leaf and branch burning that goes on in town. Burning yard waste is legal – burning lumber and other man-made objects is not – but Town officials say they do get complaints about the burning in general. Joe Valinoti, the Town’s volunteer recycling director suggested that an alternative to burning would be for residents to use a mulching blade on lawnmowers to more finelyl chop up leaves and create a fertilizer for lawns.

In other items before the new Board on December 3, the agenda calls for re-establishing what had been an ad-hoc Water Advisory Committee. There was some discussion at the agenda meeting about making that Advisory Committee a board with more powers, perhaps at a January meeting.

Reserving the Town Dock For Lighted Boats At Spirit of Christmas

Also on the agenda, a likely vote to reserve the Town Dock for lighted boats that would be part of the Spirit of Christmas celebration from Friday December 13 thru midday on Sunday the 15th.

The December 3 meeting of the Board starts at 7p. Of interest to some residents who heard the Candidate’s Forum in October is whether Sandy Winfrey will take his seat with other commissioners on the dais he criticized, or sit in the back of the room as he said he would do.

Prior to the full Board meeting, there is a planned meeting at 6p between the Town’s Attorney, Scott Davis and several of the Board members – current and incoming – to discuss the legalities of what the Town can do along the harbor. (Update: 12:50p 12/3/13 – Town Manager Wyatt Cutler says that meeting has been scaled back to include just himself, the attorney and Commissioner Barbara Venturi. He says that he told Venturi that as originally planned there would be “too many” Commissioners — and soon to be Commissioners — present in view of NC’s Open Meetings laws. It might’ve just been legal, says Cutler, but it didn’t feel right.

The Agenda for the December 3 meeting can be downloaded, here.