Historic District Board Approves Old School Requests
By DORIE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
August 27, 2013
Petersburg developer J. David McCormack appeared again August 20 before the Historic District Review Board, and this time the Board approved five requests that they had deferred at their June meeting.
Last December the Town of Cape Charles gave McCormack the Old School, basketball court, and playground parking lot at Central Park plus $41,000 to pay utility connection fees. McCormack has applied for federal and state tax credits totaling 45 percent of his costs to convert the property into a 17-unit apartment building.
In order to receive the tax credits, however, the developer’s plans must be approved by both the National Park Service and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. And under Town code, any significant alterations to the property must be approved by the Historic District Review Board.
“I do not believe that a Certificate of Appropriateness should be provided to the developer.”
– Chairman David Gay
McCormack requested permission to clean exterior walls and repair mortar and masonry; replace a rubber membrane roof with a PVC roof; restore historic windows and replace aluminum frame windows; replicate historic front doors, restore and replicate transoms; insert compatible new doors where historic doors are undocumented; and install two canopies on fire escapes. The Board approved all the requests.
However, the developer still needs to receive a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Board, and Chairman David Gay said it is unclear to him how the Board will proceed, because questions remain about the site plans and parking for the apartment building. “I do not believe that a Certificate of Appropriateness should be provided to the developer,” Gay said.
A major issue is the location of a proposed parking lot. The Town’s Historic District Guidelines do not allow a parking lot in front of a building in a residential area. McCormack plans to build a parking lot in front of the main entrance to the Old School, which until recently contained an ellipse with a flagpole in the center. [Read more…]
A-Tisket, A-Tasket, Who Took the Baskets?
Hassan and Stefan make do playing on Cape Charles’ only basketball court (make that “ball court”).
(Wave photo)
OK Then, How About a Game of Softball?
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Cape Charles’ only softball field — but today’s youth just don’t seem to “cotton” to it.
(Wave photo)
By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
August 26, 2013
Eight months ago to the day — December 26, 2012 — Town of Cape Charles staff returned to work after a four-day Christmas break. Town Manager Heather Arcos was still on leave, so Assistant Town Manager Bob Panek was in charge. The previous week on December 20, just one day before the holiday break, Mayor Dora Sullivan had given a Christmas present to developer J. David McCormack and his company, Charon Ventures. McCormack received the Old School in Central Park, the adjoining Park basketball court, the Park playground parking lot, and $41,000 to be used for water and sewer connection fees.
The property was valued on the tax rolls at over $900,000. When McCormack offered to “buy” it for $1 (later raised to $10), Town Council was so impressed by the offer that they declined to request or entertain any other bids.
McCormack was known to Arcos, who, according to McCormack, “by sheer coincidence had a relationship” with his wife, Mary. (click here to watch McCormack video ).
But McCormack and his Echelon partner, Edwin Gaskin, explained to Town managers Arcos and Panek that despite the expectation of federal and state tax credits totaling 45 percent of their development costs, they still could not afford to convert the Park property into a 17-unit apartment building. The sticking point was the water and sewer connection charge of $12,350 per unit.
As residents paying a minimum $108 monthly water bill are painfully aware, the Town recently raised sewer charges over 80 percent because connection fees have not been sufficient to cover debt service on the Town’s new sewage plant. Nevertheless, Town Council reduced connection fees from $20,000 to $12,350. Then, to accommodate developer McCormack, Council further reduced fees to $6,175 for one-bedroom units.
But that was still not enough for McCormack and Gaskin. So Panek persuaded Town Council to give them a special rate of another 50 percent off Town connection fees. McCormack’s one-bedroom units would pay only $3,087.50 per unit tap fee. [Read more…]
LETTER: 9/11 Juxtaposed Man’s Inhumanity with Humanity
August 25, 2013
DEAR EDITOR,
Last week my spouse and I took a mini-vacation to the Inner Harbor area of Baltimore. While walking over to visit the National Aquarium I noticed a pile of twisted steel girders outside a tall building. The building turned out to be the Baltimore World Trade Center and the girders were part of a memorial to the 68 Marylanders who perished as a result of the 9/11 tragedy.
While I continued walking, my mind returned to what I was doing and where I was on that fateful day. Whenever I think back, it is always with an overriding sense of sadness.
9/11 Memorial at Baltimore World Trade Center (Photo: Don Woods)
LETTER: Save the Bottlenose Dolphins
August 24, 2013
DEAR EDITOR,
Over the last few months this summer, many of us that have been out on the water have been discovering dead dolphins, stranded in and around the Bay. What at first appeared to be a local event has turned out to be more widespread. Bottlenose dolphins are being found stranded all up the mid-Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Maine, with at least 124 strandings (45 possible deaths) reported since July, a death rate seven times higher than normal.
This has led the National Marine Fisheries Service to declare a federal UME, or “unusual mortality event.” At the top of the list of possible causes is a measles-like infection called “morbillivirus,” which has been associated with previous sickness events of dolphins and seals. Since mid-summer, marine science organizations such as the Virginia Aquarium, the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in New Jersey, and Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation in New York began documenting an increase in bottlenose dolphin strandings along the mid-Atlantic coast, and these strandings are continuing into late summer.
So far, all ages of bottlenose dolphin strandings have been reported. The NMFS reports, however, that there are no unifying necropsy findings aside from some dolphins having been found with pulmonary lesions. Preliminary testing of tissues from one dolphin indicates possibly a morbillivirus infection, although it is too early to say whether this is the cause of the UME. [Read more…]
Town Businesses Urge Halt to Highway Sewer Line
By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
August 23, 2013
Just as Town and County authorities were running full speed ahead on plans to pipe sewage from Route 13 into Cape Charles, the Town Business Association has asked Mayor Dora Sullivan “to put the matter on hold.”
Vocal members of the Cape Charles Business Association had already told Mayor Sullivan what they thought of the plan at their meeting July 23. But now Association President George Proto has put it in writing.
“There does not appear to be any significant benefit to the Town of Cape Charles from the proposed connection,” Proto wrote the mayor August 19. Instead, “There does appear to be a potential long term downside for the town in terms of the availability of future capacity, even with plant expansion, to contain demand as the town expands through the build out of Bay Creek and as more properties in town are renovated and occupied.”
Business Association Vice President Andy Buchholtz put it more bluntly to the mayor last month: Providing sewerage to the highway “totally promotes growth on [Route] 13,” he said. “The County should be helping drive business into town.”
President Proto listed the following reasons not to pipe county sewage to Cape Charles:
— Based on discussions with Assistant Town Manager Bob Panek, the reduction in sewer charges to Town residents “is believed to be minimal”;
— No technical benefits (such as reduction in noxious odors from the treatment plant) have been identified;
— Accepting sewage from out of town “might cause us to run out of capacity even with expansion,” which “could unduly burden future generations financially”;
— A more cost-effective solution for the County is “to design an expandable county system that could better meet future needs”;
— And finally, a survey of 64 property owners on Route 13 “showed minimal interest (5 yes’s and 4 maybe’s out of 64 surveyed).”
“Given these concerns the business association urges the town council to put the matter of the PSA [Public Service Authority] line on hold and not to proceed with further work which would commit the town and expend county funds,” Proto wrote. [Read more…]
LETTER: ‘The Old Man and the Fountain’
TONY SACCO
August 22, 2013
DEAR EDITOR,
The street has its lights, garbage cans, and sewers, but is rare to find a water fountain in Cape Charles.
Imagine an old man nearing 90 in front of the Palace Theatre on a blistering summer day, filling the air with music of many years ago, accompanied by the sounds of water spurting at the top of the fountain and returning from the bottom in a perpetual ecstasy of affection with itself.
The mosquitos and flies biting those with short sleeves, the gang of motorcyclists wheeling by with blaring muffler pipes, muzzling the lyrical melodies specified in an instrument of pride from the gray baldish instrumentalist perhaps making his last performance before he joins the angels of strings.
Inside the climate-controlled theatre, a proud gentleman on stage in uniform of a Confederate soldier reads letters from loved ones. They were fighting a war between the American states that destroyed millions of lives.
The old man standing outside in front of his vehicle with license plate CV-12 (the identification of the USS Hornet aircraft carrier of World War II that engaged the enemy in the Pacific Ocean) received three war medals to save the human race from domination.
Now less than a million remain out of 18 million that served gallantly in the war. [Read more…]
TUESDAY 8/27: Field and Stream Writer Discusses Fishing at Accomac Library
Friends of the Eastern Shore Public Library present “Fishing Virginia’s Eastern Shore” 7 p.m. Tuesday, August 27, at the Accomac Library, 23610 Front Street. [Read more…]
COMMENTARY: 26 Years Later, School Fight Continues
By LENORA MITCHELL
August 21, 2013
Looking through some old files recently, I reflected on how much time I had spent being a community servant, running up and down Highway 13 attending board and committee meetings in Northampton and Accomack counties. And then I found a file that documented the demise of the Cape Charles school system 26 years ago.
I was appointed to the Cape Charles School Board in 1982. As I looked at documents from the United States Justice Department Civil Rights Division, Northampton County School Board, the county superintendent, Cape Charles School Board, the town superintendent, the State Board of Education, and numerous letters from attorneys involved in the case, including from the Department of Justice, I remembered how long and intensive the battle was to retain the independent school system in Cape Charles, along with ownership of the building.
The battle started civilly, but then it turned into a major war. The Town was divided and there were heated exchanges wherever you went, especially at the Town Council meetings.
The Cape Charles School Board accused the Northampton County School System of violating a consent decree by allowing Cape Charles students to attend their schools.
The Town Council charged the School Board with malfeasance or misfeasance and demanded an investigation by the State Police.
Meanwhile, the Cape Charles School Board charged the Town with siphoning off funds earmarked for the school. These were just a few of the allegations and charges being thrown around during that time. [Read more…]
