SHORE THING
Local Man Follows the Path of Leonardo

The Rennaisance Man of Cape Charles: Ettore Zuccarino (with wife Carol reflected in mirror). (Wave photo)

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave

August 14, 2012

Italy has Leonardo da Vinci.

The United States has Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

And the Eastern Shore has Ettore Zuccarino.

All are “renaissance men” – individuals who excel in a wide variety of fields. And anyone who knows Zuccarino would agree that he fits the renaissance definition to a “T.”

Zuccarino and his wife, Carol, live across Old Plantation Creek from the golf course area of Cape Charles – a very short way as the crow flies, but several miles’ drive on dry land. But the couple are very plugged in to the Town, and we rightly claim them as our own.

I first heard of Zuccarino through a little advertisement he ran last winter in Joan Natali’s Cape Charles Happenings:

Quo Vadis Workshops: Where are you going? Try to Google the words “We can’t go on like this.” The hits are in the millions. Wonder why? To facilitate the understanding of this paradigm shift, a series of 12 workshops is offered at the Cape Charles Public Library during which we’ll explore together various wisdom traditions. . . .

I was intrigued. What kind of workshops would I find at the little Cape Charles library – and more importantly, whom would we meet? My wife and I signed up. The course was thought-provoking, but what lingers most in my memory is the person who planned it, advertised it, and conducted it with discipline and humor: Ettore Zuccarino. [Read more…]

SHORE THING
Put Your Money on the Mantelpiece

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave Columnist

July 23, 2012

When I was 10 years old, and wanted something, I wanted it NOW, and I wanted it BADLY.

My mother (who lived through the Great Depression), invariably said: “Put your money on the mantelpiece for two weeks, and then see if you still really want (whatever it was I had to have immediately).

That put me in my own great depression. Two weeks? An eternity for a 10-year-old. Money on the mantelpiece? I didn’t have any money — I wanted my parents to buy it for me!

So, I know of what I speak when I say that Town Council is behaving like a 10-year-old.

The indecent haste with which they voted to buy the Bank of America building is childish at best, and illegal at worst.

— Childish, because when Town Council found out they could buy the building for what seemed like a cheap price ($208,000), they threw caution to the wind, jumped in with both feet, and allowed no public knowledge or comment whatsoever.

Town Council didn’t have any money to put on the mantelpiece, but they sure wanted that impressive building with the stone columns. So they found some money waiting to be spent on hooking up two new wells to the Town water supply, and just took it.

— Illegal, because once again, Town Council is ignoring State code requirements in regard to the Town’s Comprehensive Plan: § 15.2-2232. “No . . . public building . . . shall be authorized . . . until . . . approved by the [planning] commission as being substantially in accord with the adopted comprehensive plan . . . .” Read the full text of the code here: (It’s a mouthful.) http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+15.2-2232 [Read more…]

2 Comments

SHORE THING
Scandinavian Scandal in the Historic District

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave

July 16, 2012

This town is a little bit business-unfriendly. That’s my observation, anyway, as someone who’s lived here all of two years.

And not just business-unfriendly – it’s also more than a little bit improvement-unfriendly.

You just have to jump through so many hoops to get permission to do anything.

Latest case in point: The Cape Charles Hotel. Two years ago, the hotel had shut down and was a blight on Mason Avenue. Obviously, there’s no town rule against empty storefronts – we’ve got plenty of them.

The old hotel was particularly ugly, in my humble opinion, with its orange-salmon paint job. But there’s no law against ugly, apparently.

So – along comes an investor, buys the hotel at bank auction, pumps who knows how many million $$ into it, and opens up an elegant, tony boutique facility that is, or should be, the pride of the Town.

And now come the complaints. Folks don’t like the plate glass dividers on the balconies. Looks too Scandinavian for the Historic District.

At last week’s Town Council meeting, Town Planner Tom Bonadeo reported that the hotel is not in compliance with the architectural guidelines approved for it. There were supposed to be wrought iron partitions, and instead we got plate glass.

And it sounds like the Town’s planning to do something about it.

Meanwhile, as a property owner who does vacation rentals, I think about tourists’ first impression of Cape Charles – which is not Mason Avenue, but Randolph Avenue. As they drive into town, that’s what they see first. [Read more…]

11 Comments

SHORE THING: My ‘Macaca’ Moment

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave

July 11, 2012

Mention the word “Macaca,” and millions of people will vaguely recall it had something to do with a politician turning his attention toward a college student who was videotaping every word he said.

That politician was George Allen, and July 11 marks exactly 5 years and 11 months since Allen infamously nicknamed the student videographer from UVA (who is of Indian descent) “Macaca” — a kind of monkey. Commentators blame that 1-minute indiscretion for Allen’s loss to now-Senator James Webb. You can relive it here:

http://youtu.be/r90z0PMnKwI

Last night I had my own “Macaca” moment – nothing dramatic like the Allen episode, but nevertheless I felt a little like that UVA student, S.R. Sidarth, as he stood filming a speaker who suddenly directed everyone’s attention to the cameraman.

I was attending a meeting of the Cape Charles Planning Commission, and the commissioners were hearing a presentation by Echelon Resources developer J. David McCormack. As everyone in Cape Charles knows, Mayor Dora Sullivan has signed a contract to sell the old school, playground parking lot, and basketball court to Echelon Resources for the sum of $10.

Last night was the first time that a representative of Echelon Resources has spoken publicly about the deal, and I was filming it.

McCormack began by mentioning the friendship between his wife and Town Manager Heather Arcos. His wife is from Nassawadox, and “just by sheer coincidence,” McCormack said, “we realized that we had – she had a relationship with Heather.”

“That’s really as far as it goes,” McCormack concluded.

And then the presentation began – at least for several seconds — before Planning Commissioner Malcolm Hayward asked, “Are you fine with this camera?”

And then, for a few fleeting seconds it was all about George. “I’m happy to meet George . . . I got a lot of emails from George via Edwin [Gaskin, his Echelon partner] over the last couple months . . . I’m happy to hear from George, glad to meet George,” McCormack said, facing the cameraman (me).

“Whatever happens with the school at the end of the day, I’m going to still be neighbors with you all – by virtue of my relationships in town,” McCormack explained. [Read more…]

5 Comments

« PREVIOUS STORIES