Bathroom Design Reaffirmed by Citizens for Central Park
Park bathroom is planned to match size and appearance of 1980s sewage pump station. (Wave photo)
By DORIE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
January 22, 2013
The group that chose a sewage pumping station as the model for a bathroom in Central Park reaffirmed its decision last Saturday.
The action came at a meeting of Citizens for Central Park, held at the home of Cape Charles Vice Mayor Chris Bannon.
The meeting was open to the public, and was attended by the bathroom’s most vocal opponent — Don Riley.
Riley urged Citizens for Central Park to redesign the bathroom to reflect the surrounding historic architecture, and to choose a better location in the park.
The current location will require raising the foundation 2-3 feet to prevent flooding, entailing a long, curved ramp for access.
Assistant Town Manager Bob Panek is also president of Citizens for Central Park, and chaired the Saturday meeting.
Panek noted that the Historic District Review Board and the Planning Commission had approved the bathroom and that Town Council had upheld the approval. He asked for a motion to go forward with the plans.
Twelve of 13 members present voted to continue with the bathroom as planned.
Riley told the Wave that he is not satisfied with 12 members of the community making a decision for the whole Town.
“When they planned the Central Park design, they involved the community. And this should be a community decision too,” he said. [Read more…]
Town Plans Deal with South Port to Protect Inner Harbor
South Port boatel will back to Coast Guard Station.
Cape Charles Wave
January 21, 2013
Town of Cape Charles staff have devised a plan to work with South Port Investors to install floating wave attenuators to protect the inner portion of the Town Harbor.
The floating plastic devices (see video at end of story) would be purchased in lieu of construction of additional stone breakwaters.
Town Council is holding a special meeting 6 p.m. Thursday, January 24, to approve the deal.
South Port is constructing a boat repair facility with floating docks and a boatel next to the Coast Guard Station, along with work space across the street where the former sewage treatment plant was located.
According to a memo to Town Council by Assistant Town Manager Bob Panek, South Port has “significant concerns” about when and where the Town will construct additional breakwaters to protect the harbor.
The Harbor Redevelopment Plan calls for five offshore breakwaters, two of which have been built.
Building three more breakwaters is estimated to cost at least $2 million, of which the Town has received approval for a $500,000 grant from the Virginia Port Authority (VPA).
Panek wrote that “the Town’s priority is the next breakwater to the south to protect the floating docks from southwesterly seas.” South Port’s priority, on the other hand, “is the next breakwater to the north for protection of their assets from northwesterly seas.”
According to Panek, however, South Port believes that the inner harbor could be better protected by installing floating wave attenuators on both north and south sides of the harbor, instead of breakwaters. [Read more…]
Alston Joynes Godwin, 101, Pioneer Female Undertaker
January 19, 2013
Alston Joynes Godwin, 101, died at her Cape Charles residence Wednesday, January 16.
The family will receive friends at a viewing 5-7 p.m. Wednesday, January 23, at First Baptist Church, Cape Charles. The funeral service will be 12 noon Thursday, January 24, at the church.
She is survived by a son, Cape Charles Town Council member Thomas George Godwin, and his wife Juanita; a daughter, Jennie Marie King; three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Mrs. Godwin was one of Cape Charles’ longest living residents. She was one of the oldest living licensed funeral directors in the state of Virginia, and was considered by many as a trailblazer for women in the funeral business.
Born in 1911 in the small community of Fairview on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, her early days were spent commuting from her family’s farm to school via horse and buggy. As a teenager, she attended boarding school at Tidewater Institute and Nursing College at Dixie Hospital in Hampton.
At the age of 16, she began a mortuary apprenticeship at Gray’s Funeral Home, under the direction of her aunt and uncle, Jennie and Mills Gray. She learned the art and science of funeral directing and contributed to the business in numerous capacities before attaining a Virginia Funeral Director’s license in 1944.
Upon the passing of her aunt, Godwin became owner and operator of Gray’s Funeral Home, and built the current location near her home in Cape Charles. [Read more…]
FRIDAY 1/25: Seminar on Monetary Reform at ESCC
Science and Philosophy Seminar of the Eastern Shore of Virginia is pleased to announce its next seminar, “The Rational Case for Monetary Reform,” 12:30 p.m. Friday, January 25, in the Eastern Shore Community College lecture hall, 29300 Lankford Hwy., Melfa. [Read more…]
SATURDAYS 2/9 & 2/16: Beginning Beekeeping Class
The Beekeepers Guild of the Eastern Shore is offering a Beginning Beekeeping Class in February at the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce in
Melfa. [Read more…]
OLDIE BUT GOODIE:
Chesapeake Bay Magazine on ‘Becoming Cape Charles’
Photos by Steve Earley, Chesapeake Bay Magazine
EDITOR’S NOTE: Quite a few publications have reported the charms of little Cape Charles, and the WAVE reprints the stories when possible. They tend to be one-dimensional, Disneyland-like depictions, but everyone enjoys reading about themselves. Wendy Mitman Clarke’s story below, published last year in Chesapeake Bay Magazine, is refreshingly different: she accurately portrays the “real” Cape Charles. Many of our readers may not have seen it, and the rest may enjoy reading the story again, which Chesapeake Bay Magazine has graciously allowed the WAVE to reprint.
By WENDY MITMAN CLARKE
Chesapeake Bay Magazine
Cape Charles was not on the itinerary. But we had committed that most typical of sailing mistakes; we made a plan based on an assumption. In this case, we had planned to anchor behind the concrete ships off Kiptopeke on Virginia’s lower Eastern Shore after a 29-hour passage from Cape Lookout, N.C. It was the end of our month-long, 2,750-nautical-mile journey from Panama to the Chesapeake, and we were ready to drop the hook in Bay water and toast success. The assumption was that this anchorage was the same as it had always been, a good spot to shelter for a night from a strong seabreeze and potential thunderstorms. We hadn’t figured on a field of spring crab pots so thick it looked like someone had shaken loose a truckload of Skittles on the water. Anchoring was out of the question.
We were losing light, and we were tired. Cape Charles was only a few miles north up the Cherrystone Channel. Maybe we could anchor in a tiny spot near the harbor entrance where we had once anchored our former boat, Luna. It was far from ideal (and possibly illegal, since Osprey is much bigger than Luna and we might have to swing slightly into the channel), but it might work. As we approached the entrance, I glanced east into the harbor and saw something that made me grab the binoculars. We motored in for a closer look. Sure enough, where last I had seen only a crumbling industrial bulkhead, there was a set of brand new floating docks. It took us about two seconds to slide Osprey along one of the T-heads and secure her for the night.
I went looking for anyone who might know how to find the harbormaster and came upon two folks from a small sailboat that had also just tied up. “We passed him on our way in; he was in a skiff heading out,” the woman told me. “He said just go ahead and take whatever slip we liked and he’d see us in the morning.” She asked if I knew where to grab some dinner. Sunday night in Cape Charles, a week before the high summer tourism launch of Memorial Day Weekend? Not likely, I thought. Last time I was here, the only place open on Sunday night was the Burger King, miles away out on Route 13. But I asked a fellow off a fishing trawler called Captain Ed out of Kitty Hawk, N.C., tied up nearby. “Oh yeah!” he said enthusiastically. “Kelly’s Pub, right there on the main street. You can see it from here. Try their buffalo burger, it’s awesome.” [Read more…]
Dennis Thornes, 84, Retired Town Postal Carrier
January 18, 2013
Dennis Franklin Thornes, Jr., 84, husband of Ethel Ada Parker Thornes and a resident of Birdsnest, passed away Thursday, January 17, at his residence.
A graveside service will be conducted 2 p.m. Sunday, January 20, at Cape Charles Cemetery with the Rev. Randy Lewis officiating.
Flowers will be accepted or memorial contributions may be made to Hospice and Palliative Care of the Eastern Shore, 165 Market Street, Suite #3, Onancock, VA 23417 or to S.P.C.A. Animal Shelter, P.O. Box 164, Onley, VA 23418.
A native of Accomac, Mr. Thornes was the son of the late Dennis Franklin Thornes, Sr. and the late Clara Crockett Thornes.
He was a veteran of the U.S. Army Air Corps, club champion of the Northampton Country Club, dedicated theologian and retired letter carrier for the Cape Charles Post Office. [Read more…]
Petition Asks Citizens for Central Park to Rethink Bathrooms
Click above to sign the petition.
By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
January 17, 2013
Cape Charles resident Don Riley is going to the mat over the proposed bathrooms in Central Park.
Riley has appealed to Mayor Dora Sullivan, Town Manager Heather Arcos, Citizens for Central Park President Bob Panek, and several members of the Historic District Review Board.
He also made a formal appeal to Town Council, and says he will go as far as to take his case to Northampton County Circuit Court.
Riley has multiple problems with the proposed bathroom: The building was designed to resemble the adjoining sewage pump station; the site is beside a drainage pond; it’s too close to the park pergola; and it blocks neighbors’ views of the park.
“The [first] pump station was a mistake,” Riley told Town Council last week. “Why do we want to bookend it? [Read more…]
