Sample Ballots for Northampton County District 1 Voters
CAPE CHARLES WAVE
November 2, 2013
These sample ballots include all the contests to be voted on in Northampton County District 1. The District 1 polling place is Trinity UMC Fellowship Hall, 410 Tazewell Avenue, Cape Charles. Polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Tuesday, November 5.
District 1 is the only part of the County where voters have a full choice of School Board and Board of Supervisors candidates. In District 2 the candidate for Board of Supervisors and the candidate for School Board are both unopposed. In District 3 there is a contest for the School Board, but the Supervisor’s seat is unopposed. District 4 and District 5 do not elect Supervisors this year. For the School Board, the District 4 candidate is unopposed, while the District 5 seat is contested.
The School Board also has two at-large seats, both of which are contested. The at-large members are voted on County-wide.
Town Council ‘Gong Show’ on Front of School Building
CAPE CHARLES WAVE
October 30, 2013
Cape Charles Town Council has adopted another new procedure to control dissent, which sounds a lot like the old TV program “The Gong Show.” Council member Frank Wendell consistently says what other Council members don’t want to hear, so they have begun limiting his remarks to five minutes at the end of each meeting. Joan Natali is the timekeeper, and sounds the gong when Wendell’s time is up.
Click on the slide show below to hear Wendell harangue Town Council members at the October 17 meeting for their refusal to recognize the front of the old school building in Central Park. A developer wants to construct a parking lot in front of the building in violation of the Town’s historic guidelines. But if the front of the building is on Plum Street instead of facing the park, then the planned parking lot would be on the “side” of the building.
County Sewer Hookup Fee Could Be ‘Game Changer’
Owners of yellow properties on special tax district map have informed the PSA that they don’t want to be included. Owners of the green properties, currently not included, say they want to join. The rest of the proposed tax district is shown in purple. (CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW)
By DORIE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
October 25, 2013
Plans to pipe sewage to Cape Charles from commercial properties near the Cape Charles/Cheriton traffic light have hit another snag: hookup fees.
Chairman Bob Panek informed fellow members of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Public Service Authority October 15 that Cape Charles Town Council wants to charge connection fees to new users of the Town’s sewer treatment plant. But PSA calculations had always assumed no connection fee. The fees could add $200,000 to costs, which according to Panek could be a “game changer.”
Hookup fees are intended to cover future costs of expanding the Cape Charles treatment plant, and every new user in the Town is required to pay the fee. The current residential sewer hookup charge for Town customers is $7,475. But Panek had not planned to charge out-of-town customers.
Panek also reported sentiment for allowing County property owners to opt out of the proposed special tax district. As originally formulated, some 70 parcels were included in the district, each of which would pay close to double their current County real estate tax. But of those 70 properties, only about 30 are developed.
Panek alluded to discussion over changing the source of funding for construction of the sewer pipe from the County properties to Cape Charles. The County has already budgeted to pay 25 percent of the cost, with the remaining 75 percent coming from landowners in the special tax district. Panek said that figure might possibly be changed to 50-50, meaning that half the cost would come from the County budget, and half would come from the special tax district. [Read more…]
Town Council Overrides Planning Commission (By FAR)
By DORIE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
October 23, 2013
Two years’ work by the Cape Charles Planning Commission fell victim to an email from an absentee councilman at last Thursday’s Town Council meeting.
The Planning Commission, composed of seven volunteers, had been studying floor area ratios for the Town’s Harbor District. The higher the floor area ratio (or FAR), the denser the development allowed by right.
The Planning Commission worked “about two years” on a FAR recommendation to Council, according to Joan Natali, who sits on both Town Council and the Planning Commission.
The Planning Commission recommendation was presented to Council at its September meeting, where Town Planner Rob Testerman explained that a FAR requirement would “prevent any hugely dense, out-of-character development” in the Harbor District. The recommendation was tabled for further thought when two councilmen disagreed: Frank Wendell argued that the FAR should be lower (less density), while Steve Bennett believed it should be higher. [Read more…]
Coast Guard Station Cape Charles Aids in Perilous Rescue
Helicopter rescue video has no sound, but can induce motion sickness! (Click bottom right for full-screen)
October 19, 2013
EDITOR’S NOTE: Here in Cape Charles we are most likely to see resident Coast Guard personnel playing soccer in Central Park or jogging along town streets. The Wave is reprinting the following Coast Guard rescue report as a reminder that our neighbors’ “day job” can be a perilous one. On Thursday, October 10, in 40-knot winds, 12-foot seas, and inky darkness, the Coast Guard rescued two people from a disabled vessel by lowering a rescue swimmer from a helicopter who rigged a tow line to a Coast Guard vessel. Coast Guard Station Cape Charles participated in the mission.
U.S. COAST GUARD PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Fast-moving storms blew through parts of the Eastern Seaboard last week, whipping maritime communities with heavy rain and high winds. True to form for Coast Guard men and women, the foul weather was no match for the perseverance of Coast Guard crews.
The Coast Guard responded to a sailboat sinking near the mouth of the Great Wicomico River and another sailboat northeast of Cape Charles that was also sinking.
Crew members aboard the 34-foot sailboat Basta contacted Coast Guard Sector Hampton Roads’ command center reporting the boat was experiencing engine trouble, and they were unable to raise their sails or lower an anchor.
Hampton Roads watchstanders issued an urgent marine information broadcast and dispatched a rescue crew from Coast Guard Station Cape Charles and an aircrew aboard an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C.
After being underway for approximately an hour, the boat crew was directed to return to base due to the high seas. The helicopter crew met a similar fate as they arrived on scene. [Read more…]
State Supreme Court Hears Old School Arguments
By DORIE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
October 17, 2013
A three-judge panel at the Virginia Supreme Court in Richmond heard arguments October 15 by the civic group Old School Cape Charles. The group’s attorney, Kevin Martingayle, told the court that the Town of Cape Charles failed to follow its own code by letting the school in Central Park fall into disrepair. Citizens should have standing to raise concerns about the sale of a public building and parkland, he argued.
“The Town manufactured its own crisis and then used it as an excuse to sell the property,” Martingayle said. He termed it “remarkable” that the Town used its own failures to enforce its code as the excuse for disposing of historic property. Martingayle told the court that he could find no precedent in law for the Town’s actions.
The Old School group is contesting the Town’s “gifting” to a developer of park property valued on the tax rolls at $900,000. Northampton Circuit Court Judge Revell Lewis ruled last February that Town citizens had “no standing” to question the divestment of Town property.
The Supreme Court now must decide whether the case has sufficient import to merit an appeal. The court considers if errors were made in a ruling, and also whether an an area of law is unsettled and in need of clarification. “Many aspects of Old School’s cases have no legal precedent, which makes them more appealing to the judges,” Martingayle told the Wave. [Read more…]
Official Wrangling Over Old School Continues (in Fine Print)
By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
October 16, 2013
When Cape Charles Town Council meets Thursday (October 17), the Old School in Central Park will be on the agenda yet again – more than two years after Town Council began secret negotiations with a developer to give away the property.
This time, Council will consider whether to override a decision by the Town Manager not to allow an appeal by the civic group Old School Cape Charles regarding issuance of a Certificate of Appropriateness to the school developer.
Town Manager Heather Arcos and Town Planner Rob Testerman write that they “will reject the appeal unless otherwise directed by Council.” They present several reasons why, perhaps the most controversial being that “An appeal must be filed with the Zoning Administrator, but OSCC filed the appeal to the Town Clerk.”
The appeal, filed by OSCC President Wayne Creed, quoted Town Zoning Ordinance Section 8.15: “the decisions of the Historic District Review Board may be appealed to the Town Council.”
But Arcos and Testerman contend that Section 8.34 of the Zoning Ordinance “further explains the steps to give notice of an appeal. An appeal must be filed with the Zoning Administrator, but OSCC filed the appeal to the Town Clerk. The appeal is addressed to the Town Council,” they write. Their memo does not mention whether they obtained advice from the Town’s attorney on the issue. [Read more…]
VACATION RENTALS: License to Kill the Golden Goose?
By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
October 7, 2013
According to Cape Charles merchants, this year’s tourist season was the best in memory. But if Town officials enforce their vacation rental rules, they could kill the goose laying the golden eggs.
Cape Charles has five bed-and-breakfasts with 18 bedrooms, and two hotels with 22 rooms, for a total of 40 rooms offered to the public. Those 40 rooms obviously are not the anchor for tourist accommodation in Cape Charles. Families, often staying a week or longer, rent whole houses, and in almost every case these homes are privately owned.
According to a report compiled by former Town Planner Tom Bonadeo, the Town is comprised of 958 houses, of which 402 are used for vacation rentals. Without these individually owned properties, the Cape Charles tourist trade would hardly exist. But Town policies, if enforced, could decimate this cottage industry.
For an example of a Town that has successfully discouraged private vacation rentals, one need look no farther than Chincoteague. Even though Chincoteague hosts multiples of tourists more than Cape Charles, the number of private vacation homes for rent in Chincoteague is only a small fraction of those in Cape Charles.
Why? Perhaps because Chincoteague has enacted a very restrictive ordinance: private houses offered for vacation rental are required to provide one off-street parking space for each bedroom in the house. And the parking spaces cannot be in the front yard. That severely restricts rental opportunities for homeowners, but it doesn’t hurt the tourist business as a whole, because Chincoteague has a Best Western, a Hampton Inn, a Rodeway Inn, Comfort Suites, and many, many more condos and villas. Perhaps commercial innkeepers don’t want competition from private homeowners, and the Town of Chincoteague appears to have accommodated their wishes. [Read more…]
