6 Months of WAVES — And Counting!

January 1, 2013

Happy New Year — or Happy One-Half Year, in the case of the Cape Charles Wave. Your hometown online newspaper is now six months old.

The Wave came about because two longtime journalists — one an old hand on the Eastern Shore, the other a newcomer — agreed that Cape Charles needed its own newspaper. In the days of print journalism, that would not have been practical for such a small town, but with the Internet it was doable.

And although the staff makeup has changed since July 1, we’ve been making WAVES for 26 weeks now.

The Google Analytics chart above tells the story, with each of the 26 dots representing one week’s readership. By August, we were humming along at close to 2,500 reads per week. After a lull, readership jumped in November, and after another lull, made the biggest gains in December.

Since only about 1,000 people live in Cape Charles, a lot of our readers obviously live out of town. In fact, about one fourth of them don’t even live in Virginia. And even among in-state readers, the majority reside outside Cape Charles town limits.

Whether tourists, or former residents, or future come-heres, it appears that a lot of out-of-towners are keeping up with the local news.

The purpose of the Wave is to serve as an electronic medium to spread news, events, and discussion about the Cape Charles area. As we begin a new year, the Wave wants to thank our “heroes” — the folks who have recognized the mission of the Wave and in one way or another have helped it to succeed.

In alphabetical order (by first name), our 2012 Wave heroes are:

— Audrey Nottingham, whose pictures and story of the Nativity scenes at Pfeiffer Riding Stables  gave us a wonderful Christmas present — not just for the report, but because Audrey fulfilled our highest hopes for the Wave: citizen journalists writing about and photographing a local event and publishing it in the Wave;

— Barbara Brown, for sharing her nice article and picture for publication;

— Bruce Lindeman, who writes eloquently, intimately, and regularly of his adopted part-time village and its denizens he knows so well;

— Deborah Bender, for commenting early and often on the Old School cause dear to her heart;

— Don Riley, the Wave’s “Man about Town,” who tips us off whenever he spots something that doesn’t look right, or smells fishy;

— Donna Bozza, for featuring the Wave on her Facebook page way back in July — our first big break! — and for her ESO and other arts publicity;

— Mayor Dora Sullivan, for reading the Wave every day and even sending in a comment or two, in contrast to the one or two Town Council members who refuse to read us (they say); [Read more…]

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COMMENTARY:
Notes from a Come-Here: Tales Out of School

By DORIE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave

December 31, 2012

I arrived in Cape Charles almost three years ago after giving up trying to save the program that had been my job at the U.S. Department of State. It was a sad time for me because I learned that corruption at high levels was untouchable at the State Department.

The Office of Special Counsel, which is supposed to protect whistleblowers, was toothless in my case, and the Merit Systems Protection Board was worse.

I was just doing my job — to provide supplies to residences of ambassadors and other high-level government officials for their official entertaining overseas.

But when it came time to solicit bids for custom glassware, I discovered that my supervisor planned to award a no-bid contract to a small “disadvantaged” company that had no experience with glassware.

I tried to persuade my superiors that a no-bid contract with that company, which had just emerged from bankruptcy, was not a good idea. They were unresponsive.

I went up the chain of command, without success, and finally “blew the whistle” to the Inspector General. Then I made the mistake of letting a State Department official know what I had done.

I was relieved of all my job responsibilities.

It is little consolation to me that the contractor later went to prison for defrauding the government, because that was for a contract at a different government agency, where she lacked friends in high places. At the State Department, where I worked, she had been untouchable.

The New York Post published a few stories about the scandal, and then lost interest.

I reported the matter to the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, but there was no oversight, let alone any reform.

I took early retirement, and we moved far, far away from Washington corruption — all the way to Cape Charles.

We met the mayor, who was very personable, and Town Council members, also personable, who appeared happily engaged for the welfare of the town.

We were regulars at the beach and the pier, but did not attend any Town Council meetings. After our experience in Washington, we were happy to stay away from politics. [Read more…]

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Bye-Bye Basketball: Town Removes Developer’s Hoops

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave

December 28, 2012

When the Cape Charles town maintenance staff returned to work Thursday following a 3-day Christmas holiday, their first job was to dismantle the basketball court at Central Park. That was accomplished by removing the backboards and hoops. Only the uprights remain.

The work by Town employees was not performed on Town property. Exactly one week earlier, Mayor Dora Sullivan signed over the park basketball court, the playground parking lot, and the old Cape Charles school to Echelon Resources, Inc., a private development firm.

According to nearby residents who watched the hoops being removed, it was a poignant sight. A young boy who lives up the street was shooting baskets, as he does almost every day, when the work began. When one goal was taken away, he moved to another, and then another. When time came to remove the last hoop he took a final shot, and went away with the distinction of being the last player ever to shoot a basket on the Town court.

No other basketball court exists either in the Town or anywhere nearby.

Since Echelon now owns the property, the question arises why Town employees were used to dismantle the basketball court. According to Assistant Town Manager Bob Panek, the Town did not want to represent that the park basketball court was available for use by the public. He feared that if someone were injured on the court, the Town could be sued, even though it no longer owns the court.

Panek told the WAVE that the Town has retained the backboards and hoops in storage.

Under the terms of the sales contract, the equipment belongs to Echelon.

Panek confirmed that no plans exist to build a new basketball court. “Talk to Town Council” — it’s their decision, he said. [Read more…]

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WEATHER: Making Waves in a New Mercedes

December 26, 2012

COMMENTARY:
Town Lessons from A Charlie Brown Christmas

By WAYNE CREED

December 25, 2012

Each morning after being harassed by his father and mother (“Joey, there’s no way you combed that hair! Did you brush your teeth?”), my son straps on his backpack and heads off to school. The combination of the weather and his mood will determine his mode of transportation for the day: skateboard, scooter, bike, feet.

Joey doesn’t have to catch a bus or be driven several miles up the road to Northampton High School or Broadwater. Instead, he commutes a block over to the Cape Charles Christian School where he is now in his fourth year. He began in the lower school and now is considered one of the upperclassmen.

It all began with a brief conversation, a whim, an idea: Could we? Is it possible?

Four years later, Cape Charles Christian School has entered its fourth Christmas holiday break. There have been many success stories in this town over the last four years, but this one is different. The spark was not ignited around some new, novel commercial endeavor, but around the idea of serving our children — students in Pre-K through 8th grade — creating an environment where our most dedicated, talented teachers could thrive, renovate and bring life to abandoned facilities, and create a connection to the Town through an active, stewardship-based participation in the community. [Read more…]

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Lewis, Randall Brief Cape Charles Residents on 2013 Issues

By DORIE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave

December 24, 2012

“Northampton County is truly on the move,” District 1 Supervisor Willie Randall told  a Cape Charles audience December 18.

Randall and State Delegate Lynwood Lewis held a “Town Hall” meeting on county and state issues.

According to Randall, Northampton County’s priorities are education, economic development, health care, bond refinancing, and waste collection.

EDUCATION: All positions on the seven-member school board will be up for election in November, Randall said. (Current school board members are appointed.) Thereafter, school board terms will be staggered.

Randall added that he will also be on the ballot for re-election in November.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: Randall said the county has advertised for a new director of economic development and has narrowed the list of applicants to two.

Asked what the county was doing about Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital’s impending relocation to Accomack County, Randall said there is time to work on a solution since the move is two to three years away. [Read more…]

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Town Sells Old School, Parkland to Private Developer for $10

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave

December 22, 2012

Christmas came early for Echelon Resources, Inc.  On Thursday, Cape Charles Mayor Dora Sullivan signed over the deed to the school building at Central Park to Echelon developers Edwin Gaskin and J. David McCormack. The building is slated to be converted into a 17-unit apartment complex.

The purchase price was $10, but the sales contract also states that the Town shall pay to Echelon the insurance proceeds received for earthquake damage to the property — approximately $41,000.

In addition to the school building, Echelon received the adjoining park basketball court and playground parking area. Both plots of land are intended to become private parking lots for the apartments in the school.

Town Council secretly decided to give the school and land to Echelon without putting the property up for bid.

Residents opposed to the giveaway have sued the Town and Echelon on the grounds that both the sale and the rezoning of the property were done illegally. A court date was originally set for December 17, but has been rescheduled for January 25 due to a heavy docket.

The Old School Cape Charles group maintains that Town Council violated state law by keeping its meetings with Echelon secret for almost six months. The Virginia Freedom of Information Act allows closed negotiation sessions only after a public motion that “identifies the subject matter.”

The law stipulates that “A general reference to . . . the subject matter of the closed meeting shall not be sufficient to satisfy the requirements for holding a closed meeting.” When voting to go into closed session, Town Council concealed the specific subject of the session. Only a general reference was made to an “Unsolicited Confidential Proposal.”

The Town also rejected Old School Cape Charles’ proposals without a vote in public session and ignored petitions from residents requesting time to put forward a public use plan for the building.

The Old School group is also contesting the rezoning of the school, basketball court, and playground parking from “Open Space” to “R-1 Residential.” Old School argues that the applications were defective, the action was contrary to the Town’s Comprehensive Plan, and the issuance of a Conditional Use Permit to allow apartments in R-1 Residential constituted illegal spot zoning. [Read more…]

12 Comments

SHORE THING: On AQUA, and Business in Cape Charles

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave

December 19, 2012

According to the Bay Creek website, AQUA Restaurant will close Friday night, December 21, (moved up a day from the original announcement).

According to the Trustees’ Sale notice, the following property will be offered at public auction at 11:30 a.m. Friday, December 28, at the County Courthouse: the restaurant building, the Marina Shops building, the Pierhouse building, the marina boat slips, all Villa condominiums, and various common areas and parking lots. (For the complete list, click here.)

According to the notice, the properties will all be sold together, with the exception of two residential lots. So if you want the restaurant, you have to buy the marina and the shops too.

According to County records, Bay Creek obtained a bank line of credit in July 2004 on the above properties in the amount of $11.5 million.

According to Bay Creek developer Dickie Foster, as quoted in the Eastern Shore News, “There are going to be a lot of bidders.”

Which begs the question: spun-off from their developer, are the restaurant, marina, and shops sustainable? Can they earn enough to cover operating expenses, including mortgage, taxes, and principal payments?

That’s a tough go for most businesses, and it’s especially tricky on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, where the tourism season is short and tourist numbers are relatively small.

As the town’s newest business, the Wave attended last month’s annual meeting of the Cape Charles Business Association. The good news: merchant after merchant reported last summer as the best in memory. Cape Charles is in renaissance, and tourists increasingly are discovering it. [Read more…]

10 Comments

LINDEMAN: Extreme Sadness, Yet Hope

By BRUCE LINDEMAN
Cape Charles Wave

December 18, 2012

This past weekend was my birthday weekend down on the Shore.  Not a milestone birthday by any stretch, yet a birthday just the same.

But it wasn’t a happy one.  As much as I tried to stay clear of the updates coming out of Newtown, CT, it was hard not to check in on my iPhone now and again to learn more and try to get to an understanding.

It’s the understanding part that we all seem to struggle with.

We all process these things differently, and depending on where we are coming from emotionally and politically, we each have different things to say about the “why” question.

I’m not going to use this space to politicize this event.  There are countless others who will do just that online, in the halls of Congress, and behind podiums at town hall meetings across the country.  There is a lot of anger that will build up over this and recent similar events, and people will demand change in the weeks ahead.

I’m not ready to go there yet.  My mind and heart are still full of sadness and thoughts of those 20 little children.

We can argue endlessly about the “why.” But not here.  Please.  Instead, I want to talk about what we’ve become as a nation.

Most of us will look back nostalgically to recall a simpler and kinder time.  But our parents and their parents likewise have done the same.  The past always seems like a happier time.

Perhaps it was, and perhaps it wasn’t.  We have to think about such things as a whole and not just through our own individual eyes and experiences.  And “simpler” and “kinder” are failingly difficult things to quantify.

But for the sake of argument, let’s assume we have taken a slide toward a meaner and more unforgiving world.  If that’s the case, it begs the question:  how do we, as a society, reverse that trend?  For surely if we do not, we’re headed towards far more of these news stories. [Read more…]

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LETTER: Thanks to All Arts Enter Volunteers

December 18, 2012

DEAR EDITOR,

On December 8, I was one among four honorary recipients of the 2012 Arts Enter Annual Spotlight Award.

Since my arrival in the Town of Cape Charles, I have come to appreciate and admire the Arts Enter mission in serving our little community. But I, as a volunteer, never expected to receive such a wonderful recognition.

The engraving on the Spotlight Award says: In appreciation for his faithful generosity with his time, energy, talents, and resources. Both on and off the stage, he shines and keeps our lights bright. [Read more…]

TOWN COUNCIL:
When Hospital Leaves, Locals Face Bridge-Tunnel

By DORIE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave

December 17, 2012

When Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital moves out of Nassawadox, ambulances serving Cape Charles and points south will not be driving all the way to Accomack County. Instead, they will transport emergency-care patients across the 17-mile bridge-tunnel to Virginia Beach.

That’s according to Cape Charles Mayor Dora Sullivan. She and Town Manager Heather Arcos met November 9 with the Northampton County Board of Supervisors and other local mayors  and rural health representatives to discuss ways to bring emergency care closer to the area.

“Our number-one priority is quality health care,” Mayor Sullivan stressed at the December 13 Town Council meeting.

Sullivan subsequently raised another complication with the Wave: bridge/tunnel closures. In cases when the bridge is closed, usually due to high winds, an emergency vehicle would nevertheless be allowed passage. But after delivering a patient to the hospital, the vehicle would no longer have an “emergency,” and would be forced to wait until the bridge reopened to return to the Shore.

Sullivan told Town Council that Cape Charles has received at least four offers of land to build a free-standing emergency department.

Regional elected and rural health care officials continue to meet, and Sullivan hopes that a plan can be announced in January.

“We need good-quality emergency health care for this town to grow,” Sullivan maintained. [Read more…]

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