(Please note: While writing this blog, we received notice of three more positive COVID-19 test results in Dare County, all of them linked to Peak Resources, a nursing and rehabilitation facility in Nags Head. We will post a story about DCEM Bulletin No. 17 soon. Thank you.)

Four non-resident Southern Shores homeowners spoke out in public comments at the Town Council’s meeting Tuesday, protesting the March 20 order prohibiting their access to Dare County and/or questioning the prohibition’s continued logic and effect.

The Beacon has learned in informal conversations with Town Council members that, not surprisingly, other non-resident property owners have complained to the Town about the County’s order via email, and we have heard from disgruntled non-resident homeowners, as well.

COVID-19 Bulletin No. 10, which was issued at 6:20 p.m. on March 20, barred non-resident property owners from accessing Dare County as of 10 p.m. that day. See https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/5994/17

The Dare County Control Group has said nothing further to, or about, non-resident property owners since its emergency order, although members of the County’s healthcare community have encouraged people in bulletins and videos to be kind to each other.

The Beacon is aware that the tension and ill will generated by the County’s decision to prohibit non-resident homeowners from accessing their properties during the COVID-19 emergency have been expressed in many social-media forums and in local media. We do not intend to give voice here to various sides and opinions in the debate/argument.

(See yesterday’s Beacon for a report of a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by non-resident Dare County property owners against the County.)

Instead, our intent is to give an overview of important matters that came up at the Town Council’s meeting, and we believe the ban on non-resident property owners, and how the Town Council responded to homeowners disadvantaged by it, is important.

“WRONG AND UNFAIR”

Calling the restriction “very, very unfair, and discriminatory,” Bill Schreiner, who appeared at the meeting by Zoom videoconferencing, said the “travel ban” has “sown a deep division among different members of the tax base of Southern Shores.”

Mr. Schreiner described the Dare County Control Group’s decision that led to Bulletin No. 10 as “driven by fear” and said “it has caused a great deal of unhappiness.”

Mr. Schreiner, whose family has owned properties in Southern Shores since the early 1960s, said he felt like he had been “treated as a second-class citizen.” (Full disclosure: The Schreiners owned a home next door to my family’s 50-year-old beach cottage for decades.)

Mr. Schreiner further criticized the ban—which is principally enforced at the Wright Brothers Memorial Bridge checkpoint—for not being “airtight.” He described workers and locals coming and going across the bridge, daily and indiscriminately, without any oversight.

There is no question that a Dare County local who travels to Hampton Roads for any reason could return with a COVID-19 infection as easily as a non-resident property owner who lives in Norfolk could transport one to Dare County.

Mr. Schreiner also cited the presumed community spread of COVID-19 in Dare County as both a failure of the allegedly discriminatory travel ban and as reason to loosen the restriction. He questioned why the County and Town are not imposing/enforcing rules on face masks and physical distancing.

Robert Garver, who said he had “retired and moved to Southern Shores in mid-January,” related in written public comments a compelling story of having left Southern Shores on Tuesday, March 17, “for a short trip out of town” and being “shocked” to learn on the next Saturday morning, when he prepared to return home, that he was “barred from entry.”

He had “no reasonable time to respond,” he said, claiming that Bulletin No. 10 was not distributed by email.

He and his wife, Mr. Garver said, “had planned a stay-healthy-in-place strategy [for the pandemic] long before the town or county announced any actions.” They had purchased supplies and groceries in Southern Shores, to which they intended to return. According to Mr. Garver, he and his wife have suffered a “financial impact, worry, and uncertainty” from their inability to do so.

Ernie Dash, who appeared via Zoom and said he is “hunkered down” in Williamsburg, told the Town Council he would just like the opportunity to “come down for a day and check over [his] property,” which is a second home in Southern Shores.

The Beacon has empathy for all non-resident property owners in Southern Shores and in other Dare County beach towns and would have liked to have heard our Town Council express empathy to the people who submitted public comments.

Non-resident property owners are a big part of our town’s economy, character, welfare, appeal, and sense of community and neighborhood. They are the historical backbone of Southern Shores. Those who reached out to the Town Council deserved a response, even though the entry restriction was imposed by the County, not the Town.

We would say to the Town Council: You don’t have to take sides in order to relate to non-resident homeowners’ anger, distress, anxiety, and other emotions during this unusually stressful and uncertain time. But, please, listen to them and consider their interests, and tell them of your concern.

Only Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Morey addressed the conflict between residents and non-residents, but she did so in concluding remarks after people had already heard from Mayor Tom Bennett that the Town Council does not customarily respond to public comments.

INTERIM TOWN MANAGER’S REPORT

Otherwise, The Beacon finds only the following items, presented by Interim Town Manager Wes Haskett, of sufficient importance to cover now:

RECYCLING: First, some good news . . . Mr. Haskett has heard from the N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality that Southern Shores now has the option of having its recyclables transported to a materials recovery facility (a so-called MRF, pronounced murf) in Portsmouth, Va., where they actually will be recycled, not burned.

Currently, Bay Disposal and Recycling is hauling all Outer Banks recycling, including Southern Shores’ curbside recycling, to an incinerator at Wheelabrator, a waste-to-energy facility in Portsmouth, not an MRF.

Recycling & Disposal Solutions (RSD), out of Roanoke, Va., operates the MRF in Portmouth, according to Mr. Haskett, who explained that NCDEQ had hoped to “secure a location in Elizabeth City,” but it was unsuccessful.

See RDS’s website: https://rds-virginia.com/locations/hampton-roads-locations/

RSD’s recycling processing fee is $95 per ton, Mr. Haskett said. The Town would have to pay Bay Disposal’s collection and hauling costs on top of that. The Interim Town Manager is waiting to receive a fee quote from Joshua Smaltz, Bay Disposal’s Outer Banks Site Manager.

NCDEQ regulators have authorized Southern Shores and other Outer Banks towns to continue to allow their recyclables to be transported to Wheelabrator, despite state laws against disposing of them by incineration. This extension of a regulatory exemption previously given the Outer Banks came “with no given time frame,” Mr. Haskett said.

BEACH NOURISHMENT GRANT MONEY: Mr. Haskett reported that grants of up to $2.5 million are available to N.C. towns for beach nourishment projects through the NCDEQ’s Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund.

The grant money was authorized by the N.C. General Assembly last September for the 2019-2021 fiscal biennium, which runs from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2021. Up to $11.5 million in grants is available to “units of local government” for coastal storm mitigation.

The application deadline for an NCDEQ grant is April 30.

Mr. Haskett mentioned the possibility of the Town requesting grant funding for anticipated “maintenance work in the Pelican Watch area” or for “one of the four options” for beach nourishment that APTIM, the Town’s coastal engineering consultant, has recommended.

“We will seek Council’s guidance at the April 21 budget session as to which, if any project, you prefer,” Mr. Haskett told the Council.

See the March 4, 2020 notice from the NCDEQ that it is accepting grant applications: https://deq.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2020/03/04/deq-accepting-applications-115-million-help-coastal-communities-storm

See North Carolina Session Law 2019-224, aka Senate Bill 429, Part II, sect. 2.1(3)(3) for grant authorization language: https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2019/Bills/Senate/PDF/S429v4.pdf

See Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund Guidelines, FY 2019-20: https://files.nc.gov/ncdeq/Water%20Resources/documents/2019-2020-CSDM-Fund-Guidelines.pdf

FY 2020-2021 BUDGET

Regarding next year’s fiscal-year budget Mr. Haskett told the Council that “work on the proposed budget continues, and all of the departments’ requested expenditures have been added.

“Due to the anticipated loss of revenue as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re working on options that would help offset that loss. We will present those options to you and seek guidance on projects to include or not include in the proposed budget at Council’s April 21 budget work session.”

That meeting will take place at 9 a.m. and will be managed by videoconferencing.

A videotape of the Town Council’s April 7 meeting is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JnhfT87RAY&feature=youtu.be.

Mr. Haskett’s report begins around 13 minutes into the tape. Public comments are read or voiced by Zoom participants after his report and end around the 41-minute mark.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/9/20

 

 

A Dare County resident died this morning from complications associated with the COVID-19 virus.

In a DCEM bulletin released today, the Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services reports the COVID-19 related death of a person who was in her/his early 90s and had several underlying medical conditions. No other details were provided.

See Bulletin No. 36: https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6105/1483

“This is never the type of information we want to have to share,” said Dr. Sheila Davies, director of the Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services. “We extend our heartfelt condolences to this individual’s family and loved ones and pray for peace and comfort.”

The Beacon also extends its sincere condolences to this person’s family and everyone affected by the loss of her/his life, just as we would with anyone who has lost a loved one.

We are especially sorry that the pain of this person’s death has been compounded by the inability of loved ones to be in close physical contact with her/him during the dying process. That we feel quite deeply. There is comfort at the bedside.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/9/20

Harris Teeter announced today that it would begin limiting the number of people in its grocery stores to 50 percent of building code capacity. At the Kitty Hawk Harris Teeter, that means 348 people will be allowed in the store at one time—quite a luxury compared to the few dozen shoppers allowed in Trader Joe’s food markets nationwide.

According to Becky Pugh, a manager at the Kitty Hawk Harris Teeter, her store’s building code capacity is 697 people.

The maximum number of people shopping in the Kitty Hawk store is usually about 100, Ms. Pugh told The Beacon, adding that the staff is prepared to control entry by lining up customers at the doors, if it has to.

Store associates are expected to monitor the number of customers to ensure that the limit is observed, according to the announcement by Harris Teeter, which is headquartered in Matthew, N.C.

Its new building capacity restriction took effect at 5 p.m. today.

Plexiglass protective shields have already been installed at checkout stands in all Harris Teeter stores, and signage has been placed throughout stores to promote social/physical distancing.

According to Ms. Pugh, many of the Kitty Hawk store’s customers already are wearing face masks and gloves.

Plexiglass shields have been installed at checkout counters at the Food Lion in the Marketplace, and it, too, is observing physical distancing in customer lines.

Food Lion also offers online shopping and drive-through pickup.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/8/20

[Breaking news: Today’s Dare County Emergency Management Bulletin addresses the County’s ongoing preparedness efforts and the medical “surge” capacity across the state. See https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6101/1483.]

Governor Roy Cooper announced plans yesterday to issue an executive order later this week to limit the number of people allowed in stores at one time.

“We are preparing an executive order to put more guardrails on social distancing at our essential retailers,” the Governor said at a news conference yesterday. “I know many stores have already put limits on how many people can be in stores at once, and this order will ensure those limits are mandatory across the state.”

[The Walmart in Kitty Hawk reportedly began controlling customer entry and space between customers inside the store last weekend. But when I drove past the Walmart last Saturday, I was shocked by the number of people in the parking lot. It might as well have been a summer Saturday. The nearby Harris Teeter parking lot was also teeming with traffic and people. People need to consider shopping at “off” times.]

The Governor also said that the current statewide stay-at-home order, which is in place until April 29, has been effective in limiting the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the respiratory disease COVID-19.

While Governor Cooper said the state must prepare to move gradually back toward re-opening society, he also deemed it too early to do so and would not project when such action might occur. The virus is not controlled enough yet to do so, he said.

A predictive model by scientists from the University of North Carolina and Duke University that was made public Monday projected that if the stay-at-home order is extended beyond April, the number of COVID-19 cases in North Carolina could be capped at 250,000. If the order is lifted at the end of April, however, the model forecasts that the case count could grow to 750,000.

The model is not the official product of either UNC-CH or Duke, but of individual scientists, who developed it with the help of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, NoviSci, and RTI International, in addition to the universities. You may read more about this forecast, and find a link to the report itself, on The Raleigh News & Observer website at

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article241797076.html

Among the mandatory restrictions that Governor Cooper is considering for crowd control in supermarkets and other big retailers, such as Home Depot and Lowe’s, is making foot traffic in store aisles run like one-way streets to avoid interactions; marking floors with tape so people will stand at least six feet away from each other when they are waiting in lines; and adding plexiglass barriers to protect employees at check-out areas.

“We need to make [such restrictions] more uniform,” the Governor said.

To learn more about the reaction of Trader Joe’s employees nationwide to the restrictions, or lack thereof, taken by their employer to protect them during the COVID-19 crisis, see

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/trader-joe-s-employees-say-virus-response-was-haphazard-and-chaotic/ar-BB12jozJ?ocid=msedgdhp; and

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/06/supermarket-workers-deaths-coronavirus-/

There have been reports of deaths among supermarket workers, who have been veritable first responders, during the COVID-19 emergency.

DARE COUNTY SUED BY 6 NON-RESIDENT PROPERTY OWNERS

Six non-resident Dare County property owners reportedly sued Dare County yesterday in federal court, claiming their constitutional rights were violated when the County issued its March 20 emergency order preventing them from accessing their properties.

OBX Today first reported on the litigation yesterday. See https://www.obxtoday.com/top-stories/outer-banks-property-owners-file-federal-suit-challenging-restrictions-to-their-homes/?fbclid=IwAR07zYlNTqNo-BCnXtPXImMO-6MN8CG6Ktzwv3U9BxdbVRYMFZ6xGFen7So

The six plaintiffs—three from Virginia, one from South Carolina, and two from Maryland—do not seek monetary damages. They seek immediate access to their properties. Raleigh attorney S.C. Kitchen is reportedly representing all of the plaintiffs.

The two plaintiffs from Maryland are a married couple who, according to OBX Today, rent their properties–one of which, The Beacon discovered, is located in Southern Shores.

Research on the Dare County GIS website reveals that the Maryland couple own a multi-million-dollar oceanfront home on Second Avenue in Southern Shores, as well as two million-dollar homes in Duck.

According to the N.C. State Bar member directory, there is only one S.C. Kitchen practicing law in North Carolina, and he is Sidney C. Kitchen with the two-person law office of Kitchen & Turrentine, PLLC. See https://www.ktlawnc.com/

Mr. Kitchen, who is known as Chuck, served as county attorney for Durham and Alamance counties before he entered private practice. The Beacon wonders how he identified these six non-resident property owners, but not enough to probe the question further by calling him.

The Beacon ventured into constitutional law on 4/4/20 when we featured an opinion column written by two attorneys with doctorates in health policy that was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

In their article, “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally—the U.S. Response to Covid-19,” the authors address “major weaknesses” in the United States’ “federalist system of public health governance, which divides powers among the federal, state and local governments.”

Because there has been no national strategy on responding to the COVID-19 threat, states and localities have been at the front lines of the response, the authors write, and—not surprisingly—they have exercised their public-health powers “unevenly.”

There is no question that in “extraordinary times,” such as we are experiencing now, states and the federal government can “activate emergency powers to expand their ability to act swiftly to protect human life and health,” they write, and these powers can infringe upon individuals’ civil liberties.

Usually the fear of emergency-activated restrictions, they continue, is that government officials—typically, at the federal and state levels, not at the county level—will over-react and impose unduly coercive measures.

The authors give as an example N.J. Governor Chris Christie’s decision to order a nurse returning from Sierra Leone into quarantine during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, even though her case did not merit it under the CDC’s guidelines.

Could the public-health and public-safety objectives that Dare County sought to achieve on March 20, and continues to seek to achieve today, be met through less restrictive means than a wholesale closure of the county to all nonresident property owners? That is a fair question to ask and for the Dare County Control Group to consider.

(The Beacon may write more about the continued exclusion of non-resident property owners during the COVID-19 emergency in an upcoming column.)

TOWN COUNCIL DELAYS CONSIDERATION OF BUDGET MATTERS 

The Southern Shores Town Council postponed its consideration of the budget workshop business it had scheduled to take up at its meeting yesterday afternoon until April 21, when the Council is expected to meet by electronic conferencing, exclusively.

While The Beacon agrees with this decision, we wish the Town had made it a week ago.

Yesterday, a quorum comprised of Mayor Tom Bennett and Councilmen Jim Conners and Leo Holland convened at the Pitts Center, while Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Morey and Councilman Matt Neal participated in the meeting by Zoom videoconferencing. (The Beacon enjoyed hearing Mr. Neal’s children’s voices in the background and seeing his empty chair on one occasion.)

Interim Town Manager/Planning Director Wes Haskett, Town Attorney Ben Gallop, Finance and Human Resources Director Bonnie Swain, and Town Clerk Sheila Kane attended the meeting in person. All participants observed six-foot physical distancing.

The Beacon knows of residents who were unable to access the meeting through Zoom and believes the Town staff could do a better job of explaining how to download the software and then maneuver within Zoom once a meeting has started. We hope step-by-step instructions will be posted on the Town website before the next videoconference.

We joined the meeting via Zoom, as well as by telephone, and can report that the entire 70-minute meeting was audible on the telephone–albeit at a long-distance charge.

It was quite clear to us that those people who spoke remotely—including two non-resident Southern Shores property owners who objected to the Dare County access restrictions—had previous experience with Zoom. We did not.

The Beacon will report in more detail tomorrow on a few of the items that came up at the meeting, but, generally speaking, we do not find yesterday’s Council business to merit much coverage in light of all that is happening. We also believe the Council should postpone its April 21 budget workshop until mid-May, at the earliest.

The budget workshop business that was delayed includes:

• Town pay study
• Beach nourishment
• SSVFD radios and possible budget amendment
• Potential no-left-turn weekends
• Capital street projects
• RFQ and/or extension-town engineer contract expires June 30, 2020

If the Town Council goes ahead with its electronic meeting, we would urge members to make only those decisions that are essential to make now and not try to predict the immediate or distant future of the town’s or the county’s economy.

A videotape of yesterday’s meeting is already online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JnhfT87RAY&feature=youtu.be.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/8/20

Ten people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Dare County, according to today’s 1 p.m. Dare County Emergency Management bulletin.

Three of the four new cases announced today, DCEM Bulletin No. 34 says, are “associated with direct contact with the individual whose positive test result was announced on April 4.”

The other new case is said to be a person who “likely acquired the virus through direct contact when out of the area,” according to the bulletin.

There actually were two positive test results announced on April 4: those of cases Nos. 4 and 5. (See The Beacon, 4/4/20.)

The fourth case was reported to be a resident who was tested in Dare County, but was receiving care at a hospital outside of the county. The fifth positive test case was the spouse of the person whose positive COVID-19 test was the second for Dare County.

Bulletin No. 34 reports that of the 10 people who have tested positive in Dare County, “five have completely recovered, three are asymptomatic (meaning they have not experienced any COVID-19 symptoms), one is recovering in isolation and one remains hospitalized out of the county.”

See the bulletin at https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6097/1483

On Sunday, after learning of the first COVID-19 case presumably caused by community spread, or what is known as silent transmission, The Beacon predicted more positive test results would ensue this week. We based this opinion, in part, on expert analyses of the state of an outbreak in a county that has reported a case of community spread.

According to a study recently released by the University of Texas at Austin, “[i]f a county has detected only one case of COVID-19, there is a 51 percent chance that there is already a growing outbreak underway.”

In their article, “Probability of Current COVID-19 Outbreaks in All U.S. Counties,” UT researchers Emily Javan, Dr. Spencer J. Fox, and Dr. Lauren Ancel Meyers state that “COVID-19 is largely spreading undetected, because of the high proportion of asymptomatic and mild infections and limited laboratory testing capacity.”

See https://cid.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/cid/files/covid-risk-maps_counties_4.3.2020.pdf?m=1585958755.

Dr. Fox and Dr. Meyers are Ph.D.s, not M.D.s, and their approach is a statistical one that is based on a tool they developed to estimate the risk of the “silent” Zika virus spreading to the United States in 2016.

The article reportedly will be published in Emerging Infectious Diseases and is online in early release.

Dare County COVID-19 case No. 6, which was announced Sunday, is the only confirmed case that has been attributed to community spread.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/7/20

The credibility of the financial consultant the Town of Southern Shores has hired to advise it about a potential $16 million beach nourishment project came into question at last night’s Kitty Hawk Town Council meeting.

In the course of discussing possible re-nourishment of Kitty Hawk’s beaches, Mayor Gary Perry said, “I am aware of a recent statement by the financial gurus advising the Town of Southern Shores, stating that once you nourish [the beaches], you never get out.

“That is not true,” Mayor Perry emphasized.” If a majority of Kitty Hawk property owners told this Council to stop taxing for re-nourishment, we must listen.”

Southern Shores has hired DEC Associates of Charlotte, whose principals are the father-son team of Doug and Andrew Carter, to provide it with financial advice.

Mayor Tom Bennett and other members of the Southern Shores Town Council are scheduled in a 3:30 p.m. meeting today to consider data prepared by those “gurus,” and, possibly, to approve a 2022 beach nourishment project based on their numbers.

Mayor Perry sought last night in a prepared statement to clarify Kitty Hawk’s responsibilities in continuing the oceanfront/oceanside municipal service district it established in order to finance its beach nourishment project, which was completed in 2017.

(The Beacon is uncertain how much property was included in Kitty Hawk’s principal MSD, which was the Mayor’s focus. A second “town-wide” MSD was also designated.)

Earlier in the meeting, the Mayor said that the Kitty Hawk Town Council had previously informed property owners incorrectly that new public hearings and new property-owner notifications would be required to continue the MSDs.

Having subsequently learned from the University of North Carolina School of Government that MSDs remain in existence until they are abolished, the Mayor exhorted property owners that “The Council must hear from you this year in order to set the MSD tax rate.”

A budget hearing has been scheduled June 1.

Mayor Perry further stressed: “If majorities of property owners do not want beach re-nourishment to occur, you had better tell us. Otherwise, I would expect Council to continue the current MSD tax rate.”

In contrast to DEC Associates’ admonition that “once you nourish, you never get out”—which is an accurate statement of advice the Carters have given the Southern Shores Town Council—Mayor Perry said it was more accurate to state: “Once out, never back.”

Mayor Perry said he thought Dare County would “surely” allocate the limited funding it has available for beach nourishment “to other places,” if Kitty Hawk were to “back out.” After he said this, a slide was projected on an overhead screen reading:

“Once out, extremely unlikely to ever be able to nourish Kitty Hawk beaches again.”

The Beacon would strongly urge the Mayor and Town Manager Andy Stewart to consult with Dare County Manager/Attorney Bobby Outten before reaching such a conclusion.

Mr. Outten has informed The Beacon, as well as Southern Shores officials and residents at a public meeting, that the County preserves monies in its Beach Nourishment Fund to ensure that it can contribute to maintenance of completed beach nourishment projects—whether the maintenance is done at five-year intervals or not.

It is not in Dare County’s interests to let the Kitty Hawk beaches decline.

Eight years lapsed between the Town of Nags Head’s 2011 beach nourishment project and its first maintenance. The Town of Kitty Hawk is not required to re-nourish in 2022, if it chooses not to.

In fact, Mr. Outten told The Beacon last December that the Town of Kill Devil Hills was seeking to delay its re-nourishment past 2022. (See The Beacon, 12/14/20)

It has long been an expressed assumption by the Southern Shores Town Council that the considerable set-up costs for Southern Shores’ new beach nourishment project would be shared by the towns of Duck, Kitty Hawk, and Kill Devil Hills because they would be doing re-nourishment at the same time.

After last night’s meeting, The Beacon has to wonder if there has been any communication between Southern Shores and Kitty Hawk, either through town managers or mayors, that confirms this assumption. Or with Kill Devil Hills, for that matter.

The Kitty Hawk Town Council meeting lasted less than 15 minutes and is available for viewing through the Town’s website.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/7/20

 

Dare County residents are apparently inquiring about where the people who have tested positive locally for COVID-19 live and have traveled because today’s Dare Emergency Management bulletin stresses that it is “neither helpful nor productive” to seek such details.

Bulletin No. 33 also reminds residents of the State testing criteria that medical personnel are observing and that have not changed: “fever of 100.4 or greater, cough and difficulty breathing.” People who are experiencing mild or moderate symptoms are still being advised to self-isolate and not be tested.

“What we all must do to protect ourselves doesn’t change because of a positive test result,” said Dr. Sheila Davies, director of the Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services.

“To protect yourself, your family and our community, everyone must stay at home other than for essential needs. Now that community spread is likely, it is important to act as if everyone you come in contact with may be COVID-19 positive and has the ability to spread the virus.”

See the bulletin at https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6091/1483

In the Dare County portion of the bulletin, the technical difficulties experienced with this morning’s meeting are acknowledged and a link to a video is provided: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZeMEIDdWqI&feature=youtu.be

KITTY HAWK MAYOR TO ADDRESS BEACH NOURISHMENT

We also would like to call your attention to the Kitty Hawk Town Council’s meeting today at 6 p.m., which will be held virtually. According to the agenda, Mayor Gary Perry will be giving a presentation on beach nourishment and municipal services districts. His presentation is the first order of business.

You may live stream the meeting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpiX5q4vA8w&feature=youtu.be.

The Kill Devil Hills Board of Commissioners’ meeting, originally scheduled today at 6 p.m., also, has been canceled.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/5/20

 

Dare County will start with a “no-growth budget” for fiscal year 2020-21, “or something less than that,” County Manager Bobby Outten advised the Board of Commissioners this morning at its regular monthly meeting.

Once he knows more about Dare County revenues, or has some projections of revenues, in light of the COVID-19 emergency restrictions, Mr. Outten said, he may increase or decrease preliminarily budgeted FY 2020-21 expenditures.

The Dare County Manager also said he has cut all discretionary spending.

The Beacon recommends that Southern Shores Interim Town Manager Wes Haskett follow Mr. Outten’s example and do the same.

A quorum of the Southern Shores Town Council will meet tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. in the Pitts Center to take up FY 2020-21 budgetary proposals. Two Council members will be participating remotely.

For the Town Council’s agenda, see: https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/wp-content/uploads/minutes-agendas-newsletters/Agendas_2020-04-07.pdf

For the meeting packet, see: https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/wp-content/uploads/minutes-agendas-newsletters/Meeting-Packet_2020-04-07.pdf

To learn how to participate electronically in the meeting, see:  https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Southern-Shores-Notice-Electronic-Participation-2.pdf

The Beacon watched some of the Dare County Commissioners’ 9 a.m. meeting, which was to be live-streamed, on Current TV Government channel 191. Unfortunately, none of the three commissioners who participated remotely in the meeting—they were Danny Couch, Jim Tobin, and Ervin Bateman—could be heard.

Commissioner Steve House, who represents Duck, Southern Shores, and Kitty Hawk, attended the meeting, which was held in the Commissioners’ chambers in Manteo, with all of the participants observing physical distancing. The meeting lasted about 45 minutes. A videotape will be posted on the DCBOC website soon.

You may read Chairman Robert Woodard’s remarks at the outset of the meeting about the tough decisions that the Dare County Control Group has made to thwart the spread of COVID-19 on The Outer Banks Voice’s website at https://www.outerbanksvoice.com/2020/04/06/these-restrictions-will-save-lives/.

The Beacon notes that Commissioner Couch is on the Control Group as a representative of Hatteras Island. We omitted him from a list of Control Group members that we published in a post yesterday.

DARE SCHOOLS SWITCHING TO PICK-UP MEALS TWICE A WEEK

The Dare County school system is suspending its free meal service until Thursday, at which time it will implement twice-a-week grab-and-go pickups of meals at three designated elementary schools.

Superintendent John Farrelly announced the change in meal service in an email to families yesterday. Citing yesterday’s report of a sixth COVID-19 positive case in Dare County, he said he would like to reduce the risk of viral exposure to employees and families.

Starting Thursday (April 9), “grab-and-go” meals will be available to anyone age 18 and younger from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday at Cape Hatteras Elementary, First Flight Elementary, and Manteo Elementary.

According to Superintendent Farrelly, multiple pick-up stations will be set up in front of the Cape Hatteras and Manteo elementary schools. First Flight Elementary pick-up stations will be located in the bus parking lot on the west side of the building, between FFES and FFMS.

Each Thursday’s meal pickup will provide lunch for that day, breakfast and lunch for Friday and Monday, and breakfast for the next Tuesday. Tuesday’s meal pickup will provide lunch for Tuesday and breakfast and lunch for Wednesday, and breakfast for Thursday.

In his statement, Mr. Farrelly said that more than 9,000 meals have been served during the past few weeks. He also expressed a commitment to try to continue meal service throughout the duration of the COVID-19 emergency.

The Outer Banks Voice is reporting today that NC Coast Grill & Bar, Red Sky Café, and Saltaire Cottages are teaming up today, tomorrow, and Wednesday to provide free lunches to children, courtesy of Chef Wes. The hot lunches will be available from noon to 1 p.m. at Saltaire Cottages, 4618 N. Virginia Dare Trail, in Kitty Hawk.

See https://www.outerbanksvoice.com/2020/04/06/stepping-up-to-fill-a-gap-on-free-lunches/

The NC Coast Grill & Bar and Red Sky Café are restaurants in Duck.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/6/20

On April 1, the Dare County Control Group, which oversees and manages multi-jurisdictional emergencies and disasters, discussed imposing curfews on residents and closing the beaches, according to Duck Mayor Don Kingston, one of the group members.

But “there was no support for these actions at this time,” advised Mayor Kingston, one of the five town mayors on the Control Group, in a COVID-19 update that he gave at the April 1 Duck Town Council meeting, which was live-streamed.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Mr. Kingston observed, “said [such] actions may be taken.”

As The Beacon previously reported, we tried to watch the live stream of the Duck Town Council meeting in real time, but were foiled by technical difficulties: There was no sound.

A link to a video of the meeting, with audio restored, has been posted on the Town of Duck website, and we accessed it. The video is still far from perfect—beset by audio problems and an unfortunate tendency for the camera not to move to the next speaker after the previous speaker has finished. But Mayor Kingston’s voice rings out loud and clear.

We also appreciate hearing from Duck Fire Chief Donna Black and Duck Police Chief John Cueto about how they are managing, and what they are experiencing, during the COVID-19 emergency.

Neither Southern Shores Police Chief David Kole nor Fire Chief Ed Limbacher is on the Southern Shores Town Council’s meeting agenda this Tuesday. The meeting is primarily a rescheduling of the March 24 budget workshop meeting and does not include reports of town fire and police services during March.

Early in the Duck Council meeting, Mayor Kingston gave a welcome chronological review of the COVID-19 crisis in Dare County, starting on March 16 when the Control Group declared a countywide state of emergency in response to the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Governor Cooper declared a statewide emergency on March 10.

Mayor Kingston’s timeline also included actions taken by Currituck and Hyde counties and COVID-19 case counts on the state level.

The Dare County Control Group is comprised of nine members: Robert Woodard, chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners; the mayors of the towns of Duck, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head, and Manteo; Dave Hallac, Superintendent of the National Park Service; and Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie.

[UPDATE 4/6/20: Today, The Beacon learned that Dare County Commissioner Danny Couch has been participating in the Control Group as a representative for Hatteras Island.] 

According to Mayor Kingston, the Control Group has a daily video conference at 8:30 a.m., which he said, as of April 1, lasted “about an hour and a half.” He described the discussions and debates among the members as “pretty intense.”

Of further interest to The Beacon was the Mayor’s report that on March 26, the Control Group “started monitoring airports and airstrips” because “we found that [nonresident] individuals were becoming very creative about coming into Dare County.”

Many of us have heard anecdotal accounts of nonresidents boating, flying, and otherwise gaining access to the Outer Banks, but this behavior by outliers has not been addressed officially by the Control Group.

Later in the meeting Town Manager Chris Layton asked the Town Council to postpone until mid-May all budget planning and discussions so that the Town will have a better idea of “when we can expect restrictions to lift.”

He described the COVID-19-related restrictions on access to the Outer Banks and on Dare County businesses as having a “drastic impact” on the fiscal year 2020-21 budget, and said he did not wish to make any assumptions.

“Even in mid-May, we may not know,” Mr. Layton said, later observing, as The Beacon has in regard to the Southern Shores Town Council’s budget decisions, “We have until June 30.”

The Duck Town Council unanimously approved the postponement, acknowledging that it may have to schedule several meetings after mid-May to get business done.

BULLETIN NO. 32

Bulletin No. 32 of the Dare County Emergency Management Bulletin appeared at 12:30 p.m. today: https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6087/1483.

Its intent seems to be to update COVID-19 data statewide, but it provides out-of-date statistics. As of 11 a.m. today, according to the N.C. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 2,585 cases of COVID-19, across 89 of the state’s 100 counties, have been confirmed, and 31 people have died.

The bulletin also asks people to be patient during these unusually stressful and exhausting times.

ANN G. SJOERDSMA, 4/5/20

 

A sixth Dare County resident has tested positive for COVID-19, according to a bulletin released this morning by the Dare County Emergency Management.

“The individual is currently in isolation and being monitored,” said Dr. Sheila Davies, director of the Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services.

According to DCEM Bulletin No. 31, the infected person may have acquired the coronavirus from an asymptomatic person, indicating community spread, which is transmission that cannot be traced to a known infected person or to travel to an epidemic area. In other words, the source of transmission cannot be identified.

County public health officials have not “found any connection between this individual and any other individuals who have tested positive in Dare County,” according to the bulletin.

Dr. Davies further commented that the U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention has reported that as many as 25 percent of the people infected with COVID-19 may not show symptoms. That fact is one of the principal concerns of this new highly contagious virus.

Bulletin No. 31 also stresses the “likelihood” that Dare County is “starting to see community spread of COVID-19.” It is “imperative,” the bulletin states, that people restrict all nonessential movement and only go out when absolutely necessary.

Don’t cheat, in other words. (See The Beacon, 3/30/20.)

For the bulletin, see https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6085/1483.

The Beacon is expecting to post other news of positive COVID-19 tests later today and during the coming days. It would appear that more testing is taking place and viral transmission is spreading. If you protect yourself, you protect others, too.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/5/20