Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Morey filed her candidacy for mayor of Southern Shores yesterday, the first day of the Dare County Board of Elections’ two-week candidate filing period for the November municipal elections.

The four-year terms of two Southern Shores Town Council members are expiring this year: those of Mayor Tom Bennett and Town Councilman Jim Conners. Mr. Bennett has served two terms as mayor, first being elected in 2013.

All positions on the Town Council, as well as the election, are nonpartisan.

Ms. Morey, who lives on Ginguite Trail, was elected to the Town Council in 2019 and chosen by her Council peers to be the mayor pro tem.

When The Beacon interviewed Ms. Morey in 2018, she told us she was self-employed as a political campaign manager and counselor.

Ms. Morey’s biography on the Town of Southern Shores website indicates only that she “owns and manages a home-based business.”

The mayoral candidate has been active in local Democratic Party politics. Ms. Morey’s husband, Tommy Fulcher, ran unsuccessfully last year for the N.C. House of Representatives, losing to Bobby Hanig (R).

In the event Ms. Morey is elected mayor in November, N.C. municipal law specifies that her seat on the Town Council will be filled by appointment until such time as the next town election is held.

Previously, Ms. Morey served two three-year terms as a regular member of the Town Planning Board and two years as a Planning Board alternate.

At the time of her election to the Council, she was in the fifth month of a third three-year term and serving as the Board’s chairperson, a position she held first on an interim basis upon the death of Glenn Wyder in November 2018.   

In our June 29, 2018 interview, Ms. Morey told The Beacon that she retired from the Dare County health department in 2014 and previously worked in Raleigh for a division of the N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality. She started her political consulting business in 2016.

Ms. Morey is originally from Fulton County, Georgia.

Anyone wishing to run for one of the two expiring Southern Shores Town Council offices has until noon on July 16 to file his or her candidacy with the Board of Elections.

LONGER NO-LEFT-TURN HOURS, MORE ROAD CLOSURES THIS WEEKEND

Motorists will be prohibited from turning left from U.S. Hwy. 158 on to South Dogwood Trail today from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. and tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., according to the Town of Southern Shores newsletter published yesterday.

The Town also announced in the newsletter the addition of three more “no local traffic” northbound road barriers, bringing the total number of such closures along the cut-thru route to eight: the original four at Hickory Trail, Hillcrest Drive, Sea Oats Trail, and Wax Myrtle Trail, off of East Dogwood Trail; three additional at Hillcrest Drive, Sea Oats Trail, and Wax Myrtle Trail, off of Hickory Trail; and the eighth at Hillcrest Drive and Sea Oats Trail.

According to the newsletter, the Town also “has been able to work with the travel app, Waze, to have [these] eight road closures indicated on their travel routes.”

People using the Waze app will not be directed through these closures. (Hooray!)

Please feel free to comment on The Beacon blog and Facebook page about the cut-thru traffic you witness during this height-of-the-season, holiday weekend.

Happy Fourth of July. Stay safe.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 7/3/21