In his report to the Town Council about his recommended fiscal year 2025-26 budget, Town Manager Cliff Ogburn gives three examples, based on different home values, of how much your annual property taxes will go up. They are as follows:
For a home valued at $602,100:
Annual tax at the revenue-neutral rate of $0.148= $891.11
Annual tax at the revenue-neutral rate plus 4-cent increase= $1.131.95
Percentage increase: 27.0 percent ($240.84)
For a home valued at $1,097,700:
Annual tax at the revenue-neutral rate of $0.148= $1,642.60
Annual tax at the revenue-neutral rate plus 4-cent increase= $2,063.68
Percentage increase: 25.6 percent ($421.08)
For a home valued at $1,620,100:
Annual tax at the revenue-neutral rate of $0.148= $2,397.75
Annual tax at the revenue-neutral rate plus 4-cent increase= $2,063.68
Percentage increase: 27.0 percent ($648.04)
Beach-nourishment taxes would be in addition to these taxes.
We did not include these figures in our earlier post on the budget because we thought we had hit number-overload. A comment from a reader pointing out the increase convinced us to add this sidebar report.
Thank you.
By Ann G. Sjoerdsma, The Southern Shores Beacon, 5/27/25
It is easy to get lost in the numbers presented in Southern Shores Town Manager Cliff Ogburn’s recommended budget for fiscal year 2025-26, which begins July 1.
There are numbers for actual, amended, forecasted, and recommended budgets in his report. If you try to verify the percentages in the report’s charts comparing last year’s revenues and expenditures with those proposed for FY 2025-26, you can’t. They do not compute. We had to talk with Town Finance Officer Bonnie Swain to get things straight. (See below.)
This much is clear: The recommended budget, presented to the Town Council by Mr. Ogburn at the Council’s May 6 meeting, calls for 1) a 4-cent increase in the ad valorem tax rate, which will be imposed on the Town’s revenue-neutral rate of 14.8 cents, and 2) total General Fund expenditures of $11,706,772.
We downloaded the recommended FY 2025-26 budget with the Town Manager’s accompanying report, which was not available before the Council meeting, on May 7. We now find that when we search for the budget on the Town website, we cannot retrieve the accompanying report. See https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/media/12096. Without it, anyone analyzing the budget is at a disadvantage.
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The Town Manager’s recommended budget is balanced by appropriating $227,395 from the Town’s “Undesignated Fund Balance” (“UFB”), aka Unassigned Fund Balance, $3.5 million of which is earmarked for disaster and emergency relief and the remainder of which can be used to balance the budget and pay for large capital expenses. UFB funds also can be transferred to the Capital Reserve Fund for future projects.
Last year’s budget was balanced with $2,918,771 from the UFB, $2.1 million of which was designated for construction of the new Trinitie/Juniper Trail Bridge, which just opened last week.
After deducting $227,395 from the available UFB as of June 30, 2025 to balance the FY 2025-26 budget, $1,787,326 in funds remain above the $3.5 million reserve, according to Mr. Ogburn.
You might ask why some of this “surplus” is not appropriated for the new fiscal year budget, or whether $3.5 million is too much to maintain in reserve for emergencies. The Town Council should be able to answer these questions, but we have not heard them addressed.
We reported on 5/13/25 the bottom-line balance of the FY 2025-26 budget, and on 4/10/25 we told you that a tax-rate increase of 4 or 5 cents was proposed at the only budget workshop held by the Town Council on April 10.
What more can we say about this proposed budget, which the four Town Council members present at the May 6 meeting—Councilwoman Paula Sherlock was absent—showed both a familiarity with, and participation in its creation?
Indeed, Councilmen Mark Batenic and Rob Neilsen lobbied for the budget and a tax-rate increase. Mr. Batenic said that the Council had been “in touch” with Town staff about the budget and “given [it] some very thorough thought.”
There was a time, not so long ago, when heads of the various Town departments (Police, Public Works, Planning, Administration, etc.) presented their itemized budgetary requests to the Town Council in public workshop sessions.
Such give-and-take has not existed during Mayor Elizabeth Morey’s administration. As a result, gone are the days when the public could analyze the line items in the budget and question, along with Council members, their amount and inclusion.
The exception in the upcoming fiscal year is the expense for the salaries and benefits of the agreed-upon number of Fire Department employees, budgetary appropriations that were discussed in the April 10 workshop. (There will be a full-time fire chief, deputy chief, assistant chief, four fire captains, and administrative assistant, and one part-time administrative assistant.)
Last fiscal year’s recommended budget included a very readable summary of itemized expenses by department. It included historical budget data (back to FY 2019) and useful graphics. Perhaps because the FY 2025-26 budget is the second year of a forecasted two-year budget, a similar summary was not appended to this year’s budget. We believe it should have been.
The FY 2025-26 budget is a well-prepared and packaged budget that members’ comments on May 6 indicate already has consensus on the Town Council.
We expect unanimous Council approval of it on June 3, after minimal (if any) comment in the State-required public hearing.
SECOND YEAR OF TWO-YEAR BUDGET
As mentioned, FY 2025-26 is the second year in a two-year budget that Mr. Ogburn asked department heads to prepare. Hence, if you read the recommended budget and come across figures for the “forecasted” FY 25-26 budget, you now know that those figures were forecasted by department heads a year in advance.
They are largely on the money.
FY 2025-26 is the Town’s first year of incorporating fire services into a municipal department, a “move,” Mr. Ogburn writes in his report, “predicated mainly on the need to provide employee benefits in order to hire full-time positions.”
The recommended budget proposes expenses of nearly $2 million for the Fire Department, which are, understandably, well above what was forecasted when the presumption was that the department would remain a non-profit corporation and largely volunteer-staffed.
Besides the Fire Department budget, the largest forecast discrepancies exist in the Administration and Public Works departments’ expenses. According to Ms. Swain, some of the increases in expenses in the Administration Department are related to the incorporation of the Fire Department (insurance, worker’s compensation, utilities).
Administration also is planning to add a full-time employee in January: A public information officer whose salary will be $63,860, she said.
The Public Works’ budget increase relates to the purchase of equipment, but Mr. Ogburn’s report does not explain how a line-item expense for PW equipment outlay went from $8,000 in the FY 2024-25 “amended” budget to $217,000 in the recommended budget. There is just mention of a “boom flail mower” in his report, but no elaboration.
The amended FY 2024-25 budget includes all additional expenses authorized during the fiscal year that were not included in the budget adopted last June.
We also can tell you, thanks to Ms. Swain, that in order to compare last fiscal year’s adopted budget with the recommended FY 2025-26 budget, she and Mr. Ogburn deducted the $2.1 million appropriated from the Undesignated Fund Balance in FY 2024-25 for the Trinitie/Juniper Trail Bridge replacement project. (Mr. Ogburn explained this at the May 6 meeting, too.)
They did this in order to compare “apples to apples,” Ms. Swain told us: adopted budget to proposed adopted budget. They considered the bridge expense to be extraordinary.
After subtracting the $2.1 million, Mr. Ogburn was able to calculate an increase in the Town’s proposed budget for FY 2025-26 of 9.45 percent or $1,011,063.
Curiously, nowhere in the Town Manager’s recommended budget report is the adopted budget total for FY 2024-25 of $12,795,709, actually set forth.
If that one-time capital expense of $2.1 million is included in the FY 2024-25 budget, then the proposed budget for FY 2025-26 is less than last year’s adopted budget by $1,088,937 or 8.5 percent: the difference between $12,795,709 and $11,706,772.
The itemized totals for the adopted FY 2024-25 budget do not appear in the recommended budget, just the totals from the amended FY 2024-25 budget. We do not understand this. Comparing an amended budget to a recommended adopt budget is apples to oranges.
We may be the only property owner in Southern Shores to have delved into the numbers in Mr. Ogburn’s recommended budget and, because of our propensity for math, we may have just confused you. We will attempt clarity. The proposed FY 2025-56 expenditures, by all departments, with their percentage change from the adopted FY 2024-25 budget are as follows:
Administration: $1,738,582 (an increase of 18.1 percent); the forecasted figure was nearly $300,000 less
Planning and Code Enforcement: $447,755 (a decrease of 3.07 percent); the forecasted figure was about $6500 less
Police: $2,586,153 (an increase of 3.14 percent); the forecast was for about $2500 more
Public Works: $961,361 (an increase of 28.70 percent); the forecast was for about $225,000 less
Sanitation Services: $1,048,000 (an increase of 5.21 percent)
Ocean Rescue Contracted Service: $237,245 (an increase of 3.49 percent)
Fire Services: $1,982,515 (an increase of 62.86 percent)
The recommended budget also includes $1 million in funding for a “more in-depth road project” on East Dogwood Trail—we have not heard the details explained—and road work coupled with stormwater infrastructure for the intersection of Hickory Trail and Wax Myrtle Trail.
The Town Council has committed $1 million annually over a 10-year period for street improvements. FY 2025-26 is the fifth year.
Replacement of portions of the existing sidewalk on the east side of Duck Road from Hillcrest Drive northward is budgeted at $335,950.
During their discussion April 10 about raising taxes, Town Council members asked what services the public would have the Town cut in order not to raise taxes and offered up the uninviting possibilities of recycling, chipping, and limb and branch pickup. They intimated that the budget is already bare-bone.
More apt questions for us are whether the Town Manager has tasked every department head with cutting back/tightening his or her budget and whether each one has done so.
Also, why is such a large surplus retained above the mandatory $3.5 million in the Undesignated Fund Balance? With such a large surplus, why is the Town raising property taxes?
COUNTY TAX REVENUES ARE DOWN
We conclude with a word about anticipated revenues in FY 2025-26.
With the tax-rate increase, Mr. Ogburn projects ad valorem tax revenue of $5,640,771 for the year, which is an increase of 28 percent over the tax revenue projected in the FY 2024-25 adopted budget and in the FY 2025-26 forecasted budget.
This revenue includes taxes paid for beach nourishment in the fifth and final year of the debt service payments for the 2022-23 project, which was budgeted at $11,325,189.
Mr. Ogburn recommends adopting the revenue-neutral tax rates for beach nourishment in FY 2025-26. They are 4.8 cents for municipal service district 1; 1.76 cents for MSD 2; and 2.51 cents for the town-wide rate. These rates “generate the required revenue for the remaining debt service,” Mr. Ogburn reports. He also notes that the Town will begin preparing for a potential five-year renourishment project in the upcoming year.
Mr. Ogburn projects an occupancy tax decrease of 7.86 percent; a decline in sales tax of 2.75 percent, and no change in the Town’s share of land transfer tax. When revenue from those three sources is combined, as it is in the budget line item, the percentage decrease between the adopted FY 24-25 budget and the FY 25-26 recommended budget is 4.8 percent.
All other revenue sources that the Town depends upon, such as monies for permits and fees and intergovernmental revenues (various taxes and grants), are not projected to decline.
OPEN HOUSE IS TONIGHT: The Town’s open house about the Entry Corridor Enhancement Committee’s goals and vision is today from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Pitts Center. Apropos of our budget breakdown, we wonder what budget size and revenue sources the committee has in mind.
By Ann G. Sjoerdsma, The Southern Shores Beacon, 5/27/25
The Town will hold a Memorial Day ceremony Monday at 8:30 a.m. in the Southern Shores Cemetery to honor U.S. personnel who died during military service in war or in peacetime.
The cemetery is located at 66 S. Dogwood Trail next to the Duck Woods Country Club.
Originally known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day was first recognized after the Civil War in response to the practice of communities and families decorating the graves of fallen soldiers, Union and Confederate, with flowers.
In 1868, the Grand Army of the Republic, a politically influential organization of Union veterans, issued the Memorial Day Act to establish a day on which the nation would honor those who died in wartime and decorate their graves with flowers.
The GAR chose May 30 for the ceremonial observance because the choicest variety of flowers would be available in the spring.
Since the post-Civil War period, Memorial Day has evolved nationally to honor and pay tribute to all military service members who died in any U.S. war, as well as during peacetime.
The name Memorial Day gradually became more common than Decoration Day after World War II, but it was not declared the official name by federal law until 1967.
In 1968, Congress changed the date of the holiday observance to the last Monday in May when it passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act to create several three-day holiday weekends, purportedly to benefit federal employees. The Act became law Jan. 1, 1971.
The Uniform Monday Holiday Act moved what was then known as Washington’s Birthday (February 22) permanently to a Monday in February and established Columbus Day as a permanent Monday federal holiday. (The Act did not create Presidents’ Day by combining Washington’s Birthday with Lincoln’s Birthday (February 12). Presidents’ Day—however it is punctuated—is not an official federal holiday.)
Congress also moved Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day and created to honor those who served during World War I, from November 11 to the fourth Monday in October.
The change in the Veterans Day observance met with disfavor because World War I ended on November 11 with an armistice signed between the Allies and Germany. Congress reestablished the November 11 holiday in 1978.
Veterans Day, a name that supplanted Armistice Day in the 1950s, at the urging of veterans organizations, honors all military veterans of U.S. armed forces.
The rebuilt Trinitie/Juniper Trail Bridge is open to all traffic!!! You may freely travel on it.
Construction of the bridge replacement took 199 days, instead of the 211 days forecasted, according to an announcement released today by the Town, which had earlier this month announced that the bridge would reopen by Memorial Day.
The road was closed on Dec. 9, 2024 for the extensive multi-million-dollar project, which replaced an often-repaired culvert with a new core slab bridge.
The construction contract awarded to Smith, Rowe LLC of Mt. Airy is expected to come in at or below the authorized $1,667,178.70 cost, the Town said.
Kimberley-Horn and Associates, Inc., of Raleigh designed and engineered the bridge.
The Southern Shores entry “corridor” along U.S. Hwy. 158 and N.C. Hwy. 12 is outlined in yellow. The west end (far left) begins just to the east of Martin’s Point; the east end (far right) encompasses the Southern Shores Crossing and the Southern Shores Realty properties.
The Town will hold an open house Tuesday, May 27, from 5 to 7 p.m., in the Pitts Center, to inform residents, property owners, and other members of the public about the Entry Corridor Enhancement Committee’s initiative to “revitalize and enhance” the U.S. Hwy. 158 corridor, as well as the N.C. Hwy 12 entry corridor, into Southern Shores.
The event will be an informal give-and-take between the public and members of the committee, the Town Council, and Town staff. It will be an opportunity for those who travel the two corridors and shop the retail businesses or use the services along them to learn what the committee’s mission, goals, and plans are for revitalization and to share their perspectives.
Approved by the Town Council last year, the seven-member Entry Corridor Enhancement Committee has been meeting the past six months to define its purpose and goals and to discuss how to “shape a community-oriented, beautiful, and functional entryway [into Southern Shores] that reflects our Town’s heritage and values.”
The aim of the committee, according to a statement it published online, is “to promote a welcoming identity for the Town; enhance green spaces and landscaping; improve accessibility and safety; and establish cohesive architectural standards.”
In short, it aspires to make the entryways into Southern Shores more appealing and more in keeping with the community values of the Town.
The committee has delineated the entry “corridor” into Southern Shores as depicted in the photo above to include the Town’s property frontage along Hwy. 158 from just east of Martin’s Point to the Town Hall, where the property is zoned governmental use, and the area fronting N.C. 12, where the Southern Shores Crossing and the Southern Shores Realty properties are located.
This area obviously encompasses the Town’s commercial property district, with the largest development on the corridor being the Southern Shores Marketplace, whose architectural design and retail and service choices rate mixed reviews from Town residents.
The Entry Corridor Enhancement Committee recently released a community survey to solicit views and ideas from those who live, work, shop, visit, and otherwise have a vested interest in the future of the Southern Shores entry corridor(s). (The survey primarily addresses the U.S. 158 entryway.) It is clear from the survey the direction the committee would like to take corridor improvements: toward a more aesthetically pleasing, community-promoting, unified, walkable, and green area to enjoy.
Our impression is that the committee’s vision aligns with a town-square concept. Among the ideas it is considering are the creation of “pocket parks,” which are small gathering places typically found in urban areas that lack green space, and the construction of mixed-use development that would offer diverse and more affordable housing.
The Entry Corridor Enhancement Committee’s website contains its full mission statement, its seven goals, and minutes of its meetings, and may be accessed at https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/bc/page/entry-corridor-enhancement-committee. You will find that the goals are well expressed and thoughtfully elaborated upon.
Members of the committee are Mayor Elizabeth Morey, Mayor Pro Tem Matt Neal, Deputy Town Manager/Planning Director Wes Haskett, and Southern Shores resident property owners Jim Gould, Linda Lauby, Matt Price, and Michael Zehner.
The committee will meet tomorrow at 9 a.m. in the Pitts Center.
Funeral services for former Southern Shores Mayor James Harold “Hal” Denny, who died April 10 in Gaithersburg, Md., will be held at Duck Church in Duck tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Mr. Denny would have marked his 100th birthday on May 13. He was born in 1925 in Red House, Ky.
Mr. Denny is survived by his wife, Billie Sue Watson Denny; his son, James H. Denny II (wife, Fran); his daughter-in-law, Nancy Wylie; three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. His son, David Watson Denny, and grandson, David Elliott Denny, predeceased him.
Dr. Denny, a former naval aviator and retired U.S. Navy Reserve captain, began his public service in Southern Shores in 1999 when he was elected to the Town Council. He was reelected to a two-year term on the Town Council in 2003 during the period when the Town was transitioning to staggered terms for Council members and opening up mayoral elections.
The Town held its first popular election for mayor in 2001, Council members having previously elected the mayor from among their ranks.
Mr. Denny was chosen mayor by the Town Council in 2004 after then-mayor Rear Admiral Paul E. Sutherland, Jr., resigned before his term ended. Admiral Sutherland was the first mayor of Southern Shores who was elected by popular vote.
In 2005, Mr. Denny retired from Town government service, but he returned to politics in 2009 to run for mayor against incumbent Mayor Don Smith, whose term was marked by controversy. A retired logistics manager, Mr. Denny, then 84, defeated Mr. Smith in a landslide, 816-352.
Mr. Denny served out his term and was succeeded by Tom Bennett, who won two terms as mayor. (Current mayor, Elizabeth Morey, succeeded Mr. Bennett, winning election in 2021.)
During his time in Southern Shores, Mr. Denny also served as president of the Southern Shores Civic Assn. and Vice Commodore of the Southern Shores Boat Club. He lived in Chicahauk and was actively involved in the community.
Four new full-time employees of the Southern Shores Fire Dept. are slated to be hired in fiscal year 2025-26, when the department become a division of the Town.
The recommended Southern Shores budget for fiscal year 2025-26, presented to the Town Council last Tuesday by Town Manager Cliff Ogburn, calls for a 4-cent increase to the ad valorem tax rate—to be imposed on the Town’s revenue-neutral rate of 14.8 cents—and total General Fund expenditures of $11,706,772.
Mr. Ogburn estimated in his draft FY 2025-26 budget, which he previewed at an April budget meeting, that the revenue-neutral tax rate in Southern Shores would be 12.16 cents. He has recalculated it to be actually 2.64 cents more.
Property taxes to pay for the fifth and final year of debt service for the 2022-23 beach nourishment project will be assessed in addition to the ad valorem taxes of 18.8 cents per $100 of property value.
(As we have previously explained, a “revenue-neutral” tax rate is a tax rate estimated to produce revenue for the first fiscal year after a county-wide property reassessment that is equal to the revenue that would have been produced by the current tax rate if no reassessment had occurred. See The Beacon, 4/10/25.))
The Manager’s budget recommends adopting the revenue-neutral tax rates of 4.08 cents for Municipal Service District 1; 1.76 cents for MSD 2; and 2.51 cents for the town-wide beach nourishment tax rate.
During the upcoming fiscal year, the Town will “begin to prepare for planning a potential renourishment project for FY 2027,” according to Mr. Ogburn’s FY 2025-26 budget summary.
A public hearing on the recommended budget will be held during the Town Council’s meeting on June 3.
We will publish further analysis of the recommended budget before the hearing. Before we can do so, however, we must ask the Town Manager some questions about his numbers.
Salaries and benefits of Town employees, who next year will include seven full-time members of the fire department and an additional police officer, are driving the Town’s expenditures.
Heretofore, the Town paid the salaries, but not benefits, for three full-time members of the Southern Shores Volunteer Fire Dept., which is being incorporated into a municipal department in fiscal year 2025-26. (For more about the fire department’s restructuring and staffing, see The Beacon, 4/10/25.)
The Town Manager has also recommended hiring a full-time Public Information Officer in the Administration Dept.
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DON’T FORGET . . .
Mayor Elizabeth Morey is holding an informal Mayor’s Chat on Wednesday (May 14) at 5 p.m. in the Pitts Center. Bring your questions and comments on “all things Southern Shores.”
The Town Entry Corridor Committee will meet on Tuesday at 9:15 a.m., also in the Pitts Center.
ENTRY CORRIDOR SURVEY
If you did not receive by Town email the survey prepared by the Southern Shores Entry Corridor Committee, which is seeking ideas on how to “shape a community-oriented, beautiful, and functional entryway” into town that reflects Southern Shores’ “heritage and value,” you may access it here:
Contrary to the committee’s representation, the survey will take you longer than five minutes to complete, if you actually give it some thought.
The committee is proposing to “revitalize and enhance” the U.S. Hwy. 158 entry corridor, which runs along the southern end of Southern Shores, where most of the Town’s commercial district is.
The survey closes June 6.
LAST, BUT HARDLY LEAST . . .
The Town Manager announced at the Town Council meeting that the newly rebuilt Trinitie Trail Bridge is on schedule to open by Memorial Day. The finishing touches on the sidewalks and roadway will be completed in the next few weeks.
And the offices of the Southern Shores Civic Assn. and the Chicahauk Property Owners Assn. have moved to the Town’s flat top at 13 Skyline Road and are no longer on the second floor of the Pitts Center.
Dare County will hold its annual hazardous waste collection in Kitty Hawk Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Town Hall, 101 Veterans Memorial Drive.
Collections are also scheduled in Buxton on Friday and in Manteo at the Dare County Public Works Dept. on Saturday.
This is a great opportunity to clear your garage of old paint cans and brushes, pesticides, pool chemicals, automotive fluids, and other hazardous clutter.
The list of acceptable materials, along with the times and addresses for the Buxton and Manteo collections, is accessible here:
The three-day event is sponsored by the Dare County Public Works Dept., the N.C. Dept. of Agriculture & Consumer Services (Pesticide Division), and the N.C. Cooperative Extension at N.C. State and N.C. A&T State universities.
It is only for Dare County residents and the agricultural community.
Town Manager Cliff Ogburn will present his recommended fiscal year 2025-26 Town of Southern Shores budget to the Town Council at its regular meeting Tuesday, May 6, after which the budget will be available on the Town website for the public to view.
Tuesday’s meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. in the Pitts Center.
The Town Council will schedule a public hearing on the budget in June before it votes on its approval. The Council has until June 30 to finalize the budget, which starts on July 1, 2025.
You may access the agenda and meeting packet here:
You may live-steam the meeting at the Southern Shores You Tube website.
Mr. Ogburn also will give status reports Tuesday on the construction of the Trinite Trail Bridge replacement, which previously has been projected to conclude by the end of June or early July, at the latest, and on the Town’s acquisition of the Southern Shores Volunteer Fire Dept.
For background on the FY 2025-26 budget and on the transition of the SSVFD to a department of the Town of Southern Shores, see The Beacon, 4/10/25.
Another important item on the agenda is a discussion about House Bill 765 and similar legislation currently in the N.C. General Assembly that would limit the planning and zoning authority of municipalities.
The Town Council will consider, and undoubtedly approve unanimously, a resolution expressing its opposition to H.B. 765, which is designed to usurp local control of development regulations, and other similar bills.
H.B. 765 is an omnibus bill that is making its way through House committees. For a listing of its many proposed regulatory changes, see an analysis by the N.C. League of Municipalities included in the Town Council meeting packet at pages 58-62.
The Manager’s budget presentation is currently on the agenda after a public hearing on Zoning Text Amendment 25-02, which was submitted by Anthony S. Mina of 75 East Dogwood Trail. Mr. Mina has been engaged with the Town since the Planning Dept. denied his request to subdivide his property. He is responsible for savesouthernshores.com.
(We wrote about Mr. Mina’s situation last October when the Planning Board held a five-hour-plus hearing on a variance request submitted by Mr. Mina, and we decline comment now. Mr. Mina will appear at the ZTA hearing by Zoom because the Town Council has banned him from Town property for a year.)
We trust the Town Council will see the wisdom in reversing the order of this new business so that Mr. Ogburn’s discussion of his recommended budget will occur before the ZTA hearing.
The Planning Board voted unanimously at its April 21 meeting to recommend that the Town Council disapprove ZTA 25-02 after it spent nearly two hours in a hearing.
As we previously announced, we will not be covering this meeting, but we will review the budget in a subsequent blog post as soon as we can.
MAYOR’S CHAT SCHEDULED MAY 14, 5 P.M., IN PITTS CENTER
Mayor Elizabeth Morey will host an informal Mayor’s Chat on Wed., May 14, at 5 p.m., in the Pitts Center to discuss “anything Southern Shores,” according to the Town’s notice.
In our experience, other Town officials, including the Town Manager and Police Chief David Kole, attend these chats and respond to inquiries, as well.
With a new budget that is expected to rely upon an increase in the Town’s ad valorem tax rate to be balanced; a new municipal fire department to structure, staff, and fund; and the prospect of the State legislative overreach of H.B. 765 becoming law, there would seem to be much to talk about with Mayor Morey.
The Southern Shores Beacon 