The Southern Shores Town Council will meet Wed., March 4, at 10 a.m., for its regular monthly meeting and then reconvene later that day, at 1 p.m., for its annual retreat. Both meetings will be held in the Pitts Center behind Town Hall.
For the morning meeting agenda and packet of materials, see:
The public hearing for Zoning Text Amendment 25-06, which was introduced by the Southern Shores Civic Assn., will finally be held Wednesday morning after two postponements. (The Beacon posted its first article about the ZTA on 1/5/26; the SSCA subsequently withdrew it for fine-tuning.)
The proposed ZTA would amend Town Code sec. 36-57 to increase the Town’s current height limit for fences for “community recreational facilities” from six feet to 10 feet and establish that any such fence must be constructed “utilizing chain-link fabrication from the ground to the top of the fence.” (See pp. 36-38 of the meeting packet for the text of ZTA 25-06.)
“Community recreational facilities” are defined in Town Code sec. 36-57 as recreational facilities owned and operated by not-for-profit entities, that “are constructed for, open to, and available for use by members, property owners, and their guests.” The SSCA is a non-profit organization.
ABOUT THE RETREAT: The purpose of the retreat, according to a Town announcement, is “to discuss the annual budget and long-term vision, goals, and strategies for the future.”
Among the budgetary issues to be discussed is the use of about $330,000 remaining in the Town’s $1 million FY 2025-26 budget for street maintenance and repair. At its Feb. 10 meeting, the Town Council approved the award of a contract for $639,698.20 to Barnhill Contracting Co. for reconstruction of a section of East Dogwood Trail.
The East Dogwood Trail project, which will be done by May, will address potholes, dips, and “undulations,” according to Town Manager Cliff Ogburn, from the Dick White Bridge east to about the foot of the hill. The project’s intent, Mr. Ogburn said at the February meeting, is to level out this section of East Dogwood Trail with substantial amounts of stone and asphalt.
The Town Manager also mentioned staffing issues, such as health insurance, as topics to be discussed at the retreat.
The retreat is an informal meeting that will not be live-streamed or videotaped. It has been customary for the Town Council at past retreats to recognize members of the public in attendance and to respond to their inquiries and other comments.
ABOUT THE LICENSE PLATE READER CAMERAS IN TOWN . . .
You may have heard Southern Shores Police Chief David Kole speak at the Town Council’s February meeting about his department’s use of automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras in town or read about his presentation in a recent Outer Banks Voice article.
The ALPR technology is known as Flock, for the manufacturer and operator of the surveillance which is doing business as Flock Safety.
See Wikipedia for background on the company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock_Safety.
The SSPD has posted a “transparency portal” on the Town’s website to explain both the intended use, and the past use, of Flock cameras in Southern Shores.
Twelve such stationary cameras exist, although Chief Kole said at the Town Council meeting that one on Duck Woods Drive is broken.
This technology is to be used only for law enforcement purposes which, according to the transparency portal, include “criminal investigations, criminal arrests and prosecutions, locating missing or endangered persons (Amber/Silver Alerts), missing or stolen vehicles.”
Flock allegedly does not identify any distinguishing features of the driver of a vehicle whose license plate is read, such as sex, race, and ethnicity, nor is facial recognition done. It also is not to be used for immigration or traffic enforcement.
To access the SSPD Transparency Portal, go to https://transparency.flocksafety.com/southern-shores-nc-pd.
Chief Kole also has posted a SSPD policy and procedure order that establishes guidelines for the use of ALPR units and their data by his department. See https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/media/13401.
The SSPD’s policy is to purge ALPR data after 30 days, unless a longer retention period is justified for court or investigative purposes. N.C. law allows the retention of ALPR data for 90 days, after which they must be purged, absent a justifiable reason for their preservation.
This same technology was previously used in town to count vehicles traveling on the cut-through roads over the weekends, according to Chief Kole.
If you have any concerns about the Flock system, especially about protection of your privacy, we suggest you contact Chief Kole directly. As you’ll read in the Wikipedia excerpt, there has been Fourth Amendment and state-privacy-law litigation in other states over the misuse of such surveillance.
VOTE ON TUESDAY!
Don’t forget to vote in the Tuesday, March 3, primary, if you haven’t already voted early or by absentee ballot. The polling precinct for registered Southern Shores voters is the Pitts Center. Polls will be open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
You can still vote early today, until 7:30 p.m., and tomorrow, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Kill Devil Hills Town Hall polls.
AND IN CASE YOU’RE WONDERING, the springtime bulk waste collection will be FRIDAY, APRIL 17.
For a list of acceptable and unacceptable items for pickup, see:
BY THE SOUTHERN SHORES BEACON, 2/27/26
The Southern Shores Beacon 