The Southern Shores Town Council apparently will approve a beach nourishment project for next year when it approves its consent agenda at its 10 a.m. meeting tomorrow at the Pitts Center.
See meeting agenda here: https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/media/14276.
See meeting packet here: https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/media/14281.
Contrary to what residents may have been led to believe by Town Council members’ comments at meetings this year, the Council will neither publicly discuss the need for beach re-nourishment in Southern Shores nor vote on the town’s inclusion in the 2027 project with Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, and Duck. It’s already a done deal.
(We know The Voice has already treated it that way, but the Town Council had not yet spoken definitively in an open meeting.)
Beach nourishment is the top prioritized project of the Town’s “resiliency” strategy plan, a draft report of which is in the Council’s consent agenda. According to that draft, the Town will nourish the entire Southern Shores oceanfront, regardless of need, every five to seven years at an estimated cost of $6.8 million. (See p. 47 of the meeting packet.)
That Coastal Protection Engineering of North Carolina (CPE), which has a considerable financial interest in all beach nourishment projects on the Outer Banks, facilitated the process by which the Town identified its coastal hazards and vulnerabilities; developed the prioritized strategies and projects; and prepared the draft report, does not seem to have raised any concerns in Town Hall of undue influence.
Also within the consent agenda is the Town Council’s authorization for the creation/hiring of another full-time police officer position, which would bring the number of full-time police officers to 15.
According to an agenda statement by Town Manager Cliff Ogburn, he will present a budget amendment to the Town Council at a future meeting with the actual cost of hiring a 15th officer.
Items in the Council’s consent agenda are usually perfunctorily approved, suggesting they have already been vetted beforehand.
Tomorrow’s Town Council meeting also will feature several special presentations, including a life saving award to Police Officer Tracy Mann and the annual audit report by the Town’s independent auditor.
Mr. Ogburn will present his quarterly financial report during his regular staff report.
The Town Council further will vote on adopting a joint resolution with the Town of Duck and Currituck County to support an application to the N.C. Dept. of Transportation to designate N.C. Hwy. 12 in the three jurisdictions as a North Carolina Scenic Byway. (See pp. 56-60 in the meeting packet.)
THE TOWN’S RESILIENCY STRATEGY AND PROJECT PLANNING
The draft report of the Town’s “resiliency” strategy plan is a culmination of Phases 1 and 2 of the N.C. Resilient Coastal Communities Program (RCCP), which is administered by the N.C. Division of Coastal Management within the N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality. The RCCP is funded by the N.C. General Assembly and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, according to online State of North Carolina sources.
Key RCCP partners include the N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency, the Nature Conservancy, and N.C. Sea Grant. We do not know why CPE played such a prominent role in Southern Shores’ RCCP planning and project prioritization. (Another facilitator apparently was Inspire Placemaking Collective of Durham.)
In Phases 1 and 2, coastal municipalities identify their primary coastal hazards and vulnerabilities, set resilience goals, and develop “shovel-ready” projects for engineering, design, and funding support in Phases 3 and 4. Towns may apply during the later phases for RCCP grants through the State.
According to the draft report, the first meeting of the Southern Shores’ Community Action Team (CAT) that served as the local advisory group for the RCCP process occurred on Dec. 9, 2025. The CAT subsequently held 10 meetings, the last of which occurred Sept. 11.
Two public “outreach” events took place on Earth Day, April 18, at the North Marina, and Aug. 7, outside the Pitts Center. (See p. 13 of the packet.)
While we participated in an online community outreach survey, which reportedly garnered only 105-06 responses, and completed an online survey for ranking the prioritization of proposed projects, we never saw any notices about the CAT’s meetings, nor did we see the names of the CAT members published on the Town website or elsewhere.
And we look for such notification.
According to the draft report, 84 project prioritization surveys were “filled out by stakeholders,” but the report does not define what constitutes a stakeholder. (p. 43)
We bring up these points because we believe this resiliency plan was developed largely outside of public view and without public knowledge—despite the two outreach events, neither of which was held in a conventional meeting space.
It also took shape outside of the view and knowledge of most of the Town Council members, who were given a Zoom presentation of the process and results by CPE’s Joel R. Kubick, who was the Town’s RCCP project manager, and Ken Willson, the Town’s beach-nourishment project manager, on Sept. 1, a presentation/workshop that we attended as the only member of the audience. No one from the Division of Coastal Management participated in this presentation.
We would be very surprised if we met anyone in Southern Shores outside of the CAT, the Town Council, and some well-informed volunteers, who was familiar with the RCCP Phase 1-2 process and the projects enumerated in the draft report.
For the record, we now know from the report that Mayor Elizabeth Morey, Planning Board Member Robert McClendon, and residents Nancy Sheehan, Richard Filling, and Lori Trawinski, who served as chairperson, comprised the Community Action Team, but we do not know how or why they were selected. We can conjecture, but we shouldn’t have to.
We also do not know how many Southern Shores residents, in total, actually participated in the surveys. Public input was hardly “considerable,” as the draft report purports on p. 11 of the packet.
According to the draft report, unspecified decision-makers—the CAT, Town staff, CPE, and/or others?—considered the Town’s past studies on hazard mitigation, land use, emergency management, stormwater, drainage, and climate resilience in drawing conclusions about the Town’s vulnerabilities and “candidate” projects.
The final prioritized projects listed in the draft report are:
- Oceanside Beach/Dune Nourishment Program
- N.C. 12 [Stormwater] Study Update and Side Street Stormwater Diversion Program
- N.C. 12 Stormwater Management at Southern Shores Realty (this is the first time we have seen this priority defined by location; the public did not have the opportunity to rank this project)
- Neighborhood Stormwater Management Study
- Oceanside Beach Monitoring Program (administered annually by CPE)
- Evaluation of the Adaptability of Critical Facilities
- Evaluation of the Burying of Overhead Utilities Along the Coast
- Update of Development Policies and Regulations
- Coastal Resiliency Community Engagement, Education, and Outreach
(See p. 44 of the meeting packet.)
(Ironically, a photograph in the draft report depicting “representative flooding conditions in Southern Shores,” on p. 11 of the packet, shows a flooded section of Ocean Boulevard on Sept. 17, 2024, after a major unnamed storm unleashed tropical-storm-force winds and historic rainfall. Twenty inches of rain fell in 12 hours then in what was called a 1,000-year rainfall event. Flooding on Duck Road and on the soundside is more typical for Southern Shores after a heavy rainfall.)
According to the Town Manager’s agenda item summary, adoption of these nine projects as the Town’s resiliency strategy “does not authorize construction, appropriate funding, or approve final engineering for the individual projects. Those actions would return to Town Council as appropriate during future planning, budgeting, and project-development processes.”
But you can count on beach nourishment next year.
By Ann G. Sjoerdsma, The Southern Shores Beacon, 10/5
