This photograph of the East Dogwood Trail sidewalk between Hickory Trail and Woodland Drive was taken Oct. 1 after a storm. (Photo by Ann Sjoerdsma)
Twenty of the 23 Southern Shores homeowners who spoke at last night’s town hall on sidewalks strongly opposed constructing the 5-foot-wide concrete paths on the street segments proposed by a priority list prepared by the Town Council—most notably on Wax Myrtle Trail, Sea Oats Trail, Hillcrest Drive, and Hickory Trail.
(See The Beacon, 8/24/23, for the list.)
By our count, 13 of the 20 people who spoke in opposition to sidewalks live on those traffic cut-thru streets. (Full disclosure: We publicly opposed sidewalks on these streets, too.)
Of the three proponents, only Gray Berryman, a Realtor who lives on Skyline Road, adamantly supported sidewalks throughout town, saying he had never seen a sidewalk he didn’t like.
Proponent Macey Chovaz of Clam Shell Trail in Chicahauk advocated for sidewalks to protect her three children from traffic, and Shelly Black of Duck Road thanked the Town Council for building a sidewalk on the east side of her road in front of her house.
Town Manager Cliff Ogburn announced that bids for construction of this sidewalk, which will run from Triangle Park/Duck Road split to East Dogwood Trail, have just been received.
Ms. Black also asked the Town’s assistance in improving a shortcut she uses through Pompano Court to access Ocean Boulevard and the beach.
We know of no public property on Pompano Court, apart from the rights-of-way, nor can we identify any full-time resident-homeowners on Pompano Court, who might object to this shortcut, or on Duck Road in this vicinity, including Ms. Black.
When Steven Hachtman of Sea Oats Trail, who was the second public speaker, tied the perceived need for sidewalks to the cut-thru traffic and offered a solution to the traffic that involved sensor-operated gates to restrict access to Southern Shores, Mayor Elizabeth Morey intervened to direct the town hall discussion away from traffic.
“We’re here to talk about sidewalks, not traffic,” she said.
In introducing the town hall meeting, however, Mr. Ogburn cited “getting people out of the street” and out of danger from traffic as a primary objective in building sidewalks. He also mentioned improving access to the beach for tourists.
The estimated 60 people in the Pitts Center audience, exclusive of Town Council members and Town staff, applauded each speaker’s comments. One homeowner who received a loud and sustained round of applause was Ellen Barbaro of Hickory Trail who said, “I do not encourage sidewalks because they really interfere with my freedom.”
Damage to the natural environment and flooding that rainwater-impervious concrete creates were oft-cited reasons for not building sidewalks. The cost incurred in building and maintaining the sidewalks was also mentioned as a deterrent to their construction.
When one homeowner on Sea Oats Trail pressed the Mayor to explain the impetus for the Town Council’s preparation of a street priority list for sidewalks, she replied only that the Council had prepared the list at a retreat in March 2022, which was a few months after she assumed office. She never explained why.
We recall a former Town Councilman, Jim Conners, repeatedly trying to discuss at Council meetings the construction of a sidewalk system that would connect all of Southern Shores and being discouraged from doing so by former Mayor Tom Bennett, who anticipated opposition. Mayor Morey, Mayor Pro Tem Matt Neal, and Town Councilman Leo Holland all served two years with Mr. Conners and Mr. Bennett.
As we mentioned in earlier posts, we are unable at this time to report more fully on last night’s forum because of preexisting commitments. We will try to post a more in-depth report on the weekend. The Mayor said the Town Council will take up the topic at its Sept. 5 regular meeting, the agenda for which should be online tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s town hall/public forum about sidewalks, which begins at 5 p.m., is expected to last no more than an hour and a half, so the Town Council can hold a special meeting/closed session with the Town Attorney tomorrow at 6:30 p.m.
Both the town hall and the closed session will be held in the Pitts Center.
The Town gave first notice of the special meeting on its website last Friday.
For more information about the town hall/forum, see The Beacon, 8/24/23. This meeting and its agenda have been publicized extensively online by the Town, the SSCA, and resident homeowners, in addition to The Beacon.
The Town Council will hold a town hall/forum on Tuesday, Aug. 29, at 5 p.m., to hear from residents and property owners about their priorities regarding continued construction in town of sidewalks, also called multi-use “pathways.”
The discussion on sidewalks will be in the Pitts Center. (See The Beacon, 8/3/23, for first notice of the meeting.)
The Town is currently committed to installing a sidewalk along the east side of N.C. Hwy. 12/Duck Road from Triangle Park at the Duck Road split to East Dogwood Trail. Tuesday’s forum is being held to solicit public opinion about where the Town should construct future sidewalks after the Duck Road segment is finished and in what order of priority.
At its March 2022 retreat, the Council drafted the following priority list for future sidewalk segments:
1A: the Triangle Park-to-East Dogwood Trail walkway (in progress)
1B: N.C. 12/Duck Road from East Dogwood Trail to 13th Avenue (This would be new construction on the west side of the road, not repair and improvement of the east-side sidewalk, as some residents have requested. Mayor Pro Tem Matt Neal, who is running for re-election in November, indicated at the Town Council’s Aug. 1 meeting that he does not endorse this segment as a high priority because of the existence of the east-side sidewalk.)
2A: Hickory Trail from East Dogwood Trail to Hillcrest Drive
2B: Hickory Trail from Hillcrest Drive to N.C. 12/Duck Road
3: Hillcrest Drive from Hickory Trail to N.C. 12/Duck Road
4A: Sea Oats Trail from East Dogwood Trail to Hillcrest Drive
4B: Sea Oats Trail from Hillcrest Drive to N.C. 12/Duck Road
5: Wax Myrtle Trail from East Dogwood Trail to Hillcrest Drive
6: Chicahauk Trail from the cul de sac to Trinitie Trail
7: Skyline Road, its entire length from the cul de sac to N.C. 12/Ocean Boulevard
8A: Ocean Blvd. from Triangle Park at the Duck Road split to East Dogwood Trail
8B: Ocean Blvd. from East Dogwood Trail to Hickory Trail
The Town Council also indicated at its Aug. 1 meeting an interest in improving the pedestrian connections between Spindrift Trail in Chicahauk and Skyline Road and between North Dogwood Trail and Hillcrest Drive (i.e., the “fire road”).
At the same meeting, Council members said that they will not limit Tuesday’s discussion to a consideration of their priority list of street segments, expressing an interest in hearing residents’ and property owners’ opinions about sidewalks on other streets, as well as comments from people who are opposed to sidewalks.
Dare County Tourism Board grant monies are available for all sidewalk projects.
The redlined outline of Ginguite LLC’s property at 6195 N. Croatan Hwy. as it appears in the Dare County GIS.
Next Monday’s Planning Board meeting, during which the Board was expected to consider a SAGA investor group’s application for a Special Use Permit for the Town’s first-ever mixed-use development, has been canceled because not enough Board members can attend to constitute a quorum, according to a Town notice released today.
Ginguite LLC’s plans for a proposed development comprised of luxury condominiums, retail shops, and a restaurant, at 6195 N. Croatan Hwy. (U.S. 158) will be considered at the Planning Board’s Sept. 18 meeting, along with any other Aug. 21 agenda items, the Town release said.
In an Aug. 3 post, The Beacon expressed some surprise that this meeting, along with three other substantive meetings, had been scheduled in August, which is traditionally a vacation month for local Outer Bankers. The cancellation of the Planning Board meeting is proof of that.
Still on the Town’s calendar this month is a town hall on Tuesday, Aug. 29, at 5 p.m., in the Pitts Center, to give residents and property owners an opportunity to comment upon the desirability and location of continued construction in Southern Shores of “multi-use pathways.” (See The Beacon, 8/3/23.)
We will preview the sidewalk town hall/forum a few days before it is held. Until then, we will be on vacation, too.
Three people died in an early-morning house fire that destroyed an oceanfront cottage in Kill Devil Hills. The cause of the fire is under investigation. (Photo by Natalie Pugh)
Three people were killed and three others were injured in an early-morning fire at an oceanfront house in Kill Devil Hills that broke out about eight hours after fire destroyed a house in the Four Seasons development of Duck after an apparent lightning strike.
Fire crews were called to 1825 N. Virginia Dare Trail (the Beach Road) in Kill Devil Hills before 2:30 a.m., and arrived to discover a historic four-bedroom vacation home “engulfed in flames,” according to The Virginian-Pilot today.
The fire spread to a home next door, doing “minor damage,” but posing no harm to occupants, who safely relocated, Kari Pugh of The Pilot reported. A third cottage was also evacuated.
The house that was destroyed was built in 1948, according to county records.
Firefighters were called about 6:06 p.m. yesterday to a fire in the 100 block of Beachcomber Court in Duck’s Four Seasons. Both occupants of that house safely evacuated along with their two dogs, according to official reports.
The Town of Duck said in a news release that the fire “is believed to have originated from a direct lightning strike.”
The origin and cause of the fire in Kill Devil Hills are under investigation by town, county, and state officials.
The Beacon will not be following this story. We believe The Virginian-Pilot is providing the most thorough and up-to-date coverage.
A news conference was scheduled to be held at 10 a.m. today.
The Town Council proposes building sidewalks where the traffic is, especially along the summer weekend cut-thru route. (Photo taken during Memorial Day weekend this year.)
Mayor Elizabeth Morey will hold a Mayor’s Chat Wednesday, Aug. 9, in the Pitts Center—the first of four Town meetings worthy of your attention in August. Two others will involve Planning Board business, and the fourth will be what the Mayor promoted at the Town Council meeting two days ago as a “town hall” to enable residents and property owners to weigh in on future sidewalk construction.
The Mayor’s Chat next week will be her first chat since July 2022, when attendees primarily discussed cut-thru traffic. (See The Beacon’s report, 7/14/22.)
If the Mayor’s informal Q&A session lasts more than an hour, it will have to be continued in an upstairs room in the Pitts Center or in the parking lot because the Town Planning Board is scheduled to hold a special session on the same day and location at 5 p.m. to review the final draft of the updated CAMA Land Use Plan (LUP).
Mayor Morey protested at Tuesday’s Town Council meeting that the unusual heavy scheduling, which may prematurely terminate her chat, “was not my doing. That was staff’s.”
Having attended the July 17 Planning Board meeting, during which Planning Director/Deputy Town Manager Wes Haskett tried unsuccessfully to schedule a convenient time for the five Board members, representatives of LUP consultant Stewart Engineering, and himself to meet to discuss the final draft, however, we have to assume the Mayor had the more flexible schedule. (Just sayin’.)
The public is welcome to comment during the Planning Board’s session on the LUP final draft. If the Board recommends approval of the draft, it will be sent to the N.C. Division of Coastal Management (DCM) for its State-mandated review, a process that could take months to complete. The DCM serves as staff to the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission, which must certify the plan before it can take effect.
You may access the final draft at https://file.ac/zgMqa-4Mjt4/. The document is a 180-page PDF that takes a few minutes to download—at least, it did for us.
AUG. 21: The Planning Board is unusually busy during this traditional summer-vacation month. According to Mr. Haskett, the Board will take up at its Aug. 21 regular meeting the Special Use Permit (SUP) application submitted by Quible & Associates, a local engineering firm, on behalf of Ginguite LLC, the SAGA investor group that owns the land at 6195 N. Croatan Hwy. (U.S. 158), next to the Southern Shores Landing. The application includes plans for a future mixed-use development reportedly comprised of luxury condominiums and commercial buildings, including retail shops and a restaurant.
This will be the first time that the Planning Board has considered Ginguite LLC’s SUP publicly. The Beacon will cover the meeting, which will be held at 5 p.m. in the Pitts Center.
TOWN HALL ON SIDEWALKS
AUG. 29: At the Mayor’s suggestion, the Town Council will hold a town hall on Tuesday, Aug. 29, at 5 p.m., in the Pitts Center, to hear from residents and property owners about their priorities regarding continued construction in town of “multi-use pathways.”
Mr. Haskett asked the Town Council at Tuesday’s meeting to schedule time during its Sept. 5 meeting for public comments about priorities for future multi-use-path construction. He conveyed this request on behalf of Town Manager Cliff Ogburn, who was home recovering from surgery and could not attend the meeting, according to the Mayor.
During the Council’s discussion of the request, Ms. Morey suggested a longer town-hall-style meeting to hear from the public, and her four Council colleagues agreed.
The Town is currently committed to, and has financing for, installing a sidewalk along the east side of N.C. Hwy. 12/Duck Road from Triangle Park at the Duck Road split to East Dogwood Trail. The question the Town has for residents and property owners is where should it next install sidewalks? What should be the order of priority for future construction?
At its March 2022 retreat, the Council drafted the following priority list for future sidewalk segments:
1A: the Triangle Park-to-East Dogwood Trail walkway
1B: N.C. 12/Duck Road from East Dogwood Trail to 13th Avenue (This would be new construction on the west side of the road, not repair and improvement of the east-side sidewalk, as some residents have requested. Mayor Pro Tem Matt Neal indicated Tuesday that he does not endorse this segment as a high priority because of the existence of the east-side sidewalk.)
2A: Hickory Trail from East Dogwood Trail to Hillcrest Drive
2B: Hickory Trail from Hillcrest Drive to N.C. 12/Duck Road
3: Hillcrest Drive from Hickory Trail to N.C. 12/Duck Road
4A: Sea Oats Trail from East Dogwood Trail to Hillcrest Drive
4B: Sea Oats Trail from Hillcrest Drive to N.C. 12/Duck Road
5: Wax Myrtle Trail from East Dogwood Trail to Hillcrest Drive
6: Chicahauk Trail from the cul de sac to Trinitie Trail
7: Skyline Road, its entire length from the cul de sac to N.C. 12/Ocean Boulevard
8A: Ocean Blvd. from Triangle Park at the Duck Road split to East Dogwood Trail
8B: Ocean Blvd. from East Dogwood Trail to Hickory Trail
The Town Council also indicated an interest in improving the connections between Spindrift Trail and Skyline Road in Chicahauk and between North Dogwood Trail and Hillcrest Drive (i.e., the “fire road”).
Council members said they will not limit the town hall discussion just to a consideration of their list of street segments, expressing an interest in hearing residents’ and property owners’ opinions about sidewalks on other streets.
Dare County Tourism Board grant monies are available for sidewalk projects.
REVISED ORDINANCE ON BEACH DRIVING
In other action on Tuesday, the Town Council unanimously passed a revision of the current Town Code ban on beach driving to specify that operating “any vehicle of any type, excluding bicycles and e-bikes” is prohibited in the “ocean beach area” of Southern Shores—unless the operators are with Ocean Rescue, the police or fire departments, the U.S. Coast Guard, and other authorized entities, such as beach-nourishment contractors and sea turtle nest volunteers, or the operators are engaged in an “extreme emergency situation.”
The amendment (TCA 23-01) rewrites Town Code sec. 20-109, which prohibited “motor vehicles” from operating on the beach, and “aircraft” from landing or taking off on the beach, with the express exclusion of certain motor vehicles and aircraft, including those needed in an emergency.
The amendment retitles the ordinance from “Driving or landing aircraft on beaches” to “Driving on the beach” and, according to Mr. Haskett, “modernizes” it and “mirrors similar language” in other Dare County towns. The new ordinance defines “vehicles of any type” as “motor vehicles, pickup trucks, airplanes/helicopters, beach buggies, jeeps, motorcycles, any; one, two, three or four wheeled vehicles powered by any type of motor or physically propelled.” (We don’t know what that “any” means, either–perhaps a word was omitted?–and we’re not sure what physical propulsion is, but we’re don’t have a say. The Council approved the amendment as-is.)
The impetus for the revision arose during a staff presentation last year about the regulation of electric bicycles. The Council wanted to ensure that e-bikes, which might be considered motor vehicles, were expressly permitted on the beach.
TOWN COUNCIL ELECTION
As we previously reported, four candidates will be vying for three positions on the Town Council in the Nov. 7 election. They are incumbents Matt Neal and Mark Batenic and challengers Robert E. Neilson and Michael Guarracino. Incumbent Leo Holland is not running for re-election.
It is customary for political candidates not to start campaigning until September, although they are certainly not precluded from starting earlier. This tradition has developed because of State and Town regulations that restrict the placement of political signs in street and highway rights-of-way to the time period between the 30th day before the “one-stop” early voting period begins and the 10th day after the election.
Regulations also require candidates and/or their campaign teams to obtain the permission of the owner of the property that fronts on the right-of-way before erecting a sign there.
August is usually a vacation month for Outer Bankers, who are not keen on talking election politics quite yet. But, with a Mayor’s Chat, a new Land Use Plan, consideration of the Town’s first-ever mixed-use development, and a town hall about sidewalks, which not everyone likes, that may change this year.
Two more Southern Shores residents have filed notice of their candidacies for one of the three Town Council seats up for election Nov. 7, joining two incumbents who are running and thus guaranteeing a contested race.
Robert E. Neilson, of 114 S. Dogwood Trail, filed his application with the Dare County Board of Elections last Tuesday, and Michael Guarracino, of 118 Tall Pine Lane—which is at the corner of Tall Pine Lane and South Dogwood Trail—filed with the Board yesterday, according to online BOE records.
Each candidate had previously applied for appointment to the Town Council in January 2022 to complete Elizabeth Morey’s unexpired term on the Council after she was elected mayor.
Dr. Neilson had a career in “domestic and defense-oriented agencies that culminated in a Senior Executive Service position in the Dept. of the Army,” according to a Jan. 14, 2022 article by The Outer Banks Voice. Mr. Guarricino formerly served as Deputy Marshal of the United States Supreme Court, which has its own security police service, The Voice also reported.
(The Beacon will delve more into candidates’ backgrounds after campaigning starts.)
Dr. Neilson and Mr. Guarricino join incumbents Matt Neal, a local builder (Neal Contracting) who has served as mayor pro tem for the past two years, and Mark Batenic, a former CEO of IGA Inc. who received the January 2022 appointment, in vying for one of the three four-year terms on the Town Council that are up for election.
Thus far, incumbent Leo Holland has not indicated that he will seek re-election.
To run for town office in Dare County, a candidate must have lived in the municipality for at least 30 days, be registered to vote in that municipality, and be at least 21 years old by the date of the election.
For more information about running for the Southern Shores Town Council, please see: https://www.darenc.gov/departments/elections/candidates. The two-week candidate filing period ends at noon Friday. (See also The Beacon, 7/8/23.)
BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT DENIES VARIANCE FOR LARGE STORE SIGN
The Town Planning Board, sitting as the Town Board of Adjustment (BOA), denied yesterday a variance request by a sign company that would have enabled it to erect an exterior wall sign for discount retailer, Five Below, in the Southern Shores Marketplace, that would be considerably larger than the commercial sign size permitted by the Town Code.
Five Below plans to occupy the former store site of the Dollar Tree, between CVS Pharmacy and Food Lion.
The sign company, Cima Network Inc. of Chalfont, Pa., sought a variance that would have allowed it to erect a 156-square-foot sign to identify Five Below on its storefront—an increase of nearly 100 square feet over the maximum 58.2 square feet that the Town’s ordinance on sign size calculation would permit.
Pursuant to Town Code sec. 36-165(8) Table C, the maximum area of a wall sign for a store in a commercial group development, such as the Marketplace, is the equivalent of one square foot per linear foot of store frontage.
According to drawings submitted by Cima Network, whose representative Bill Lockett testified before the BOA in a hearing last night at the Pitts Center, the store frontage for the Five Below in the Marketplace is 58.2 feet, a length that limits the maximum wall-sign size to 58.2 square feet. The size of the store itself, he said, is 9650 square feet.
Mr. Lockett based his argument in favor of a larger sign on visibility from the highway and on safety, maintaining that people are more apt to avoid parking lot mishaps if they can see a store sign from farther away.
Describing Five Below as an “anchor tenant” of the Marketplace, he displayed for the BOA a proposed wall sign that identified the store name and had the tag line, “hot stuff. cool prices,” under it. (See example above.) Mr. Lockett said the tag line was added by the company during the Covid pandemic when prices on more items carried by the store exceeded $5.
Five Below, Inc. is a large U.S. chain of “specialty discount stores that sells products that are less than $5, plus a small assortment of products from $6 to $25,” according to Wikipedia. (See The Beacon, 6/21/23, for more background on the retailer.)
In ruling upon a variance request, the Board of Adjustment, which is a quasi-judicial body that functions much like a court does, must decide if an “unnecessary hardship” would result to an applicant from strictly applying a Town zoning ordinance to its situation.
Because strict application of Town Code sec. 36-165(8) Table C, would still allow Cima Network to erect a 58.2-square-foot wall sign on the Five Below storefront, the five-member Board had no trouble deciding that no unnecessary hardship would occur.
Representing the Town of Southern Shores, Deputy Town Manager/Planning Director Wes Haskett testified that the one-square-foot-per-linear-foot-of-store-frontage requirement has been in effect since 2001 and that other businesses currently in the Marketplace have wall signs that are less than 58.2 square feet. He also testified that the new Marshalls and Rack Room Shoes wall signs are in compliance with the Town Code.
The Board of Adjustment—Chairperson Andy Ward, Vice-Chair Tony DiBernardo, and members Ed Lawler, Jan Collins, and Robert McClendon—voted unanimously to deny the variance.
In analyzing the Town Code standards for the grant of a variance (Code sec. 36-367(a)(1)-(4)), which generally involve the nature of any hardship that may exist, each BOA member expressed an interest in preserving the “aesthetics” of the Marketplace.
Cima has the right to appeal the BOA’s decision to the Superior Court of Dare County.
UPCOMING: Mr. Haskett announced that the Planning Board will take up the site plan submitted by the SAGA investor group, Ginguite LLC, for its mixed-use development at 6195 N. Croatan Hwy., next to the Southern Shores Landing; the new zoning text amendment on lot width; or both items, at its next regular meeting, Aug. 21. Chairperson Ward said that if the site plan is ready to be discussed, he would prefer to have it be the sole item on the Board’s agenda.
The Planning Board also will be meeting soon to critique with consultant Stewart the final draft it prepared of the new Land Use Plan, which will be posted on the Town website. The Board did not settle yesterday upon a date and time for this meeting.
Current Town Council members Matt Neal and Mark Batenic, whose terms expire in December, filed their notices of candidacy yesterday, the first day of the Dare County municipal elections’ two-week candidate filing period. Election Day is Nov. 7.
Southern Shores voters will be electing three people to serve new four-year terms on the Town Council. Besides the seats held by Mr. Batenic and Mr. Neal, who also serves as mayor pro tem, the seat currently held by Councilman Leo Holland will be turning over.
Mr. Neal won his term on the Town Council in the contested 2019 municipal election. Mr. Holland was elected at the same time.
The Town Council appointed Mr. Batenic in January 2022 to serve out the two years remaining on Elizabeth Morey’s Town Council term, after she was elected mayor in November 2021. (Hence, the parentheses in our headline: Only Mr. Neal is seeking re-election.)
To run for town office, a candidate must have lived in the municipality for at least 30 days, be registered to vote in that municipality, and be at least 21 years old by the date of the election.
We hope that Southern Shores voters will have multiple candidates from whom to choose, and that the election results in a diversity of opinion on the Town Council that we have not had in the past two years.
The Town Council will meet Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in the Pitts Center for what appears from the agenda to be a short business session. You may access the agenda and the meeting packet here:
The cut-thru traffic last weekend was heavy, and the traffic already today seems to be just as oppressive, but there is no indication from the Council’s meeting agenda that it will revisit the problem.
Please feel free to comment here on the traffic, if you’d like.
And as a final note: You may have noticed that speed bumps, not humps, have been installed in front of the Food Lion at the Southern Shores Marketplace. Bumps are designed to slow traffic down to 5 mph or less—which should be the speed in a parking lot—and, as we noted on 6/29/23, are not appropriate for residential streets.
A speed hump on a residential street. (Photo courtesy of the FHWA.)
(As promised on 6/21/23.)
Police Chief David Kole admitted at the beginning of his talk on speed bumps/humps at the Town Council’s June 20 morning workshop meeting that he is “not a big fan” of such traffic-calming devices, and he expected to face an “uphill battle” in his research about their use on residential streets in Southern Shores. To his surprise, however, he discovered that “the majority of the data that I found discourages speed bumps.”
It was at this point, about 20 seconds into the Chief’s talk, that we believe he went wrong, and not just because he admitted to a bias that should have disqualified him from doing the Google research on bumps and humps that he did.
No, he went wrong because he focused on speed bumps, not humps, and he obscured the significant differences between the two throughout his talk. We now know this because we’ve done our Google research.
If the Town Council, which took no action last week, truly wants to respond to residents’ concerns about speeding—concerns that prompted the Chief’s “research”—it needs to focus on the use of speed humps on certain blocks of certain streets and talk to a traffic engineering expert like the one it previously hired to study the town’s traffic. Speed bumps are not appropriate.
To her credit, Mayor Elizabeth Morey consistently referred during the Council’s half-hour discussion with the Chief to speed humps as the option to consider in Southern Shores, but she was alone in doing so, and she didn’t correct her colleagues, who expressly rejected bumps! Going just by what Chief Kole told them, the other Council members could not know the difference.
Present for the meeting were Councilwoman Paula Sherlock and Councilmen Leo Holland and Mark Batenic, none of whom lives on a street in the soundside woods or dunes on which residents regularly see speeding vehicles throughout the week/year, as well as on cut-thru summer weekends, which was the Council’s focus.
Mayor Pro Tem Matt Neal, who did not attend, lives at the uncongested southern end of a cut-thru street and has attested publicly many times to the speeding he has witnessed. His participation was greatly missed.
BUMPS VS. HUMPS; ABRUPT VS. GRADUAL . . . IT’S IN THE DESIGN
We begin our critique of Chief Kole’s presentation by quoting from an e-primer lesson plan on traffic calming offered by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s Federal Highway Admin. (FHWA), about “bumps, humps, and other raised pavement areas.” According to the FHWA, which was one of Chief Kole’s primary sources:
“Although people often gripe about the inconvenience of having to slow down for these devices, they don’t have much choice [when they are present]. Their effectiveness at slowing traffic cannot be disputed. They are sometimes referred to as Silent Policemen.”
The FHWA says that bumps are raised areas “extending transversely across the travel way, generally with a height of three to six inches and a length of one to three feet.”
In contrast, humps “normally have a minimum height of three to four inches and a travel length of approximately 12 feet, although these dimensions may vary.”
Transversely means the bumps and humps extend from one side to the other side of a roadway. Length refers to the width of the bump or hump that a vehicle drives over.
Elsewhere online, we found the FHWA describing speed bumps as more “aggressive” and “abrupt” than speed humps and “generally located in private driveways or parking lots,” not on residential streets.
Speed humps, it notes, are “more gradual, larger in profile [i.e., width], and lower” than speed bumps and typically found on “low-speed roadways,” such as “residential or local streets.”
According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), humps typically reduce speeds to 15 to 20 mph. Speed bumps, it says, generally result in vehicles slowing to 5 mph or less at each bump.
Although Chief Kole acknowledged that humps are a “popular traffic-calming technique,” he only differentiated between humps and bumps by the “raised reflective bar that’s put across the street.” That doesn’t begin to probe how these devices are designed and used, the pros and cons that each presents, and how and whether the preferred hump could be appropriately authorized and installed on speed-happy blocks of Sea Oats Trail, Wax Myrtle Trail, East Dogwood Trail, South Dogwood Trail, Hickory Trail, or another residential road.
The Chief said that these devices must be placed at one-mile intervals in order to be effective. According to the FHWA, the recommended spacing for bumps is 300 to 500 feet; for humps, it’s 300 to 600 feet.
Besides defining the two devices, the FHWA also provides design considerations for each, instructing, for example, that bumps are not conducive to bicycle travel and should be used only in apartment complexes, parking lots, and on private streets and driveways. As for humps, they should be visible at night, adequately marked and alerted with signage for drivers, and not located near driveways—just for starters. A traffic engineer can design and place a speed hump to minimize noise to neighbors.
Many of the “cons” that Chief Kole cited generally to discourage the use of bumps or humps on Southern Shores streets simply don’t hold up to scrutiny when design is considered.
For example, he said that all such raised bars can result in injuries to motorcyclists and bicyclists, and cause damage to vehicles, ruining brakes, shock absorbers, and suspension. This might be true if a cyclist or driver were to speed excessively over an abrupt bump, but the gradual slope of a hump protects against such damage.
According to the NACTO, “Speed humps have evolved from extensive research and testing and have been designed to achieve a specific result on vehicle operations without imposing unreasonable or unacceptable safety risks.” Bumps, however, have been installed “without the benefit of proper engineering study regarding their design and placement,” it says.
Chief Kole also said humps and bumps slow the response time of emergency vehicles, such as fire trucks and ambulances. He cited a study out of Miami (of all places!) that suggested they (again, lumped together, not differentiated) slow such vehicles by 10 seconds.
We have seen three to five seconds cited in NHWA articles as the decline in emergency-vehicle response time in urban settings and think a traffic engineer would be better able to evaluate how the placement of a hump or two on little Wax Myrtle Trail, for example, would affect this time.
Obviously, as the NACTO points out, speed humps should not be used on primary emergency vehicle routes. It is also obvious in Southern Shores that response time varies considerably depending on whether the emergency occurs on a summer weekend or another time of the year.
At a Town Council morning workshop last June, Chief Kole disputed residents’ contentions about speeding on South Dogwood Trail, using language and data similar to what he used last week. (See The Beacon, 6/23/22.)
It is unfortunate that, just like a year ago, the information that the Chief displayed on overhead projection at the June 20 meeting could not be viewed on You Tube because there was no videographer present to zoom in on them. The camera remained stationary throughout the meeting. We live-streamed the meeting; we did not attend it.
We would like to see a written report from the Chief, with citations, posted on the Town website.
PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION OF SPEED IS FLAWED
Putting aside the bump-hump bungle, we turn to what Chief Kole said after he presented his biased research on traffic-calming devices. In short, he said he doesn’t believe speeding is occurring to the extent that residents claim it is. He essentially insulted his public.
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you that cars don’t speed, but . . . they don’t speed like people think they do,” the town’s top law enforcement officer told the Town Council. “The same people who are complaining about the speeds are the same ones who will call the next week and go, ‘What are you going to do? I can’t even get out of my driveway. The cars are bumper-to-bumper.’
“Well, they’re either bumper-to-bumper, or they’re speeding. They can’t be both.”
The Chief said this same thing a year ago, and we wrote then: “We see no inconsistencies in these reports. Clearly, motorists can’t speed when the traffic is at a standstill, but they can, and they do, when the traffic opens up during non-peak hours on the weekends.”
We daresay there’s not a resident on the summer cut-thru route who hasn’t witnessed both speeding and bumper-to-bumper traffic on the same day. Mayor Morey surely knows this. She’s been door-to-door campaigning for two elections and has heard these complaints, just like we have. It happens. Speeding on Southern Shores residential roads is rampant, and it doesn’t matter whether locals or vacationers are doing it.
For the Chief to say, again last week, that “a lot of people’s perception of speed is a lot different than reality” is offensive. Motorists may not be traveling at 50 mph on Wax Myrtle Trail, as the Chief claims a “few squeaky wheels” who contact the police department seem to think, but they are speeding at 35 or 40 mph. It doesn’t take radar to figure that out.
When asked by Mayor Morey what the Chief would recommend, in lieu of speed humps, to curb speeding on Sea Oats Trail or Wax Myrtle Trail on what she called summer “change-out days,” the Chief responded by criticizing pedestrians and bicyclists on the road.
PEOPLE SHOULD GET OFF THE ROAD
“A lot of people don’t even know what side of the road to walk on any more . . .,” he replied, “let alone the bikes, [which don’t observe the rules of the road].”
His suggestion, he continued, was “On a Saturday or Sunday changeover, don’t be riding your bike in the road and be walking with your kids in the road on a Friday or Saturday in the summer.
“In North Carolina, the pedestrian is supposed to, when able,” he continued, “to yield the right of way to the oncoming vehicle, but when we can’t even get people to walk on the right side of the road, they don’t even know the vehicle is coming until it’s too late.”
The Chief is referring to N.C. General Statutes section 20-174, which applies to pedestrians crossing roadways at places other than crosswalks (they must yield to all traffic in the road) and to pedestrians walking on roadways where sidewalks are or are not provided.
He has referred to this right-of-way issue before. We now detail it.
Where sidewalks are provided, it is unlawful in North Carolina for pedestrians to “walk along and upon an adjacent roadway.” They must use the sidewalk. However, where sidewalks are not provided, any pedestrian “walking along and upon a highway shall, when practicable, walk only on the extreme left of the roadway or its shoulder facing traffic which may approach from the opposite direction. Such pedestrian shall yield the right-of-way to approaching traffic.” (NCGS 20-174(d))
“Practicable” is one of those legal words that is subject to differing interpretations, depending on who is spinning the facts.
Notwithstanding this provision, the statute also states that “every driver shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian upon any roadway, and shall give warning by sounding the horn when necessary, and shall exercise proper precaution upon observing any child or any confused or incapacitated person upon a roadway.” (NCGS 20-174(d))
It’s not open season on pedestrians, regardless of whether they walk with or against the traffic.
“I think,” the Chief continued, “a lot of the frustration is not necessarily the speeding. They [i.e., residents] use that because that’s the ‘I got your attention’ word, but I think the biggest complaint is the volume of traffic and I get it. It’s a lot, but I also knew that when I moved to the beach 15 or 16 years ago . . . [This is the ‘What did you expect?’ rationale for police inaction.]
“I would just recommend that if they’re going to walk in the road, they need to yield the right-of-way to the vehicles, and I wouldn’t be out riding my bike” on the road.
‘THERE’S NOT A SPEEDING PROBLEM’
The Mayor tried again to get Chief Kole to address slowing vehicles down, asking “What’s our next best choice” to speed humps?
At last, the Chief mentioned “enforcement,” but quickly observed that “we don’t have enough manpower.”
It is unclear how many officers the Town has available because the Chief, when asked later about the strength of his force, only replied “We’re still down three.” The Mayor and Town Council may know what that “down three” number is, but the public doesn’t. He also mentioned a fourth position that will be vacant another two months because of an employee’s maternity leave.
But even if he had the resources, the Chief wouldn’t need to use them because, he maintained, “The data I have shows there’s not a speeding problem. I’m sorry.”
What data, you ask?
Chief Kole cited “average speed” data “starting Memorial Day weekend,” which, as you may recall, was very congested on the cut-thru route. We don’t believe the data to which he referred last week included subsequent weekends in June, but they may have. He was unclear about that.
In any case, the Chief’s average speeds were: 21 mph, on Hillcrest Drive; 12 mph, on Sea Oats Trail; and 19 mph, in the 200 block of Wax Myrtle Trail. He said that 85 percent of the motorists on Hillcrest Drive during the time frame he was using averaged a speed of 25 mph. On Sea Oats, the 85th percentile was 18 mph, and on Wax Myrtle, it was 25 mph.
We don’t believe average speeds tell the tale: There is no way to know with an average whether a northbound motorist travels on Wax Myrtle or Sea Oats at between 35 mph to 50 mph at noon on a Saturday and a late-arriving motorist travels the same roadway, now congested, at just 5 or 10 mph at 4 p.m. We also would like to know how these averages are computed.
Even the Chief admitted: “I’m not saying that cars aren’t speeding, but I can tell you that the majority of the vehicles aren’t speeding.”
We don’t believe any “squeaky wheel” suggested that the majority of motorists who travel the cut-thru route are speeding. We also don’t believe the speeding problem is just on weekends.
Councilman Holland, who did not attend the June 2022 workshop meeting, asked the Chief to post his average-speed data on the Town website. We haven’t seen anything yet. But it doesn’t matter if all he has to offer are data from one day, or one weekend, out of one year.
USE A LITTLE COMMON SENSE: CHA-CHING!
Having dismissed the speeding issue, the Chief concluded by admonishing residents to “know the rules of the road, walk on the correct side,” and “just use a little common sense.”
He played a variation of the blame-the-victim game, we think.
Councilwoman Sherlock quite reasonably asked the Chief about the use of speed cameras instead of speed bumps or humps. His reply: “Cha-ching!”
Cha-ching! That’s all he had on the subject, except the observation that some states have banned such cameras.
According to our research, North Carolina is not one of them.
How much exactly, Chief Kole, is cha-ching? A dollar figure would be helpful. Certainly, a camera would be simpler to install than a hump.
The cost of speed cameras, and the revenue they might bring in, would be interesting data points to research. Maybe the Town Manager can look into it.
A Five Below store may occupy the space in the Southern Shores Marketplace vacated by the Dollar Tree, Planning Director/Deputy Town Manager Wes Haskett revealed at Monday’s Planning Board meeting when he announced that the potential new business is seeking a variance from the Town’s sign requirements.
Five Below, Inc. is a large U.S. chain of “specialty discount stores that sells products that are less than $5, plus a small assortment of products from $6 to $25,” according to Wikipedia.
Founded in Philadelphia, Five Below sells a wide variety of merchandise—from room décor to toys and games to tech and beauty products to clothes, shoes, and fashion accessories, arts and crafts supplies, and more—that “is aimed at tweens and teens,” according to Wikipedia. (See also www.fivebelow.com.)
As of May 23, 2023, there were 1,385 Five Below stores in the United States, across 44 states, with the most being located in Texas (141) and Florida (138), according to ScrapeHero, a web data provider. The states without stores are Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, according to ScrapeHero.
Mr. Haskett said the Town Planning Board will be considering Five Below’s sign variance application, submitted by a sign company, at its July 17 meeting, which will held at 5 p.m. in the Pitts Center.
The Board also may have before it the special-use permit application submitted by the SAGA investor group, Ginguite LLC, on June 6 for its proposed mixed-use development of retail, office, and restaurant space and 36 luxury condominiums at 6195 N. Croatan Hwy. (U.S. 158), next to the Southern Shores Landing; a new zoning text amendment on the calculation of lot width (presumably, ZTA 23-05); and a proposed ordinance relinquishing Southern Shores’ extraterritorial jurisdiction over the commercial district of Martin’s Point.
Mr. Haskett said the Board will be taking up “the variance, for sure, the others, possibly.”
TOWN COUNCIL WORKSHOP
The good news from the Town Council’s morning workshop meeting yesterday is that the Council unanimously approved renewing Town Manager Cliff Ogburn’s employment contract for another three years.
The bad news is that Police Chief David Kole’s excessively negative report on the use of speed bumps/humps and his disparagement of residents’ ability to accurately assess speeds of vehicles on their streets again torpedoed any effort by the Town Council to address residents’ legitimate concerns about speeding that those of us who live near the affected streets know is prevalent.
We say again torpedoed because Chief Kole disputed claims by homeowners on South Dogwood Trail about speeding on that road in a June 21, 2022 Town Council workshop, using some of the same language he used yesterday. (See The Beacon, 6/23/22.)
Homeowners’ “perception of speed is different from reality,” the Chief said yesterday, once again relying on meaningless “average speed” statistics on implicated roads to conclude that “The data I have shows [sic] there’s not a speeding issue. I’m sorry.”
Chief Kole told the Town Council at the outset of his presentation that he was “not a big fan” of speed bumps and humps, and he proved that well-known fact yesterday.
As we stated earlier, he was a poor choice for a research assignment on the use of speed bumps/humps in Southern Shores. (The minimal use of such calming devices, not every half-mile on Wax Myrtle Trail or Sea Oats Trail.) A neutral person whose department is not responsible for enforcing speed limits in town should have handled it.
The Town Council tabled any further discussion on speed bumps. We will write more about the Chief’s report and the Town Council’s response when we can bring ourselves to listen to the videotape again. The Chief’s report begins at the 44th minute of the You Tube meeting video. Check it out.
The Southern Shores Beacon 