Sixty-six applicants, from 19 states, have applied for the position of Southern Shores town manager, search consultant Ellis Hankins told The Beacon today.

“We are very pleased with the quality of the candidate field,” Mr. Hankins said in an email. “The Town Council has a good number of very well-qualified candidates to consider at their meeting on April 20.”

Earlier today The Beacon reported that the Town Council has scheduled a closed session at 1 p.m. Monday in the Pitts Center to discuss “the on-going town manager selection process.”

The notice of the meeting posted on the Town website says no more than that, and, as The Beacon observed, the Town Council has given no updates about the search, which was officially launched on Feb. 20 when the first job advertisements were placed.

Planning Director Wes Haskett, who formerly served as deputy town manager, has been serving as an interim manager since Sept. 1, the date of former Town Manager Peter Rascoe’s official retirement. Mr. Haskett became acting town manager in mid-August when Mr. Rascoe left on two weeks’ leave.

By a vote of 3-2, the former Town Council refused to take any action to move the job search forward after Mr. Rascoe’s July resignation notice by identifying and hiring a qualified search firm. The majority deferred to the soon-to-be newly constituted Town Council that would take office in early December.

The Town contracted with Mr. Hankins, who is senior vice president of The Mercer Group in Raleigh, in February.

According to Mr. Hankins, “The search process is still on schedule, despite the recent challenges.”

The original search timeline called for the Town Council to meet in closed session in mid-April to consider candidates recommended by Mr. Hankins and to select five to seven semifinalists from among them to interview.

The Town Council voted to postpone this closed session to accommodate a family vacation Councilman Matt Neal had planned to take. It now will be held on April 20.

The Beacon does not understand why the Town could not have informed the public of the specific reason for Monday’s closed session, as well as give an idea as to how successful the search has been. With the current COVID-19 crisis, it is reasonable to wonder if the job search has been delayed.

Too often notices of Town meetings are insufficient in detail. Case in point: The agenda for next week’s budget workshop lists a number of topics for discussion, without giving any indication as to the Council’s intentions. Other towns are far more forthcoming.

According to Mr. Hankins, “The Council will discuss [on Monday] whether to proceed soon with remote initial interviews with selected semifinalists by electronic means, or postpone the interviews in hopes of being able to talk with candidates face to face. In any event, the Council can invite one or two finalists for face to face interviews later, if conditions allow.”

The Beacon appreciates the update.

THE WASHINGTON POST TAKES UP NON-RESIDENT PROPERTY OWNERS’ PLIGHT

Dare County’s March 19 order barring non-resident property owners from entry is questioned in an article in today’s The Washington Post about border checkpoints established by states and counties nationwide during the COVID-19 crisis.

See https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/covid-19-checkpoints-targeting-out-of-state-residents-draw-complaints-and-legal-scrutiny/2020/04/14/3fc0ed42-774e-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html

The article by Luz Lazo and Katherine Shaver mentions the lawsuit filed last week against Dare County by six non-resident property owners and quotes the plaintiffs’ attorney, Chuck Kitchen, as saying, “Just because you have a state of emergency does not mean that the government can suspend all your constitutional rights.”

Dare County Manager/Attorney Bobby Outten defends the entry restriction, purportedly saying: “We certainly want to keep the virus from spreading, but as important, if we do get it, we want to be sure we can take care of whoever gets sick. . . . We can’t do that with hundreds of thousands of people here.”

According to Mr. Outten, in The Post’s account, the “barrier islands” share 15 ambulances, and the Outer Banks Hospital does not have an intensive care unit.

On the matter of constitutional rights, the journalists write:

“Legal experts say state governments and police have broad power in a public health emergency, including the authority to order a quarantine. But some say some checkpoints appear to violate constitutional protections of free travel.

“Meryl Chertoff, an attorney and law professor leading the Georgetown Project on State and Local Government Policy and Law, said the Constitution prohibits state from discriminating against residents of another unless there is no less restrictive means to accomplish a legitimate goal. [This is the standard that The Beacon has cited.]

“‘The problem here is that you don’t know who is infected,’ Chertoff said. ‘If we get to the point where there’s rapid testing, then they could set up road blocks and run a spot test and turn around people who are sick. But in the absence of that, these roadblocks are way overbroad and are interfering with the right to travel.”

The Post did not quote a legal expert with a differing opinion, and certainly they exist. This is not a slam-dunk legal decision.

The article further quotes Boris Lushniak, dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Health in College Park, as saying: “If states with police checkpoints think they’re going to stop the disease, that’s not going to work. . . . But what may work is if I get pulled over . . .  someone tells me what the rules are” to self-quarantine. And he does.

But following up with someone who has agreed to self-quarantine, ret. USPHS Rear Admiral Lushniak says, is “a waste of time.”

Admiral Lushniak served as acting U.S. Surgeon General for 17 months during President Obama’s second term. A medical school graduate whose biography does not include medical practice, he also has worked at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration.

Instead of staffing labor-intensive checkpoints, police should focus on patrolling communities to prevent people from congregating and to urge them to stay home, according to Scott Burris, an attorney and director of the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University’s school of law.

“We’re all exposed now—that’s how we have to think about it,” Professor Burris says. “There’s no geography to this now. It’s a national problem.

The Post reporters claim in their article that “deputies” in the Outer Banks “have ticketed four people who tried to get around the checkpoints and turned around about three dozen who tried to cross the Currituck Sound by boat. Officers also found one nonresident who tried to sneak in on a tow truck and another hidden in the trunk of a car.”

Without citing sources for these claims, The Post is passing along the same anecdotal evidence that stay-at-home locals have heard. The Beacon expected more.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/14/20

The Nags Head Board of Commissioners is expected to consider at its meeting tomorrow morning a draft contract with a Virginia recycling company with whom the Town of Southern Shores also could partner.

The Nags Head Board will meet at 9 a.m. by electronic means. The public may “attend” the meeting by registering for a webinar or viewing it by live stream on the town website. (See links below.)

The discussion among the commissioners about whether or not to do business with Recycling & Disposal Solutions (“RSD”), which operates a materials recovery facility (“MRF”) in Portsmouth, should be a preview for the Southern Shores Town Council.

The Nags Head Board will have before it a draft of RSD’s 32-page “single-stream recyclables processing agreement,” which the Town Council will likely scrutinize at a future meeting.

Interim Town Manager Wes Haskett told The Beacon by email today that he will “provide Council with an update on the RDS proposal” at its April 21 budget workshop when he presents proposed expenses for fiscal year 2020-21. But RSD’s draft agreement is not listed as an agenda item for the Town Council.

In an April 6 email, the N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality’s (“N.C. DEQ”) solid waste division informed the counties and towns that use the Powells Point-based Bay Disposal & Recycling to haul recyclables about the availability of RSD’s MRF. Mr. Haskett informed the Town Council at its April 7 meeting about this option.

Since last December, Bay Disposal has been hauling Southern Shores’ curbside recyclables to an incinerator operated by a waste-to-energy facility in Portsmouth, not to a recycling center. Such disposal does not conform with N.C. law. In the interim, N.C. DEQ has been looking for a long-term legal solution for Outer Banks recyclables.

RDS proposes to contract with municipalities separately from Bay Disposal, which, heretofore, has subsumed a recycling facility’s per-tonnage processing costs in the fees it charges.

Mr. Haskett told The Beacon that he has not yet received a price quote from Joshua Smaltz, Outer Banks Site Manager for Bay Disposal, for its services, in the event that the Town contracts with RDS. He reported the same a week ago.

“If I have received a quote from Josh Smaltz with Bay Disposal for their services to collect and transport our recyclables to the RDS facility prior to the [April 21] meeting,” Mr. Haskett emailed today, “Council could direct Town Staff to include that cost in addition to the cost for processing at the RDS facility in the proposed [FY 2020-21] budget.”

The Beacon believes Southern Shores should capitalize immediately on the opportunity presented by RDS.

THE DRAFT CONTRACT NAGS HEAD WILL CONSIDER 

The RDS contract Nags Head will consider tomorrow covers a five-year term. RDS proposes to accept at its MRF all single-stream, co-mingled “recoverable materials,” which the agreement defines as materials that can be processed and used again.

Those materials that are considered recoverable are listed in an appended table that the parties may modify later, depending on prevailing recycling market conditions.

These materials are categorized by the following commodities: fiber, glass, plastics, metals, and clean separate cardboard, which is cardboard that has less than 2 percent contamination.

Another attached table lists RDS’s processing fees and rebates, according to whether the single-stream recyclables include glass or not. (See pp. 30-31 for the tables. The link to the contract is published below.)

The monthly processing fee fluctuates according to what is known as the Average Commodity Revenue Price Index (“ACR Price Index”). The highest processing fee/rebate listed in RDS’s table is $94/ton for a single stream with glass, and $74/ton for a single stream with no glass.

Inasmuch as glass can be recycled for free in Dare County’s fabulous glass crusher at its recycling facility in Manteo, there is incentive for towns to arrange glass-free processing.

(See The Beacon’s 3/12/20 post about the glass crusher, the only county-owned crusher in the State of North Carolina.)

The Beacon will not pore over RDS’s proposed contract terms—that is what town managers and town attorneys do—but we will note that RDS is responsible for promptly containing all “unacceptable material” that it receives and notifying the town of the problem, so that it can correct the problem before receiving any “chargebacks.”

RDS states in its draft contract that it seeks to achieve “as high a level of recovery” of recoverable material “as is possible,” using the machinery it has to sort the recyclables; and, if a town chooses not to handle unacceptable material itself, RDS will remove, transport, and dispose of it, and bill back any fees to the town. (Some of this contract language could be made more clear.)

The contract also specifies that if RDS should open a MRF in North Carolina that is closer to the Outer Banks than its Portsmouth MRF is, the town agrees to have its recyclables delivered to this facility instead. The N.C. DEQ had hoped that RDS would open a facility in Elizabeth City.

For links to all of the above, see:

Draft contract with RDS: http://www.nagsheadnc.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/2250?fileID=3859

Nags Head Board of Commissioners’ agenda: http://www.nagsheadnc.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_04152020-258

Letter from the N.C. DEQ re RDS’s facility in Portsmouth: http://www.nagsheadnc.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/2250?fileID=3852

Registration for the webinar of the commissioners’ meeting: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YjqmiLnuR-CUDH5LI0svCg

UPCOMING SOUTHERN SHORES TOWN COUNCIL MEETINGS

The Southern Shores Town Council will hold its first, and quite possibly, its only budget workshop at 9 a.m. April 21 by Zoom videoconferencing. You may access the agenda here:

https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/wp-content/uploads/minutes-agendas-newsletters/Agendas_2020-04-21.pdf

Mr. Haskett advised The Beacon by email today that “Unless Council directs Town Staff otherwise, this will be the only work session between the April 21st meeting and the May 5th meeting at which time I will present a balanced budget.”

The Beacon will write more about this workshop after the meeting packet is posted on the Town website.

The Town Council has scheduled a closed session next Monday, 1 p.m., at the Pitts Center, to discuss the on-going town manager selection process.

See https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/wp-content/uploads/minutes-agendas-newsletters/Agendas_2020-04-20.pdf

The Beacon believes that the Town Council should already have given an update about the town manager search on the Town website or at its April 7 meeting, at the latest.

A majority of the Town Council has said publicly that the selection of the new town manager is the most “critical” issue facing the town, but not a word has been spoken or written officially about the search in almost two months.

Under the original timeline, the Town Council would soon be considering recommended candidates and selecting five to seven people to interview.

TODAY’S DARE COUNTY BULLETIN

Today’s Dare County Emergency Management bulletin reports no change in the number of positive COVID-19 cases.

Of the five people associated with Peak Resources who tested positive after a resident there died, two have been asymptomatically cleared and the other three remain asymptomatic, according to the bulletin.

Peak is now checking the temperatures of all staff members upon their arrival to work and before starting their shifts, and doing twice-a-day temperature checks of all residents, Bulletin No. 41 states.

See Bulletin No. 41 at https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6131/1483

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/14/20

 

The attorney who sued last week in federal court on behalf of six non-resident Dare County property owners who have been prohibited from entering the county since March 19 expects to file a motion for preliminary injunction this week.

Attorney S.C. (Chuck) Kitchen of Kitchen & Turrentine, PLLC in Raleigh told The Beacon this afternoon that he plans to file a motion for what is known as a “PI” this week and that it will be up to the judge to set a hearing date. He would not speculate on when the hearing might be scheduled.

Mr. Kitchen filed the nonresidents’ complaint in Bailey et al v. County of Dare, N.C., in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina on April 7.

The complaint alleges that Dare County’s March 19 decision to bar entry by non-resident property owners during the COVID-19 emergency violates the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights as guaranteed by the Privileges and Immunities Clause in Art. IV, sec. 2, clause 1, of the U.S. Constitution.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Louise W. Flanagan, Mr. Kitchen said. Judge Flanagan, 57, was appointed to the federal bench in 2003 by President George W. Bush. She is located in New Bern.

Mr. Kitchen said he has not been contacted by a representative of Dare County since he filed the lawsuit last Tuesday.

Dare County will have an opportunity to respond to the PI motion and its accompanying brief before a hearing on the merits.

A preliminary injunction is not a temporary restraining order (TRO), which a court may issue on an expedited basis—and even “ex parte,” meaning one-sided, without hearing from the defendant—in order to prevent immediate irreparable harm from occurring to the moving party before a decision on the case merits is made.

In elaborating upon the constitutional rights violated, the complaint cites the plaintiffs’ right “to travel, to engage in a common calling or occupation, and to obtain medical treatment.” The “common calling” alleged in the complaint is that of renting property.

Plaintiffs John P. Bailey, a resident of South Carolina; E. Thompson Brown, a Virginia resident; and Todd A. and Babette S. Edgar, a married couple from Maryland, will be “unable to prepare their [rental] properties for the spring and summer rental season if they are unable to enter Dare County,” according to the complaint.

The Edgars own an oceanfront home in Southern Shores, as well as two rental homes in Duck.

Plaintiffs Paul and Sheryl Michael of Virginia allegedly use their Dare County property as a second home. Mr. Brown also has a property that he uses as a second home.

You may access the complaint in Bailey v. County of Dare here: file:///C:/Users/Annsj/Pictures/BaileyvDare.pdf.

The plaintiffs seek relief in the form of a declaratory judgment from the court stating that Dare County’s entry prohibition is unconstitutional as applied to them and preliminary and permanent injunctions against Dare County that would prevent it from enforcing the prohibition. They also seek nominal damages and attorneys’ fees.

Another claim raised by the complaint challenges the means and authority by which Dare County enacted the entry restriction. The plaintiffs claim that N.C. law requires the county to adopt an ordinance before it can impose prohibitions and restrictions in an emergency.

According to the American Bar Assn., the test applied by a court in evaluating a motion for a preliminary injunction is generally four-factored: “1) that he or she is likely to succeed on the merits of his claims; 2) that he or she is likely to suffer irreparable harm without preliminary relief; 3) the balance of equities between the parties support an injunction; and 4) the injunction is in the public interest.” (“Irreparable harm” is a big hurdle.)

See ABA: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/woman-advocate/practice/2018/preliminary-injuction-relief/

During the COVID-19 emergency, individual judges of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina are permitted to hold in-person hearings and proceedings, but they are encouraged by a standing order issued March 18 by Chief Judge Terrence Boyle to conduct such hearings by telephone or video.

See http://www.nced.uscourts.gov/data/StandingOrders/20-S0-5.pdf

 DARE COUNTY BULLETIN NO. 41

 In today’s Emergency Management bulletin, Dare County announces that nine of the 15 people who have tested positive locally for COVID-19 have recovered or have been asymptomatically cleared—an increase of one person over yesterday’s update.

The County also calls the social-distancing measures of the past three weeks “effective” and thanks all residents for “doing [their] part to help keep our community safe.”

Today’s message is simple: “Please continue to hang in there.”

See Bulletin No. 41 at https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6127/398

***

The Beacon also would like to note that a violation of the mandatory restrictions that the Governor has imposed on retail establishments, as of 5 p.m. today, and skilled nursing facilities is a Class 2 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 60 days in jail and $1,000. We earlier omitted this detail.

Please let us know about your shopping experiences this week:  You may email ssbeaconeditor@gmail.com.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/13/20

Two more people associated with the Peak Resources nursing/rehab facility in Nags Head have tested positive for COVID-19, according to today’s Dare Emergency Management bulletin.

Both of these people are asymptomatic, the bulletin states, but that does not mean that they are not infectious. Bulletin No. 40 gives no other details about the individuals’ situations, however.

Of the 15 Dare County residents who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, Bulletin No. 40 recaps, eight have recovered or been asymptomatically cleared; five are asymptomatic; one is recovering at home; and one has died

See COVID-19 Bulletin No. 40 at https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6121/1483

Test results from the state lab for the mass testing last week of staff and residents at Peak Resources were sent to the Dare County Division of Public Health earlier than anticipated. Family members of Peak residents were told to expect results tomorrow.

Bulletin No. 40 does indicate, however, that the Division of Public Health has received “the majority” of these results, not all.

For the first time in its COVID-19 case-reporting process, Dare County did not lead off a daily bulletin with breaking news of more positive test results. Today’s Bulletin No. 40 buries the report of the two additional Peak Resources cases beneath Easter greetings, a reminder about the guidelines in place for slowing the spread of COVID-19, and an updated accounting of cases and fatalities statewide.

AROUND TOWN

While out earlier today on my essential once-a-week spin through Southern Shores, I received greetings on Ocean Boulevard at the Chicahauk Trail intersection from the Easter Bunny and a female companion, who looked like Little Bo Peep with a face mask. They waved feverishly at all passersby.

I regret that I did not immediately pull over and take their photograph because about 12 minutes later when I drove past again, they were gone. An opportunity missed.

Little else caught my eye:

The unleaded regular gas at Han-Dee Hugo’s BP (and the Mobil station down the bypass in Kitty Hawk) is selling for $1.95.99 per gallon—about 50 cents less than it would be if vacationers were here, I would imagine.

The Home Depot and Walmart were doing a brisk business, but Harris Teeter and Food Lion were relatively quiet.

The Governor’s rules on maximum occupancy in retail establishments take effect tomorrow at 5 p.m.

All retailers who have permission to continue operating during the statewide stay-at-home order must observe an “emergency maximum occupancy” of either 20 percent of the state fire capacity or five persons per 1,000 square feet of building space, whichever is less.

Whatever the maximum number of occupants is, retailers must post it “in a conspicuous place,” according to the Governor’s Executive Order No. 131.

The majority of the customers in area stores are not wearing face masks, nor are the store employees. I would attribute this differential to a perceived lack of risk of COVID-19 transmission in Dare County, not to partisan politics, as a recent ABC/Ipsos poll would seem to suggest. (The message: More Democrats than Republicans and Independents wear face masks–apparently true among the 512 adults who were “randomly” sampled and self-reported their political-party affiliation.)

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Protection recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings when other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, such as a grocery store or pharmacy, especially in areas of significant community-based transmission of the virus. That is not Dare County.

See CDC’s use of cloth face coverings: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/DIY-cloth-face-covering-instructions.pdf

I wear a cotton face covering, as well as gloves, mostly out of respect and concern for other customers and store employees–although I do have a nearly 96-year-old mother whom I would not wish to infect with the coronavirus nor stop seeing. If my wearing a mask makes other people more comfortable, I figure it is a small price to pay.

There will be more hard news developments next week about the COVID-19 spread in this county and the state and national response to it. (How and when does the country “reopen”?) I welcome a respite today.

It is a beautiful day in Southern Shores. Enjoy the springtime. It will be a stormy Monday.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/12/20

 

COVID-19 test results for nearly half of the staff and residents at Peak Resources nursing facility in Nags Head were received last week, and a “round of mass testing” of that population was completed Thursday afternoon, according to today’s Dare County Emergency Management bulletin.

A source/acquaintance of The Beacon’s who has a family member residing at Peak Resources told us she was informed by the facility that the test results of the latest specimens should be available Monday. The DCEM bulletin says only that “Those specimens arrived at the state lab Friday morning for processing and testing” and that another update on Peak “will be provided as soon as the test results are received.”

See Bulletin No. 39: https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6117/1483

Peak Resources, which is located at the end of Barnes Street in Nags Head, has 126 skilled nursing beds, according to its website. See http://peakresourcesinc.com/our-locations/outer-banks/.

Dare County previously announced three positive test results associated with Peak Resources and said all three persons are asymptomatic.

According to The Beacon’s source, whom we gave anonymity at her request, the facility told family members of residents that the three people were staff members and that they are in isolation. The source also reported her understanding that the person who died as a result of a COVID-19 infection was a resident of the facility who may have contracted the virus when he was treated at a hospital. She had no knowledge of the hospital to which the resident might have been taken.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/11/20

“To date, Dare County has reported 13 positive test results for COVID-19,” today’s Dare County Emergency Management bulletin tells us.

See Bulletin No. 38: https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6111/398

Of the 13 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the bulletin states, eight have recovered or have been “asymptomatically cleared”; three are asymptomatic (with no COVID-19 symptoms); one is recovering at home; and one has died. To be asymptomatically cleared is to exhibit no symptoms seven days after testing.

In the remainder of the bulletin, the County repeats the guidelines that are in effect during the Stay Home-Stay Healthy order for “slowing” the spread of the virus and the resources that are available through the N.C. Dept. of Health and Human Services’ website.

(The Beacon apologizes for the false start to this post that we originally published. Please delete.)

GOVERNOR LIMITS MAXIMUM STORE OCCUPANCY . . .

Retail establishments that have permission to continue operating during the statewide stay-at-home order will be required to observe an “emergency maximum occupancy,” starting Monday at 5 p.m., according to an executive order issued yesterday by Governor Roy Cooper.

The order specifies that all such retailers must limit their maximum occupancy to “no more than”:

*Twenty percent of the state fire capacity; OR

*Five customers for every 1,000 square feet of the “retail location’s total square footage, including non-customer-facing portions.”

The five-customers-per-1,000-square feet restriction will have a profound effect on how Outer Banks supermarkets do business.

Executive Order No. 131 further requires retailers to post this emergency maximum occupancy “in a conspicuous place,” and to assign “sufficient” staff members to monitor the store entrances and exits in order to enforce the limit.

See Executive Order No. 131: https://files.nc.gov/governor/documents/files/EO131-Retail-Long-Term-Care-Unemployment-Insurance.pdf

The retail establishments that are covered by the order are described as including “any business in which customers enter to purchase goods or services, including but not limited to grocery stores, convenience stores, large-format retail stores, pharmacies, banks, ABC stores, hardware stores, and vehicle dealerships.”

The new order also requires retailers to observe the minimum social/physical distancing recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by clearly marking six feet of spacing “in lines at cash registers” and “in other high-traffic areas for customers, such as at deli counters and near high-volume products,” inside their stores.

If a retailer reaches or expects to reach its “Emergency Maximum Occupancy” at any time, it must “clearly mark six feet of spacing in a designated line outside the establishment,” according to the order.

Further, all operating retail establishments must “perform frequent and routine environmental cleaning and disinfection of high touch areas” with a disinfectant approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for SARS-CoV-2.

Executive Order 131 encourages retailers to take voluntary steps, as well, including:

*to reduce viral transmission among employees (through suggested means);

*to place hand sanitizer prominently at entry and exit points and to have disinfecting EPA-approved wipes and/or sprays available for shopping carts and baskets;

*to post signage that reminds customers and employees about required six-foot physical distancing; and

*to designate exclusive shopping times for “seniors and other at-risk groups as defined by the CDC.”

The Kitty Hawk Harris Teeter has set aside exclusive shopping times for customers age 60 and older on Monday and Thursday, from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. It also will accept online orders from the same age group, and deliver the groceries, on Thursday between 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Walmart has an exclusive shopping hour for customers age 60 and older every Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m.—which is an hour before it opens to all customers.

See Walmart: https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2020/03/18/latest-walmart-store-changes-to-support-associates-and-customers

Food Lion in the Marketplace has online shopping and on-site pickup of orders available, but it has not set aside exclusive shopping hours for customers viewed as more vulnerable to the COVID-19 threat.

Although Governor Cooper considered requiring one-way aisles in retail establishments in order to reduce interpersonal contact, the order only recommends that retailers “provide assistance with routing through aisles in the store.”

The new occupancy controls will remain in effect for 30 days after their April 13 imposition, unless they are repealed, replaced, or rescinded.

. . . AND IMPOSES RULES ON SKILLED NURSING FACILITIES (SNFs)

In light of the numerous COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes in North Carolina, Governor Cooper also ordered yesterday that so-called skilled nursing facilities take mandatory mitigation actions, including:

*screening all staff at the beginning of their shifts for fever and respiratory symptoms, which means actively taking staff members’ temperatures and documenting the absence or presence of shortness of breath (aka dyspnea), a cough, and sore throat;

*canceling “communal dining and all group activities, including internal and external activities”;

*implementing “universal” use of facemasks for all staff members while they are in the facility, “assuming supplies are available”;

*actively monitoring all residents upon admission, and at least daily, for fever and respiratory symptoms (dyspnea, cough, sore throat), and continued monitoring during their stay; and

*notifying the local health department immediately about 1) any resident with new, confirmed, or suspected COVID-19; or 2) a “cluster” of residents or staff with symptoms of respiratory illness.

A cluster is defined as three or more people with new-onset respiratory symptoms in a period of 72 hours.

Executive Order 131 stops short of requiring adult-care homes, family-care homes, mental health-group homes, and intermediate-care facilities for individuals with intellectual disability to observe the same mitigation rules. It only encourages them to do so.

The new restrictions on skilled nursing facilities take effect today at 5 p.m.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/10/20

 

(Please note: While writing this blog, we received notice of three more positive COVID-19 test results in Dare County, all of them linked to Peak Resources, a nursing and rehabilitation facility in Nags Head. We will post a story about DCEM Bulletin No. 17 soon. Thank you.)

Four non-resident Southern Shores homeowners spoke out in public comments at the Town Council’s meeting Tuesday, protesting the March 20 order prohibiting their access to Dare County and/or questioning the prohibition’s continued logic and effect.

The Beacon has learned in informal conversations with Town Council members that, not surprisingly, other non-resident property owners have complained to the Town about the County’s order via email, and we have heard from disgruntled non-resident homeowners, as well.

COVID-19 Bulletin No. 10, which was issued at 6:20 p.m. on March 20, barred non-resident property owners from accessing Dare County as of 10 p.m. that day. See https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/5994/17

The Dare County Control Group has said nothing further to, or about, non-resident property owners since its emergency order, although members of the County’s healthcare community have encouraged people in bulletins and videos to be kind to each other.

The Beacon is aware that the tension and ill will generated by the County’s decision to prohibit non-resident homeowners from accessing their properties during the COVID-19 emergency have been expressed in many social-media forums and in local media. We do not intend to give voice here to various sides and opinions in the debate/argument.

(See yesterday’s Beacon for a report of a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by non-resident Dare County property owners against the County.)

Instead, our intent is to give an overview of important matters that came up at the Town Council’s meeting, and we believe the ban on non-resident property owners, and how the Town Council responded to homeowners disadvantaged by it, is important.

“WRONG AND UNFAIR”

Calling the restriction “very, very unfair, and discriminatory,” Bill Schreiner, who appeared at the meeting by Zoom videoconferencing, said the “travel ban” has “sown a deep division among different members of the tax base of Southern Shores.”

Mr. Schreiner described the Dare County Control Group’s decision that led to Bulletin No. 10 as “driven by fear” and said “it has caused a great deal of unhappiness.”

Mr. Schreiner, whose family has owned properties in Southern Shores since the early 1960s, said he felt like he had been “treated as a second-class citizen.” (Full disclosure: The Schreiners owned a home next door to my family’s 50-year-old beach cottage for decades.)

Mr. Schreiner further criticized the ban—which is principally enforced at the Wright Brothers Memorial Bridge checkpoint—for not being “airtight.” He described workers and locals coming and going across the bridge, daily and indiscriminately, without any oversight.

There is no question that a Dare County local who travels to Hampton Roads for any reason could return with a COVID-19 infection as easily as a non-resident property owner who lives in Norfolk could transport one to Dare County.

Mr. Schreiner also cited the presumed community spread of COVID-19 in Dare County as both a failure of the allegedly discriminatory travel ban and as reason to loosen the restriction. He questioned why the County and Town are not imposing/enforcing rules on face masks and physical distancing.

Robert Garver, who said he had “retired and moved to Southern Shores in mid-January,” related in written public comments a compelling story of having left Southern Shores on Tuesday, March 17, “for a short trip out of town” and being “shocked” to learn on the next Saturday morning, when he prepared to return home, that he was “barred from entry.”

He had “no reasonable time to respond,” he said, claiming that Bulletin No. 10 was not distributed by email.

He and his wife, Mr. Garver said, “had planned a stay-healthy-in-place strategy [for the pandemic] long before the town or county announced any actions.” They had purchased supplies and groceries in Southern Shores, to which they intended to return. According to Mr. Garver, he and his wife have suffered a “financial impact, worry, and uncertainty” from their inability to do so.

Ernie Dash, who appeared via Zoom and said he is “hunkered down” in Williamsburg, told the Town Council he would just like the opportunity to “come down for a day and check over [his] property,” which is a second home in Southern Shores.

The Beacon has empathy for all non-resident property owners in Southern Shores and in other Dare County beach towns and would have liked to have heard our Town Council express empathy to the people who submitted public comments.

Non-resident property owners are a big part of our town’s economy, character, welfare, appeal, and sense of community and neighborhood. They are the historical backbone of Southern Shores. Those who reached out to the Town Council deserved a response, even though the entry restriction was imposed by the County, not the Town.

We would say to the Town Council: You don’t have to take sides in order to relate to non-resident homeowners’ anger, distress, anxiety, and other emotions during this unusually stressful and uncertain time. But, please, listen to them and consider their interests, and tell them of your concern.

Only Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Morey addressed the conflict between residents and non-residents, but she did so in concluding remarks after people had already heard from Mayor Tom Bennett that the Town Council does not customarily respond to public comments.

INTERIM TOWN MANAGER’S REPORT

Otherwise, The Beacon finds only the following items, presented by Interim Town Manager Wes Haskett, of sufficient importance to cover now:

RECYCLING: First, some good news . . . Mr. Haskett has heard from the N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality that Southern Shores now has the option of having its recyclables transported to a materials recovery facility (a so-called MRF, pronounced murf) in Portsmouth, Va., where they actually will be recycled, not burned.

Currently, Bay Disposal and Recycling is hauling all Outer Banks recycling, including Southern Shores’ curbside recycling, to an incinerator at Wheelabrator, a waste-to-energy facility in Portsmouth, not an MRF.

Recycling & Disposal Solutions (RSD), out of Roanoke, Va., operates the MRF in Portmouth, according to Mr. Haskett, who explained that NCDEQ had hoped to “secure a location in Elizabeth City,” but it was unsuccessful.

See RDS’s website: https://rds-virginia.com/locations/hampton-roads-locations/

RSD’s recycling processing fee is $95 per ton, Mr. Haskett said. The Town would have to pay Bay Disposal’s collection and hauling costs on top of that. The Interim Town Manager is waiting to receive a fee quote from Joshua Smaltz, Bay Disposal’s Outer Banks Site Manager.

NCDEQ regulators have authorized Southern Shores and other Outer Banks towns to continue to allow their recyclables to be transported to Wheelabrator, despite state laws against disposing of them by incineration. This extension of a regulatory exemption previously given the Outer Banks came “with no given time frame,” Mr. Haskett said.

BEACH NOURISHMENT GRANT MONEY: Mr. Haskett reported that grants of up to $2.5 million are available to N.C. towns for beach nourishment projects through the NCDEQ’s Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund.

The grant money was authorized by the N.C. General Assembly last September for the 2019-2021 fiscal biennium, which runs from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2021. Up to $11.5 million in grants is available to “units of local government” for coastal storm mitigation.

The application deadline for an NCDEQ grant is April 30.

Mr. Haskett mentioned the possibility of the Town requesting grant funding for anticipated “maintenance work in the Pelican Watch area” or for “one of the four options” for beach nourishment that APTIM, the Town’s coastal engineering consultant, has recommended.

“We will seek Council’s guidance at the April 21 budget session as to which, if any project, you prefer,” Mr. Haskett told the Council.

See the March 4, 2020 notice from the NCDEQ that it is accepting grant applications: https://deq.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2020/03/04/deq-accepting-applications-115-million-help-coastal-communities-storm

See North Carolina Session Law 2019-224, aka Senate Bill 429, Part II, sect. 2.1(3)(3) for grant authorization language: https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2019/Bills/Senate/PDF/S429v4.pdf

See Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund Guidelines, FY 2019-20: https://files.nc.gov/ncdeq/Water%20Resources/documents/2019-2020-CSDM-Fund-Guidelines.pdf

FY 2020-2021 BUDGET

Regarding next year’s fiscal-year budget Mr. Haskett told the Council that “work on the proposed budget continues, and all of the departments’ requested expenditures have been added.

“Due to the anticipated loss of revenue as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re working on options that would help offset that loss. We will present those options to you and seek guidance on projects to include or not include in the proposed budget at Council’s April 21 budget work session.”

That meeting will take place at 9 a.m. and will be managed by videoconferencing.

A videotape of the Town Council’s April 7 meeting is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JnhfT87RAY&feature=youtu.be.

Mr. Haskett’s report begins around 13 minutes into the tape. Public comments are read or voiced by Zoom participants after his report and end around the 41-minute mark.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/9/20

 

 

A Dare County resident died this morning from complications associated with the COVID-19 virus.

In a DCEM bulletin released today, the Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services reports the COVID-19 related death of a person who was in her/his early 90s and had several underlying medical conditions. No other details were provided.

See Bulletin No. 36: https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6105/1483

“This is never the type of information we want to have to share,” said Dr. Sheila Davies, director of the Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services. “We extend our heartfelt condolences to this individual’s family and loved ones and pray for peace and comfort.”

The Beacon also extends its sincere condolences to this person’s family and everyone affected by the loss of her/his life, just as we would with anyone who has lost a loved one.

We are especially sorry that the pain of this person’s death has been compounded by the inability of loved ones to be in close physical contact with her/him during the dying process. That we feel quite deeply. There is comfort at the bedside.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/9/20

Harris Teeter announced today that it would begin limiting the number of people in its grocery stores to 50 percent of building code capacity. At the Kitty Hawk Harris Teeter, that means 348 people will be allowed in the store at one time—quite a luxury compared to the few dozen shoppers allowed in Trader Joe’s food markets nationwide.

According to Becky Pugh, a manager at the Kitty Hawk Harris Teeter, her store’s building code capacity is 697 people.

The maximum number of people shopping in the Kitty Hawk store is usually about 100, Ms. Pugh told The Beacon, adding that the staff is prepared to control entry by lining up customers at the doors, if it has to.

Store associates are expected to monitor the number of customers to ensure that the limit is observed, according to the announcement by Harris Teeter, which is headquartered in Matthew, N.C.

Its new building capacity restriction took effect at 5 p.m. today.

Plexiglass protective shields have already been installed at checkout stands in all Harris Teeter stores, and signage has been placed throughout stores to promote social/physical distancing.

According to Ms. Pugh, many of the Kitty Hawk store’s customers already are wearing face masks and gloves.

Plexiglass shields have been installed at checkout counters at the Food Lion in the Marketplace, and it, too, is observing physical distancing in customer lines.

Food Lion also offers online shopping and drive-through pickup.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/8/20

[Breaking news: Today’s Dare County Emergency Management Bulletin addresses the County’s ongoing preparedness efforts and the medical “surge” capacity across the state. See https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6101/1483.]

Governor Roy Cooper announced plans yesterday to issue an executive order later this week to limit the number of people allowed in stores at one time.

“We are preparing an executive order to put more guardrails on social distancing at our essential retailers,” the Governor said at a news conference yesterday. “I know many stores have already put limits on how many people can be in stores at once, and this order will ensure those limits are mandatory across the state.”

[The Walmart in Kitty Hawk reportedly began controlling customer entry and space between customers inside the store last weekend. But when I drove past the Walmart last Saturday, I was shocked by the number of people in the parking lot. It might as well have been a summer Saturday. The nearby Harris Teeter parking lot was also teeming with traffic and people. People need to consider shopping at “off” times.]

The Governor also said that the current statewide stay-at-home order, which is in place until April 29, has been effective in limiting the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the respiratory disease COVID-19.

While Governor Cooper said the state must prepare to move gradually back toward re-opening society, he also deemed it too early to do so and would not project when such action might occur. The virus is not controlled enough yet to do so, he said.

A predictive model by scientists from the University of North Carolina and Duke University that was made public Monday projected that if the stay-at-home order is extended beyond April, the number of COVID-19 cases in North Carolina could be capped at 250,000. If the order is lifted at the end of April, however, the model forecasts that the case count could grow to 750,000.

The model is not the official product of either UNC-CH or Duke, but of individual scientists, who developed it with the help of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, NoviSci, and RTI International, in addition to the universities. You may read more about this forecast, and find a link to the report itself, on The Raleigh News & Observer website at

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article241797076.html

Among the mandatory restrictions that Governor Cooper is considering for crowd control in supermarkets and other big retailers, such as Home Depot and Lowe’s, is making foot traffic in store aisles run like one-way streets to avoid interactions; marking floors with tape so people will stand at least six feet away from each other when they are waiting in lines; and adding plexiglass barriers to protect employees at check-out areas.

“We need to make [such restrictions] more uniform,” the Governor said.

To learn more about the reaction of Trader Joe’s employees nationwide to the restrictions, or lack thereof, taken by their employer to protect them during the COVID-19 crisis, see

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/trader-joe-s-employees-say-virus-response-was-haphazard-and-chaotic/ar-BB12jozJ?ocid=msedgdhp; and

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/06/supermarket-workers-deaths-coronavirus-/

There have been reports of deaths among supermarket workers, who have been veritable first responders, during the COVID-19 emergency.

DARE COUNTY SUED BY 6 NON-RESIDENT PROPERTY OWNERS

Six non-resident Dare County property owners reportedly sued Dare County yesterday in federal court, claiming their constitutional rights were violated when the County issued its March 20 emergency order preventing them from accessing their properties.

OBX Today first reported on the litigation yesterday. See https://www.obxtoday.com/top-stories/outer-banks-property-owners-file-federal-suit-challenging-restrictions-to-their-homes/?fbclid=IwAR07zYlNTqNo-BCnXtPXImMO-6MN8CG6Ktzwv3U9BxdbVRYMFZ6xGFen7So

The six plaintiffs—three from Virginia, one from South Carolina, and two from Maryland—do not seek monetary damages. They seek immediate access to their properties. Raleigh attorney S.C. Kitchen is reportedly representing all of the plaintiffs.

The two plaintiffs from Maryland are a married couple who, according to OBX Today, rent their properties–one of which, The Beacon discovered, is located in Southern Shores.

Research on the Dare County GIS website reveals that the Maryland couple own a multi-million-dollar oceanfront home on Second Avenue in Southern Shores, as well as two million-dollar homes in Duck.

According to the N.C. State Bar member directory, there is only one S.C. Kitchen practicing law in North Carolina, and he is Sidney C. Kitchen with the two-person law office of Kitchen & Turrentine, PLLC. See https://www.ktlawnc.com/

Mr. Kitchen, who is known as Chuck, served as county attorney for Durham and Alamance counties before he entered private practice. The Beacon wonders how he identified these six non-resident property owners, but not enough to probe the question further by calling him.

The Beacon ventured into constitutional law on 4/4/20 when we featured an opinion column written by two attorneys with doctorates in health policy that was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

In their article, “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally—the U.S. Response to Covid-19,” the authors address “major weaknesses” in the United States’ “federalist system of public health governance, which divides powers among the federal, state and local governments.”

Because there has been no national strategy on responding to the COVID-19 threat, states and localities have been at the front lines of the response, the authors write, and—not surprisingly—they have exercised their public-health powers “unevenly.”

There is no question that in “extraordinary times,” such as we are experiencing now, states and the federal government can “activate emergency powers to expand their ability to act swiftly to protect human life and health,” they write, and these powers can infringe upon individuals’ civil liberties.

Usually the fear of emergency-activated restrictions, they continue, is that government officials—typically, at the federal and state levels, not at the county level—will over-react and impose unduly coercive measures.

The authors give as an example N.J. Governor Chris Christie’s decision to order a nurse returning from Sierra Leone into quarantine during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, even though her case did not merit it under the CDC’s guidelines.

Could the public-health and public-safety objectives that Dare County sought to achieve on March 20, and continues to seek to achieve today, be met through less restrictive means than a wholesale closure of the county to all nonresident property owners? That is a fair question to ask and for the Dare County Control Group to consider.

(The Beacon may write more about the continued exclusion of non-resident property owners during the COVID-19 emergency in an upcoming column.)

TOWN COUNCIL DELAYS CONSIDERATION OF BUDGET MATTERS 

The Southern Shores Town Council postponed its consideration of the budget workshop business it had scheduled to take up at its meeting yesterday afternoon until April 21, when the Council is expected to meet by electronic conferencing, exclusively.

While The Beacon agrees with this decision, we wish the Town had made it a week ago.

Yesterday, a quorum comprised of Mayor Tom Bennett and Councilmen Jim Conners and Leo Holland convened at the Pitts Center, while Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Morey and Councilman Matt Neal participated in the meeting by Zoom videoconferencing. (The Beacon enjoyed hearing Mr. Neal’s children’s voices in the background and seeing his empty chair on one occasion.)

Interim Town Manager/Planning Director Wes Haskett, Town Attorney Ben Gallop, Finance and Human Resources Director Bonnie Swain, and Town Clerk Sheila Kane attended the meeting in person. All participants observed six-foot physical distancing.

The Beacon knows of residents who were unable to access the meeting through Zoom and believes the Town staff could do a better job of explaining how to download the software and then maneuver within Zoom once a meeting has started. We hope step-by-step instructions will be posted on the Town website before the next videoconference.

We joined the meeting via Zoom, as well as by telephone, and can report that the entire 70-minute meeting was audible on the telephone–albeit at a long-distance charge.

It was quite clear to us that those people who spoke remotely—including two non-resident Southern Shores property owners who objected to the Dare County access restrictions—had previous experience with Zoom. We did not.

The Beacon will report in more detail tomorrow on a few of the items that came up at the meeting, but, generally speaking, we do not find yesterday’s Council business to merit much coverage in light of all that is happening. We also believe the Council should postpone its April 21 budget workshop until mid-May, at the earliest.

The budget workshop business that was delayed includes:

• Town pay study
• Beach nourishment
• SSVFD radios and possible budget amendment
• Potential no-left-turn weekends
• Capital street projects
• RFQ and/or extension-town engineer contract expires June 30, 2020

If the Town Council goes ahead with its electronic meeting, we would urge members to make only those decisions that are essential to make now and not try to predict the immediate or distant future of the town’s or the county’s economy.

A videotape of yesterday’s meeting is already online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JnhfT87RAY&feature=youtu.be.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/8/20