STUFF!

GREAT TRUTHS.

2011-09-17T12:09:00.000-04:00

GREAT TRUTHS

1. In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.
-- John Adams
2. If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
-- Mark Twain
3. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.
-- Mark Twain
4. I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-- Winston Churchill
5. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-- George Bernard Shaw
6. A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
-- G. Gordon Liddy 7. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
-- James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)
8. Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
-- Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University
9. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
-- P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian
10. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
-- Frederic Bastiat, French economist (1801-1850)
11. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
-- Ronald Reagan (1986)
12. I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
-- Will Rogers
13. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
-- P.J. O'Rourke
14. In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
-- Voltaire (1764) 15. Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
-- Pericles (430 B.C.)
16. No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
-- Mark Twain (1866)
17. Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.
-- Anonymous
18. The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
-- Ronald Reagan
19. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-- Winston Churchill
20. The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-- Mark Twain
21. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)
22. There is no distinctly Native American criminal class...save Congress.
-- Mark Twain
23. What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
-- Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)
24. A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-- Thomas Jefferson
25. We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
-- Aesop
FIVE BEST SENTENCES
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for...another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. 5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work, because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation!

Ron who?

2011-08-22T17:30:00.000-04:00

The Anti-American President

2011-08-21T10:28:00.000-04:00

The Anti-American President

Bedbugs and Islam

2011-08-21T08:58:00.000-04:00

Lee Rodgers

2011-08-07T10:13:00.000-04:00

An interesting perspective on the current state of our economy by Lee Rodgers: http://radiorodgers.com/

What Can Social Security Buy?

2011-08-06T15:05:00.000-04:00

The Recession has Ended.

2011-08-04T09:33:00.000-04:00

I had an interesting public Q and A encounter with Richmond’s Federal Reserve Bank President, Jeffrey Lacker, this past Thursday at the Westfields Marriott Conference Center in Chantilly, Virginia near Dulles Airport.
Jeffrey Lacker heads the Fed’s Fifth region -- VA, MD, NC, SC, DC, and most of WV. He was the featured speaker at the Dulles Chamber of Commerce lunch to a gathering of roughly 250 bankers, myself, a democrat state senator and two local elected officials.
Mr. Lacker bears a strong resemblance to the late Hollywood tap-dancing star Gene Kelly of Singing in the Rain fame and I told him that after lunch. (Gene Kelly taught dancing in my parent’s home town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania in the early 1930‘s. My mom and dad were great big-band swing dancers.)
Tap dancing of some variety is a skill that Federal Reserve Presidents most certainly will find useful given the fact that Fed Chair Ben Bernanke recently could not explain why his Quantitative Easing money printing remedies were not turning the economy around.
The main points of President Lacker’s talk were: The Great Recession ended in June, 2009; real GDP is rising at 2.75%; housing is too plentiful because of our population circumstance (could 53 million “legal” abortions since 1973 have affect housing starts or demand?); consumer spending which equals 70% of GDP has risen only 1.1% for the last six months; inflation averaged over 4% for the past six months (housewives certainly know it is higher); core inflation which excludes fuel and food was 2.3%.
President Lacker and the Fed’s Open Market Committee predict that GDP will return to 4% over the next two years. He also noted that monetary policy could not spur growth without increasing inflation as well.
All of Lacker’s predictions are set against a background of the costly Obamacare law now in federal courts, a jobs report indicating that some major American businesses are issuing more pink slips, and a budget battle over spending in Congress.
Questions were taken from Web viewers who “tweeted” their inquiries to President Lacker.
Two of us at the lunch were recognized to ask Lacker questions from the floor--and both of us challenged Lacker. After that no more questions were taken from the floor.
Lacker did not challenge the first speaker’s inflation figures, nor the observation that the Fed has changed the way it computes the Consumer Price Index to “cushion” the figures, or that the prices of industrial commodities were rising far faster than the reported 4% he had mentioned.
Then it was my turn. As I reflect back, I received a generous amount of time to comment to Mr. Lacker and raise points.
I first thanked Mr. Lacker for sharing his experiences and observations with the group. I then pointed to the papers in my hand explaining that they were part of a July 2011 audit of the Federal Reserve by the US Congress’ General Accountability Office which raised questions regarding some of the Fed’s loose internal controls regarding conflict of interests affecting Fed Employees, Board members, recipients of no-bid Fed oversight contracts and awards of Congressionally authorized bailout money.

I mentioned that this particular audit was strenuously opposed by the Fed and that it was the result of a Capitol Hill political odd couple -- the acknowledged socialist Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont and libertarian conservative Republican Congressman Ron Paul.
I specifically referenced Senator Sanders July 21, 2011 press release commenting on the GAO Fed Audit. Sen. Sanders was critical of the Fed’s behind closed doors $16 Trillion in loans to bail out American and foreign banks during the economic crisis.
Sen. Sanders specifically rejected the Fed’s bailout of foreign banks without the direct approval of Congress or the President. Sanders called the Fed an “agency of the United States government.” I suggested that Lacker might take issue with the Senator’s characterization of the Fed as an agency of the federal government, but that the Fed was apparently comfortable with this dual status for a variety of reasons.
I referenced US Sen. Sanders observations in some of my public points because I did not want my comments to be dismissed as ideological criticisms of a right wing politician.
So I relayed to Lacker and the assembled bankers Sanders’ observations from the GAO Report that while the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed's Board of Directors, his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed.
Furthermore, the GAO reported that William Dudley, who is the New York Fed president, received a waiver to let him keep investments in AIG and General Electric while AIG and GE were given bailout funds.
I then directly cited the GAO report which reported that 8 of the 10 largest oversight contracts issued by the Fed were done on a non-competitive basis and amounted to $495 million of the $660 awarded on grounds that could easily appear to be favoritism.
I noted that economic recovery depends in large measure upon the confidence the public places in the institutions of government especially, the Federal Reserve. I noted that federal employees in the same situation as the Fed’s Board members would have been barred by Federal Acquisition Regulations from engaging in such contracts or employment because of federal conflict of interest prohibitions. Because of this difference in allowed vs. prohibited activities, the public might question the Fed’s fairness, objectivity and actions in addressing the economic crisis as they did.
I suggested that the dual nature of the Fed might itself be undermining public confidence in our economic recovery and was problematic for future policy efforts.
For example, I noted that while the Fed’s Chair and Board of Governors are appointed by the President and approved by the Senate, nevertheless the Fed’s 1913 Congressional enabling statute exempted Federal Reserve Banks from paying Virginia any corporate income tax, but did provide for the Richmond Fed to pay real property tax to the City of Richmond.
Lastly, I asked Mr. Lacker, was his and the Fed’s dual stature a problem for public confidence?
He thanked me for my comments and acknowledged that as the GAO report had come out less than a week ago, he had not read it yet but intended to do so. But he did report that he personally knew for many years the individuals I mentioned from the GAO Audit and that he thought they carried out their duties in an objective and fair manner.
He did admit that in the discussions he and other Fed Bankers had in addressing the TARP and Stimulus funds distribution that the legality of what they were doing was a constant and continuous consideration. He also conceded that their policy discussions and decisions were not without internal controversy. Nor were they always unanimous regarding the legality or at times the desirability of all the actions taken by the Fed. This was so, in part, because they were in uncharted waters.
He noted correctly that the Fed had been audited on different occasions for some of its operations. And he suggested that the Fed’s part public, part private hybrid structure should largely continue down the path it had started in 1913.
I spoke to Mr.Lacker after the lunch one on one in a brief, but friendly exchange about central banking. He initially confused me with Republican Delegate Danny Marshall from Danville.
As I shook his hand on leaving the event I was sorely tempted, but restrained myself from asking President Lacker, if he would redeem one of the Federal Reserve notes in my wallet in “lawful money” as the Federal Reserve Act requires regional federal reserve banks to do under federal law.
So, why did I go and ask all these questions? Well, for openers, I wanted the folks who are busy making a living and helping to grow business and create jobs to see just how long a leash Congress is giving our central bankers and what this “approach” is doing to America’s businesses, workers and economic advancement.
And I did get one initial response from a young married lady who immigrated from mainland China who was a bank branch manager and who sat at table with me. She smiled favorably and said I had really done my homework.
You perhaps might find it interesting why she became an American citizen. Well, in China, she told me, she would not have been allowed to have two of the three children she is a proud mom to.
That told me a lot about the appeal our Nation still has to those who appreciate and value what we are, what we can be and why we were founded -- namely, to establish a Nation based on the unchanging and beneficial laws of Nature and Nature’s God.

Sincerely,

Delegate Bob Marshall
R - 13th District of Virginia
www.delegatebob.com

Paid for and authorized by Friends of Bob Marshall
twitter.com/robertgmarshall facebook.com/delegatebob youtube.com/user/delegatebobmarshall

SamKnows and the FCC

2011-08-03T09:40:00.000-04:00

For several months now I have been involved with the FCC by being a participant in the testing of our Nation's Broadband speeds. After a series of questions, upon acceptance, I was sent a special wireless router and asked to connect it to my network. It kept data on various aspects of my connection and sent that data to the FCC.

Charter was one of the thirteen cable companies that participated in this project.

Here is a link to the initial findings of that project which is still ongoing: http://www.fcc.gov/measuring-broadband-america

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ

2011-08-02T09:03:00.000-04:00

by Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez

I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.

The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.

And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride. They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.

And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition.

We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe......

***********************************

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:

1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace:

1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat

1990 - Elias James Corey

1994 - Yaser Arafat:

1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics:

(zero)

Physics:

(zero)

Medicine:

1960 - Peter Brian Medawar

1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:

1910 - Paul Heyse

1927 - Henri Bergson

1958 - Boris Pasternak

1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon

1966 - Nelly Sachs

1976 - Saul Bellow

1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer

1981 - Elias Canetti

1987 - Joseph Brodsky

1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:

1911 - Alfred Fried

1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser

1968 - Rene Cassin

1973 - Henry Kissinger

1978 - Menachem Begin

1986 - Elie Wiesel

1994 - Shimon Peres

1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:

1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer

1906 - Henri Moissan

1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson

1908 - Gabriel Lippmann

1910 - Otto Wallach

1915 - Richard Willstaetter

1918 - Fritz Haber

1921 - Albert Einstein

1922 - Niels Bohr

1925 - James Franck

1925 - Gustav Hertz

1943 - Gustav Stern

1943 - George Charles de Hevesy

1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi

1952 - Felix Bloch

1954 - Max Born

1958 - Igor Tamm

1959 - Emilio Segre

1960 - Donald A. Glaser

1961 - Robert Hofstadter

1961 - Melvin Calvin

1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau

1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz

1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman

1965 - Julian Schwinger

1969 - Murray Gell-Mann

1971 - Dennis Gabor

1972 - William Howard Stein

1973 - Brian David Josephson

1975 - Benjamin Mottleson

1976 - Burton Richter

1977 - Ilya Prigogine

1978 - Arno Allan Penzias

1978 - Peter L Kapitza

1979 - Stephen Weinberg

1979 - Sheldon Glashow

1979 - Herbert Charles Brown

1980 - Paul Berg

1980 - Walter Gilbert

1981 - Roald Hoffmann

1982 - Aaron Klug

1985 - Albert A. Hauptman

1985 - Jerome Karle

1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach

1988 - Robert Huber

1988 - Leon Lederman

1988 - Melvin Schwartz

1988 - Jack Steinberger

1989 - Sidney Altman

1990 - Jerome Friedman

1992 - Rudolph Marcus

1995 - Martin Perl

2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:

1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson

1971 - Simon Kuznets

1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow

1975 - Leonid Kantorovich

1976 - Milton Friedman

1978 - Herbert A. Simon

1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein

1985 - Franco Modigliani

1987 - Robert M. Solow

1990 - Harry Markowitz

1990 - Merton Miller

1992 - Gary Becker

1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:

1908 - Elie Metchnikoff

1908 - Paul Erlich

1914 - Robert Barany

1922 - Otto Meyerhof

1930 - Karl Landsteiner

1931 - Otto Warburg

1936 - Otto Loewi

1944 - Joseph Erlanger

1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser

1945 - Ernst Boris Chain

1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller

1950 - Tadeus Reichstein

1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman

1953 - Hans Krebs

1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann

1958 - Joshua Lederberg

1959 - Arthur Kornberg

1964 - Konrad Bloch

1965 - Francois Jacob

1965 - Andre Lwoff

1967 - George Wald

1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg

1969 - Salvador Luria

1970 - Julius Axelrod

1970 - Sir Bernard Katz

1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman

1975 - Howard Martin Temin

1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg

1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow

1978 - Daniel Nathans

1980 - Baruj Benacerraf

1984 - Cesar Milstein

1985 - Michael Stuart Brown

1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein

1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]

1988 - Gertrude Elion

1989 - Harold Varmus

1991 - Erwin Neher

1991 - Bert Sakmann

1993 - Richard J. Roberts

1993 - Phillip Sharp

1994 - Alfred Gilman

1995 - Edward B. Lewis

1996- Lu RoseIacovino

TOTAL: 129!

The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims. The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people. The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems. Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel's part, the following two sentences really say it all:

'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel." Benjamin Netanyahu

General Eisenhower warned us It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect: 'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some will get up and say that this never happened'

Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic priests who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated' while the German people looked the other way.

Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world.

Do not just delete this message; it will take only a minute to pass this along.

America’s Burgeoning Welfare State

2011-08-01T15:00:00.000-04:00

The Truth about Confiscatory Redistributive Taxation and America’s Burgeoning Welfare State: When the Stigma of Shame is Systematically Scrubbed from the Conscience of American Society ~

The means-tested welfare system in America consists of 69 federal programs which provide cash, food, housing, medical care, social services, training and targeted educational programs that are provided exclusively to poor and low income citizens and communities. These programs DO NOT include Medicare, Social Security, veteran’s programs, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation or public education, which by contrast are provided to all citizens. Moreover, only one of these 69 means-tested welfare programs has a work requirement: Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

Politicians and the MSM conspire to keep the American public ignorant and misinformed about the true cost and magnitude of the American Welfare State. For examples:

Since the beginning of the “War on Poverty” in 1964, the government has spent $18.5 trillion (in inflation-adjusted dollars) on means-tested welfare. In comparison, the cost of all other wars in U.S. history was $6.4 trillion when adjusted for inflation. Today, 39.8 million people participate in one or more means-tested welfare programs.

In 2011, the combined federal and state spending for means-tested welfare will exceed $944 billion; of which the federal contribution is $695.6 billion (74%), and the state’s contribution is $244.4 billion.

FY 2011 means-tested welfare spending for medical care (52%) is $488.8 billion; cash, food and housing (37%) is $347.8 billion; and, social services, training and child development (11%) is $103.4 billion.

Combined federal and state means-tested welfare spending is the second largest category of government spending in the U.S. It is exceeded only by the combined cost of Social Security and Medicare, and is greater than the cost of public education and national defense.

Current means-tested federal programs include: 12 programs providing food aid; 10 housing assistance programs; 10 programs funding social services; 9 educational assistance programs; 8 programs providing cash assistance; 8 vocational training programs; 7 medical assistance programs; 3 energy and utility assistance programs; and, 2 child care and child development programs.

In the 20-year period between FY 1989 and FY 2008, total means-tested spending increased by 292%. The increase in combined Social Security and Medicare spending was 213% for the period.

Since the beginning of the “War on Poverty” in 1964, spending on the poor has increased 13 fold when adjusted for inflation. As a result, means-tested aid has risen from 1.2% of GDP to over 5% of GDP, and the public remains largely unaware.

The war in Iraq has cost each American household $100 per month, while this year means-tested welfare spending will cost every American household $679 per month.

According to President Obama’s budget projections over 10 years (FY 2009 to FY 2018), federal and state means-tested welfare spending will total $10.3 trillion.

Dividing all means-tested aid by all persons with incomes below 200% of poverty results in average welfare spending of $7,700 per person, or about $30,000 for a family of four.

This year, about half of the means-tested welfare spending ($470 billion) will go to families with children. If that $470 billion were divided equally among the lowest income one third of families with children (14 million families), the result would be around $33,000 per low income family with children.

In addition, most of these lower-income families have an earned income that averages around $16,000 per year. When average welfare aid and average incomes are combined, total resources will total between $40,000 and $46,000 for each lower-income family with children in the U.S.

Now you know the truth about what's really going on in the American Welfare State.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell

Senator Marco Rubio

2011-08-01T14:50:00.000-04:00

2011-07-27T11:54:00.000-04:00

Buy American

2011-07-24T09:03:00.000-04:00

Did y'all see Diane Sawyer's special report?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38MfZ17nT50

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_YPidwfylM&NR=

They removed ALL items from a typical, middle class family's home that were not made in the USA . There was hardly anything left besides the kitchen sink. Literally. During the special they showed truckloads of items - USA made - being brought in to replace everything and talked about how to find these items and the difference in price etc.(Part 3 not included here)

It was interesting that Diane said if every American spent just $64 more than normal on USA made items this year,it would create something like 200,000 new jobs!

70% of Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended. Why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges? DO IT YOURSELF, AMERICA !! Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says 'Made in China ' or 'PRC' (and that now includes Hong Kong ), simply choose another product, or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, and you will be equally amazed at what you can do without.

Who needs plastic eggs to celebrate Easter? If you must have eggs, use real ones and benefit some American farmer. Easter is just an example. The point is do not wait for the government to act. Just go ahead and assume control on your own. THINK ABOUT THIS: If 200 million Americans each refuse to buy just $20 of Chinese goods, that's a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor...fast!!

Most of the people who have been reading about this matter are planning on implementing this on Aug. 1st and continue it until Sept. 1st. That is only one month of trading losses, but it will hit the Chinese for 1/12th of the total, or 8%, of their American exports. Remember, August 1st to Sept. 1st !!!!!! START NOW.

Send this to everybody you know.
Pass it on, America ... Well instead of doing it for just 1 month why not try to do it all the time.

To the Point

2011-05-14T10:32:00.000-04:00

A Good Hot Shower

2011-05-13T14:52:00.000-04:00

A Good Hot Shower

High Gas Prices are Good for You!

2011-05-01T16:45:00.000-04:00

Protecting the Rights of Travelers: Abolish the TSA! – Tenth Amendment Center

2011-04-02T17:17:00.000-04:00

Protecting the Rights of Travelers: Abolish the TSA! – Tenth Amendment Center

Obama & Holder versus the State of Arizona

2011-02-25T12:58:00.000-05:00

Debt, Debt, Debt – 15 Facts About U.S. Government Finances That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

2011-02-19T18:40:00.000-05:00

Debt, Debt, Debt – 15 Facts About U.S. Government Finances That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

Happy Valentine's Day! Try Out This Marital Rating Scale - Alexis Madrigal - National - The Atlantic

2011-02-16T09:31:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day! Try Out This Marital Rating Scale - Alexis Madrigal - National - The Atlantic

21 Signs That The Once Great U.S. Economy Is Being Gutted, Neutered, Defanged, Declawed And Deindustrialized - BlackListed News

2011-02-16T09:27:00.000-05:00

21 Signs That The Once Great U.S. Economy Is Being Gutted, Neutered, Defanged, Declawed And Deindustrialized - BlackListed News

How the Internet Began: Biblical Version.

2011-02-14T10:15:00.000-05:00

Well, you might have thought that you knew how the Internet started, but here's the TRUE story ....

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot.

And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg.

Indeed, she was often called....... Amazon Dot Com.

And she said unto Abraham, her husband: "Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent?"

And Abraham did look at her - as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load - but simply said: "How, dear?"

And Dot replied: "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price.

And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by.... Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success.

Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever having to move from his tent.

To prevent neighbouring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew. It was called Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures - .....Hebrew To The People (HTTP)

But this success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did secrete himself inside Abraham's drum and began to siphon off some of Abraham's business.

But he was soon discovered, arrested and prosecuted - for insider trading.

And the young men did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS.

And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land.

And indeed did insist on drums to be made that would work only with Brother Gates' drumheads and drumsticks.

And Dot did say: "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others." And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel , or eBay as it came to be known. He said: "We need a name that reflects what we are."

And Dot ....replied: "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."

"YAHOO", said Abraham. And because it was Dot's idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com.

Abraham's cousin, Joshua, being the young.. Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot's drums to locate things around the countryside.

It soon became known as.... God's Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE).

And that is how it all began. So now you know.

Speed Kills

2011-02-03T13:53:00.000-05:00

The Road to Madness Is Paved With $100 Bills - BlackListed News

2011-02-01T18:00:00.000-05:00

The Road to Madness Is Paved With $100 Bills - BlackListed News

Are we Heading this Way?

2011-01-25T18:10:00.000-05:00

How Far Down the Wrong Path?

2011-01-23T17:43:00.000-05:00

American Thinker: Report Card on Obama's First Two Years

2011-01-20T09:10:00.000-05:00

American Thinker: Report Card on Obama's First Two Years

Dredging Chemistry 101

2011-01-15T16:00:00.000-05:00

Raw Dredge Fluid

Here is a sample of the dredge spoils material pumped from the dredge into a pipe that will eventually end up dumping its contents into the primary settling pond.

Add to this a squirt of coagulant (ferric chloride).

Give it a swirl and notice a precipitate forming

54 seconds later, add some polymer and mix.

And now most of the solids have precipitated out of the water. Allow the water to sit in a very large pond so that the microscopic particles can combine and precipitate out and if all goes well, you should have clean water.

The pipe from the dredge, travels along the side of the secondary pond towards to chemical lab that controls the chemical injections. Spoils travel at a rate of 2600 gallons per minute.

This is the covered chemistry lab. The pipe runs along the right side and the coagulant is injected into the black pipe and mixes in that pipe as it travels the next 500 feet.

The slurry follows along the pipe, curves around the primary settling pond and then the polymer is injected just past the end of the left side of the picture.

The slurry continues to the far corner of the primary pond.

It emerges from beneath the pond shown at the top of the bow of the small boat and the larger particles begin to quickly settle out to the bottom.

Since these sedimentary particles start to fill this section of the pond, they are dug up on to the bank and allowed to dry for a day. The sediment does not have an odor.

Then the sediment is loaded on to a 10 wheel dump truck and carted off to the far side of the pond and dumped at the side of the hill, shown in the distance beneath the house.

The remaining liquid migrates from the far side of the pond to the near side, travelling around silt fences that are five feet deep. At the end of this stage, the clarity of the water may comply with CAMA regulations and

it can readily be pumped into the secondary pond for further settling and eventual evacuation.

This pump will take the water from the primary pond to the

secondary pond. The height of this pond is controlled by a spillway shown in the distance, just behind the last yellow silt fence.

The clean water is them pumped out into the canal. If for some reason, the water clarity is not at the required level, the water can be pumped back into the primary pond after it passes another chemical inoculation and the process starts all over again.

Please define "ceiling"... | The Black Sphere

2011-01-07T18:11:00.000-05:00

Please define "ceiling"... | The Black Sphere

Merry Digital Christmas

2010-12-19T08:58:00.000-05:00

Hillsdale College - Imprimis

2010-12-15T18:36:00.000-05:00

Hillsdale College - Imprimis

Drive Safely During The Holidays!

2010-12-07T16:48:00.002-05:00

Are You Frustrated with Your Game?

2010-12-03T17:10:00.000-05:00

The Special Assistant for Reality - WSJ.com

2010-11-30T15:00:00.000-05:00

The Special Assistant for Reality - WSJ.com

Ron Paul's Opinion.

2010-11-25T10:32:00.000-05:00

22 Incredibly Revealing Quotes About Enhanced Pat Downs And TSA Groping - BlackListed News

2010-11-24T11:40:00.000-05:00

22 Incredibly Revealing Quotes About Enhanced Pat Downs And TSA Groping - BlackListed News

The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother - thestar.com

2010-11-22T20:51:00.000-05:00

The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother - thestar.com

Hillsdale College - Imprimis

2010-11-10T13:32:00.000-05:00

Hillsdale College - Imprimis

Oregon Inlet difficult? Easy compared to this entry!

2010-11-08T16:35:00.000-05:00

Our National Anthem.

2010-11-06T11:41:00.004-04:00

Thanks for the Memories!

2010-11-04T13:41:00.000-04:00

Liberty Is the Theme, Again — Mises Economics Blog

2010-11-03T17:33:00.000-04:00

Liberty Is the Theme, Again — Mises Economics Blog

Alice Dancing Under the Gallows

2010-11-03T10:39:00.000-04:00

Did you Know?

2010-11-02T17:07:00.002-04:00

Corruption As Usual

2010-11-02T10:15:00.000-04:00

Corruption As Usual

Celebrating Proposition 19, Version 2

2010-10-31T11:04:00.000-04:00

Celebrating Proposition 19, Version 1

2010-10-31T11:02:00.000-04:00

Dredging Pictures

2010-10-29T16:41:00.000-04:00

I had a tour today of the dredging spoils site and I was absolutely amazed at the size of the site when compared to the North Marina site of last year. In fact, I took some pictures with my phone to try to give you a perspective.

This is the left side of the secondary de-watering containment area (pit). Note the wall height. Once the walls are completed and plastic lined, it will be dug, two feet deeper.

This is the right side of the same area. Yes, that is a bulldozer climbing the rear wall. The backhoe construction shovel is completing the remaining portion of the wall.

Here is a truck dumping a load of sand into the remaining empty wall area. On site sand has been used. The site has had approximately 200 truck loads of sand brought in at approximately 100 loads per day. Two more days of truck loads should do it.

These two fine gentlemen are watching the truck dump its load so that the backhoe construction shovel can fill in the wall with more sand. If you look behind them, into the distance, you will see the wall of the primary de-watering containment area (pit) that still needs to be completed. It will be connected to the secondary containment area (pit) by pipe. All work should be completed by November 14, 2010 and it should be operational.

Obamacare, explained.

2010-10-29T08:27:00.000-04:00

The Killing and Reviving of the American Dream

2010-10-22T16:38:00.000-04:00

http://mises.org/daily/4776

The World According to San Francisco.

2010-10-17T18:43:00.002-04:00

The Original Enviro-Nazis

2010-10-13T10:38:00.000-04:00

The Original Enviro-Nazis

The Playoffs-Game One of Two!

2010-10-11T18:21:00.000-04:00

Immigration: A Gumball Explanation.

2010-10-07T09:35:00.000-04:00

One Nation Rally

2010-10-04T18:29:00.001-04:00

How quickly we forget about the millions killed because of the socialistic philosophies of Marx and Lenin and the socialistic practices of Stalin and Mao.

Thoughts on Plastic Bag Legislation.

2010-10-03T13:18:00.000-04:00

Was George Carlin predicting Senator Basnight's recent plastic bag law?
(This video contains language not appropriate for children. It is after all a Carlin video.)

Some Levity for the Weekend! (We all could use some!)

2010-10-01T18:27:00.000-04:00

Dominion NC Power: +14% or -.24%

2010-09-30T09:42:00.002-04:00

You may have read, in your local paper, that your Dominion Power monthly electricity bills will be going up 14%. That inspired local governments to jump on their political bandwagons and protest by passing resolutions. Fortunately, that article was wrong. Surprise! A much better article was written by Reggie Ponder in the Daily Advance on September 3, 2010. This newspaper services Elizabeth City, NC.

Mr. Ponder, writes an excellent analysis, which is composed of the following data, gleaned from an interview with Michael Thompson, of Dominion North Carolina Power, showing the company's rate filing history.

Dominion filed with the N.C. Utility Commission, on Feb.15, 2010, for a base rate increase of $29.4 million and a fuel rate hike of $16.7 million, an overall increase of $46.1 million, or roughly 14%. On August 10, 2010, Dominion filed for an annual fuel adjustment, decreasing the fuel charge to $28.1 million, from the $16.7 million dollar increase. On August 27, 2010, Dominion filed an update to the base rate reducing it to $26.7 million from the original $29.4 million. And on September 1, 2010, Dominion filed for an adjusted fuel rate decrease, dropping it to $27.6 million from the proposed $28.1 million. The net effect is a -.24% decrease in the proposed rate change so that your new electricity bills, from Dominion, will be less in the upcoming year.

Dominion Power will not be filing for a base rate increase next year. In a Virginia Pilot article, http://hamptonroads.com/print/542205, written by Carolyn Shapiro, describing a 9% increase, she states that Dominion Power has not had a base rate increase in 17 years. In 2005, Dominion reached an agreement with the North Carolina Utilities Commision to decrease the base rates by about 6% and freeze them through April, 2010. Since that time, the company has added 13,900 customers and invested $168 million to improve its system. Dominion is allowed to request annual fuel adjustments.

So what is my point? We have a utility that we expect much from. We want it to respond to any call we make. We expect them to bring spare crews in from various parts of the State when a hurricane is upon us. We expect them to upgrade their services and equipment to keep abreast with our electricity demands. We expect them to have the power back on immediately, if not sooner, when it is interrupted for any reason. But when it comes time to pay for this service, we do not want to give them a rate increase. How are we to expect this utility or any utility, to survive and continue servicing our needs, if we do not respond positively to their requests? If they go bankrupt, and we have no power, where will we be?

I should point out to you that historically there has always been the debate as to what has increased the life expectancy of human beings. Some say it is clean water. Some say it is sewage treatment. Some say it is advances in medicine. There are those who say that ultimately it is Thomas Alva Edison's improvements to the incandescent light bulb and his creation of electrical distribution systems because without electricity, the other three could not have happened.

What will you do when the lights go out?

TOSS on Facebook

2010-09-29T17:15:00.000-04:00

If you would like to get your Town news faster, either on your laptop or smartphone, just sign on to your Facebook account and search for the "Town of Southern Shores."

Another way would be to use your browser and this link, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Southern-Shores-NC/Town-of-Southern-Shores/110024009028798?ref=ts to open the page and then click on the "Like" button.

That is all it takes to be current with your Town.

September 12, 2010

2010-09-19T14:25:00.000-04:00

   In Matters of Style, Swim with the Current.
   In Matters of Principle, Stand Like A Rock
   ------Thomas Jefferson

Beach Traffic

2010-09-08T12:52:00.000-04:00

At the last council meeting we had a short presentation by the head of our life guard service. He has the beach divided up into sections with life guards responsible for performing a head count between the hours of 11 AM and 2 PM. Most days the count is completed by noon. He sometimes checks to see if the count is correct. This is done seven days a week. Yes, it is only one instance in time during a day and yes, the numbers of actual beach goers is most likely larger but it is an interesting statistic.

So far this year, from June through the first week of September, we have had 136,897 individuals on our beach. Last year, from June through the end of September, there were 155,653 visitors to the beach. The beach was closed only two days this year due to a high rip current threat. The lifeguards had 48 rescues and 23 assists. They had 58 medical calls and 10 EMS calls. They had 5,130 advisories, which consist of
cautioning beach goers what they may or may not do. There were also 18 dog warnings which seemed to be primarily after 6 PM.

Just in.....new census data..........the town population is now estimated to be 2,616.

Your Three Cents.

2010-08-04T15:41:00.000-04:00

As you may know, the Town is collecting an additional three cents of tax revenue to rebuild an ailing infrastructure, specifically roads, canals, and now a bridge. Each penny of tax is worth approximately $172,000 in collected revenue, which works out to be $516,000.

Now you may be thinking that you thought that we had just spent over $11,000 to repair a bridge. You are right but that was for repair to the Tall Pine Bridge. We have another bridge that is ailing. It is the culvert bridge that crosses over a canal and is a part of Trinitie Trail, just South of Chicahauk. It has an erosion issue which started as a pot hole in the bridge's asphalt surface. At first, it was thought not to be a problem until, while being repaired and filled, it became an endless pit, with fill entering and disappearing into an endless void. It finally was filled and covered with asphalt but the pot hole is beginning to slowly reappear. The Town has an excellent engineer who went to inspect the bridge. Even though he is not a structural engineer, he could see that the bridge suffered many issues. The main problem being that the original oval of this metal culvert bridge is distending and bending at the top and becoming weaker. The bridge also has several erosional areas, which are problematic. The last time this bridge had been maintained with improvements to its structure was in 1993, seventeen years ago, and the Town does have those plans and the engineer has spoken to the company that "fixed" it. We are not sure of the exact age of this bridge but the issues that generated the repairs seventeen years ago have returned again, along with the visible distortion of the metal culvert.

The Town engineer believes that the bridge is a safety concern and needs to be replaced. Included, with a slide presentation, were copies of two proposed contracts between the Town and two engineering firms. The first was to create a topographical survey and the second to study the substrata by doing core drilling samplings to see what type of bridge can be placed on the property. Questions arose regarding the cost of replacement. A caste concrete bridge, with installation and road repair, would cost, approximately, upwards of $750,000. Your Council also asked about repairing the bridge. For that process to begin, an assessment has to be made to see if a repair is even feasible. The Town Engineer was asked to hire a structural engineer to find out the extent of the problem and the cost of repair, if possible. Repair estimates, pulled out of the air, are around $150,000.

I do not know what Federal or State Grant monies are available for bridge replacement but I can assure you that this avenue will be fully explored, as will the entire project.

On a more positive note, the bids for Poteskeet Trail, Old Passage Lane, and Gray Squirrel Lane came in today. Both bids are under the projected cost and are in the low $400,000 range. Council will have a special meeting to accept the lowest bid and get this street improvement project underway.

I will keep you in the loop as more information comes in about the bridge, or, you can come to a Council meeting and get the information first hand.

Deputy Chief Dave Shrader's WTKR Responses.

2010-07-31T13:56:00.002-04:00

If you read me previous "WTKR" post, you read Mike Mather's comment as follows: "I also will have to pass on a thank-you to Dave Shrader. Like you, I am sure he's less than delighted with the story, but he exuded professionalism when I met him. And in our "comments" section on the wtkr.com web site (which is now filled with name-calling and immature rants) he's responded with accuracy and dignity."

I thought that I would post those comments for your review.

I'm a volunteer member of the Southern Shores Fire Department and can shed some light on some of the misinformed comments here.

1) The Chief was originally elected and a volunteer. The duties of the job grew due to reporting and management requirements. The membership voted overwhelmingly to pay the Chief, the Board approved it and offered the position to the man we had elected for several years in a row.

2) The SSVFD budget did not grow by 74% this year. Last year's budget was $555,322. This year it is $558,000 (not counting the $50,000 debt service on the 800 mhz radio system). Last year, the Town paid only $300,000 of the department budget with the rest coming from taxes at Martin's Point, donations and the fire department's capital reserve. This year, the Town is paying its full share of the budget for the first time in a number of years. SSVFD has financed a growing portion of its operations by spending its reserve for at least the past 3 years. Now, that's not an option because most of it was spent in subsidizing the Town to hold the line on taxes.

3) Every year since 1982, SSVFD has had an independent audit and submitted it to the Town and County as required under our contracts. Another condition of the Town contract allows any citizen to make an appointment and review the SSVFD books.(And Dan, showing up 2 hours late for the appointment and then trying to pick a fight with a girl is rude and childish)

4) SSVFD does not pay any firefighters to respond to calls. Kitty Hawk has paid on call FF's, Southern Shores does not.

5) The LOSAP program is a common fire department tool to aid in retention of volunteers. It is a Rabbi Trust- essentially a deferred annuity program that contributes a small amount of money annually to an account on behalf of FF's meeting the requirements. Those requirements are to make 25% of Fire calls and 36 hours of department training each year. After 5 years a member is vested and can withdraw funds after leaving the department. Dan, you can just ask your father-in-law about it since Al, Don and Merrie all withdrew their funds. Al and Don were even "double dippers." They got double shares each year because of a clause they helped put in the trust that made some members "more equal than others."

Gotta go to a fire call, more later.

OK, back from the call.

6) Somebody asked how many calls does this department run? its about 500 a year. More in the summer and fewer in the winter. More than 60% of them are medical calls. We "first respond" with EMS to stabilize patients before their arrival, initiate care and help in moving patients. On many medical calls, two EMS people would not be able to safely remove patients from the 3rd floor and then down the outside steps, or off the beach without our help. The only other solution would require a lot more paid EMS crews. Volunteers doing this jobs saves the taxpayer a lot of money. Every additional ambulance staffed by the County would add about $500,000 in cost to taxpayers.

7) The Trucks. The 2 new engines were not an unexpected development. They were purchased, on schedule, to replace 2 old engines that were becoming expensive to maintain. At the time of replacement, the old engines were 20 and 19 years old. By buying 2 at once, SSVFD saved about $150,000 in discounts from the manufacturer, better financing terms and by avoiding new model year cost increases due to new regulations. We gained 2 identical trucks, improving standardization and reducing future maintenance and training costs. We also got safety features including shoulder belts, antilock brakes, airbags and other items that the old trucks didn't have but nearly all passenger cars do. We don't apologize for improving the safety of our members and the community.

The new trucks also add new capabilities. Compressed Air Foam (CAFS) uses Class A foam with air injected into it to put fires out 800% faster with less water and less property damage. The improved extrication capabilities of both trucks have been used to safely remove several SS residents from their badly wrecked vehicles, in addition to extricating non-residents. The new trucks have the capacity to carry more firefighters and equipment to each call. That's good because we frequently respond with all 6 seats on each apparatus filled with qualified firefighters.

Prior to Don Smith's election as Mayor, we met with every council member and candidate to explain our 5 year projected plan and costs. After he was elected, we met with him and every other council member to reinforce the information. Until Don asked our Chief to no longer participate in staff meetings, council reports and the budget retreat, he continued to report these items to the Council. During the Fire Service Advisory Board,(in which Charlie, Jim and Kevin participated) SSVFD provided the projected costs for the next 5 years and it was given to the entire council then too.

The projected cost for the trucks was provided to the council dozens of times over a period of at least 2 years before they were purchased. We held an advertised public hearing on the financing of the trucks, as required by law, yet no Town representative chose to come.

8) On one of these forums, somebody saying he's a FF from KDH took a cheap shot claiming that SSVFD should let "real firefighters" do the work. Well, sorry to burst his bubble, but our people are real firefighters. How would I know? I've had a 37 year career in public safety. As a firefighter, paramedic, flight medic, special ops medic, SWAT team member and police officer in SC, NC, CA, FL, TN and GA. Now in my paying job, I evaluate and redesign Fire and EMS departments all over the country. My clients currently range in size from 6 to 46 stations. With that career experience, I can tell you that I've never found a group of firefighters that I would be more proud to work with than the volunteers at SSVFD.

Interestingly, while most fire departments on the OBX respond with 1-3 paid firefighters on a truck and can muster only 1-3 apparatus. SSVFD averages 21 Firefighters on scene of any working fire. It is for our manpower that Nags Head, KDH, Colington, Kitty Hawk, Duck and Currituck County have called us so often in mutual aid.

Somebody commented on one of these forums that the Town should just contract with Kitty Hawk. Well, they tried. Don and Charlie attempted to do that last year rather than contract with their own volunteers. There were a couple of problems with that approach.

First, Kitty Hawk would require a lot more money than SSVFD requires. That's what Kitty Hawk told the Town.

Second, through mutual aid agreements, Kitty Hawk and Duck rely on SSVFD to keep their fire ratings. Without SSVFD, property insurance rates would go up in Southern Shores and also in Kitty Hawk and Duck. Kitty Hawk currently staffs one truck at one station with usually 3 firefighters. In addition, they have a paid Chief, Fire Inspector and Ocean Rescue Supervisor and pay about $95,500 for lifeguards. They also have some volunteers. The current approved budget for Kitty Hawk is $2,019,232, or about 4 times what SSVFD requires to staff 2 stations with more responding personnel per incident.

$888,882 of the Kitty Hawk total is for salaries and benefits.$998,400 is for capital items and debt service on their station. If we remove the Capital costs, the operating budget is $1,302,832. 68% of that amount is for salaries and benefits alone.

In contrast the "people costs" at SSVFD are about $198,000 or about 35% of our budget. People costs include that paid Fire Chief, two part time secretaries, Payroll taxes LOSAP, required dues immunizations, worker's comp, state pension contributions, uniforms and awards. And we staff 2 stations with more responding firefighters.

This is not a criticism of Kitty Hawk. The hardest business to manage that I know is a combination Fire Department, one with paid and volunteer firefighters. They do as good a job as can be expected with the resources they have.

But for Kitty Hawk to take over and staff two stations, something that would be required to preserve the fire rating, they would have to at least triple the size and expense of their department. Even if they didn't keep the current rating, to meet minimum state staffing requirements, they would have to add at least 18 people. That's not as good a deal as we have today.

So what about these fire ratings? what benefit does the SSVFD bring to the taxpayers?

The NC Office of the State FIre Marshal (NCOSFM), which is really the Insurance Commissioner, rates all Fire Departments in the state. The ratings range from a 1 (best) to a 9S (worst) or 10 (unrated). SSVFD is currently a 5 and is overdue for a re-inspection, which will probably improve the rating to 4 or 3. Insurance rates for businesses and homeowners go down as the rating improves. Residential rates stop improving once the rating of 6 or better is reached, but business premiums continue to improve all the way to a 1.

I did an analysis, using information from the NCOSFM, last year of insurance rates for the $1.7Billion in insured (and taxed) property in Southern Shores. The current rating of 5 saves the homeowners of Southern Shores approximately $5Million in lower insurance premiums each year. So, for $473,000 invested in the Fire Department this year, premium savings total $5Million. That's a return on your investment of more than 10 to 1.

The volunteers at SSVFD are currently 62 people who unselfishly donate their time and sometimes risk their lives to provide a benefit to their community. We do this not only because it saves everyone some money, but also to try to make a difference in the world. To help people and make our community a better place to live.

The sour grapes of our former Mayor (Yes Don, former. Like you told Jody, "You Lost, now get over it!"), our previous town manager (who left rather than get fired for misconduct) and a few citizens like Dan Osman here (who is Don's son-in-law and not exactly an innocent babe himself), are manufacturing this conflict for their own gain.

Shame on them!

My information comes from several sources.

First, I'm the volunteer Deputy Chief at SSVFD. I have been a member of the department for 9 years. Prior to that I had a 30 year paid career in public safety as a firefighter, EMT, paramedic, flight medic, Special Ops medic, Swat Team member, Police Officer, Asst. Chief, Chief, COO and CEO. Now, my paying job is as the owner of a Public Safety Consulting group with an international practice mostly in Fire and EMS System Design, Evaluation and Improvement. That background gives me a lot of information and ideas of where to find it.

Most of my information is available to anyone. Town and FD records as well as press accounts will corroborate most of it. Budget and other data from other Towns is available on their websites.

I have been a participant in most of the meetings, hearings, committees and Boards that have addressed these issues.

Additionally, I chaired the Truck Committee that designed, specified and purchased the new trucks. I also set up the Tax Free Municipal Capital Leases that saved the department and the Town a lot of money.

Unlike some who have offered naive or misinformed comments here, I have national career experience in these issues. I also actually drive and pump fire trucks, fight fire, handle rescue calls and am frequently the incident commander on calls.

So, my experience is mostly first hand.

Yep! That's the form 990 for 2007 (FY-2007-2008). Looks like the Town paid 291,400 of the total $535,000 program in 2007-08. During that year, we received a federal grant for $94,240 to install the OSHA required exhaust extraction equipment and the Town paid the department $100,000 that had been reserved and restricted by the Town for the department in two previous years. As part of the last minute contract negotiation with Charlie and Don, the department agreed to underfunding so long as that $100k would transfer and become unrestricted except that it be applied to capital items. Most of that $100,000 was used by the department to offset the Town's refusal to pay its full cost of service the following year. The small balance remained in the Capital reserve until it was spent last year, along with most of the rest of the reserve (total $185,000 spent) to offset yet another year of underfunding by the Town.

Here are some real budget numbers for you:

FYE 2005 Total Budget=$312,556 TOSS paid $234,410

FYE 2006 Total Budget=$596,777 TOSS Paid $538,105 ($238,105 +$300,000 toward new truck)

FYE 2007 Total Budget=$386,081 TOSS paid $286,771

FYE 2008 Total Budget=$447,711 TOSS paid $291,400 (+ transfer in June of $100k)

FYE 2009 Total Budget=$494,398 TOSS paid $311,250 (used $ 77,422 from Reserves)

FYE 2010 Total Budget=$553,322 TOSS paid $300,000 (used $185,000 from Reserves)

FYE 2011 Total Budget=$558,798 TOSS paid $473,000 (+$50,000 separately for 800 mhz radios)

All of the numbers are available to anyone who asks. No mystery here.

That's the point. We have nothing to hide. We submit a budget, with all of the detail requested by the Town and County and we undergo and submit an independent audit every year. If some Town Councilman hasn't read the information that we have provided every single year, then maybe you have problem with the Council member rather than the Fire Department.

You need to make an appointment so that somebody who knows where everything is can help you find it. We are, after all volunteers and not all at the station all of the time. If you want 9-5 staffing, it'll cost you millions and that's kinda the whole point of this whole discussion.

The last guy who didn't make an appointment was Mike Mather. He showed up at 6:15 PM looking for the Chief. Hmmmm, How many Fire Chiefs would have been out of the office after the close of the business day? The last guy (Dan) to make an appointment showed up 2 hours late and then threatened one of our firefighters.

Tell us when you want to see the books and who you are and I'll arrange it. If that's too much trouble, ask the Town for a copy of the audit.

Funny how some people never think about the big picture is.

Why do we even have a Town? After all, the fine folks in Martin's Point don't have a Town, nor do they have all this crap. They seem to be fine. Some of my best friends "just say no" to Towns.

In 1982 the people of what is now this Town decided that maybe they could provide better services than the County offered. Over the years, that has come to mean a local (and very professional) police force rather than being a subsidiary of the "Colington PD." It meant a local Fire Department that could protect property and people. It meant lifeguard service, public works, planning, permits, chipping, street maintenance, enhanced trash and recycling pick-ups...a whole lot of stuff. But it also meant politics.

So we formed a Town. Incorporated and agreed to tax ourselves to provide some collective services that would be either too expensive or difficult to do as individuals. Strength in numbers. Economies of scale. All that stuff.

Why even have a Fire Department? I mean, what the hell, my house house never burned down. I take personal responsibility. I have extinguishers and a garden hose (as well as 37 years of training). Screw it, why spend the money?

For that matter who needs a professional police department? I was a SWAT officer. I'm still a good shot. My wife is a better shot. I'm pretty aware and have big dogs. I could invest in some shovels to burry bad guys on my lot. What are the odds that the Flat Screen Bandit will get away with something at my house? What are the odds that the people who have recently threatened my life would be on the receiving end of a pretty intense firefight? I could be pretty comfortable with that. Personal Responsibility sounds OK to me.

But. it doesn't work for everyone. My next door neighbor would have a hard time fighting off a home invasion. She could be pretty effective with her cane, but at 90 lbs and more than 80 years, I would fear for her safety. Of course, I look out for her and could help her, but what about other neighbors? We have some vulnerable and frail people in this Town who deserve good public safety services. We also have a lot of people who are not home all day.

A couple of weeks ago, we responded to a fire that was accidentally set by a worker doing repairs on a house. The owner was out of town- 3 hours away. We used our equipment, including more than $1MM in firetrucks, a $10,000 thermal imaging camera, and some tools to find the seat of the fire smoldering in the walls and put it out. It was not obvious. Without training and some advanced equipment, you could not have found it. Had we either left, or not responded that $500k house and all of its contents would likely have been lost. As it is, we did a couple of thousand dollars of damage to prevent a half million dollar loss.

So what do we get this year for a $558,000 fire department. Well one lucky owner, just a couple of week ago got to keep his half million dollar house and possessions for his $137.50 investment in taxes to support the FD. He couldn't have dealt with that situation without the collectivized risk/expense of a well funded and equipped Fire Department.

The owner owns a local business that employs a lot of people. Had he lost his home, the ripple effect of job losses would have touched others. And, that's just one call. Another neighbor got to keep his life a month or so ago. I guess its in what you value. Some people care more about saving a penny on their taxes than they do about the lives and property of their neighbors.

You would think that a former Mayor who is a Certified Life Underwriter would understand SOMETHING about collective risk and actuarial analysis. But alas, no.

Pat's Point

2010-07-29T19:19:00.000-04:00

I was so ticked that the paper's article gave credence to the attacks on George that I wrote this letter to be delivered to their office tomorrow. Like George said "Bring 'em on!!" We are behind you.

Pat Wilson

Dear Editor:

An Open Letter to the residents of the Town of Southern Shores:

RE: Fire Dept. article in Sunday’s Coastland Times, July 25, 2010.

You have one of the best-trained fire departments on the Outer Banks. The men and women who serve YOU and save YOU and YOUR houses and businesses, are VOLUNTEERS.

That means they train every Wednesday night and are on call for YOU 24-7.When they go into a fire they risk their life and limbs to save YOU. They are NOT PAID; with the sole necessary exception of the Fire Chief, THEY ARE VOLUNTEERS!!

I have a very minor role as a woman on the rehab team. We are there to give aid to the fire people when they come out of a fire. We give them water, gator aid, cold wet towels and take their vitals. No matter what the weather, but especially in 100-degree heat, these people come out soaking wet because of the equipment they must wear to be relatively safe on the job.

I have given wet towels and water to George Kowalski. Someone at the Town Council Meeting accused him of having a “conflict of interest” because he serves in both, the fire department and the board of Southern Shores and therefore he wants the FBI to investigate George! We are talking about a man who VOLUNTEERS in two important positions. I can assure you he gets no kickbacks from either position!!

I want to know, citizens of the Town of Southern Shores who are so obsessed with tearing down our fire department; what are you volunteering to do in our community? Have you made it a better and safer place to live? Or, are you one of those folks who complain and do nothing?

As for taxes, let me tell you I have a conflict of interest since I live here in my home, the greatest fiscal investment I have, and I like having garbage picked up (imagine what our beautiful town would smell like without that service), lifeguards on my beach (God only knows how many lives they save!), a great police force with guns, bullets and cars to defend me if I need it. I like chipping (since we do not have chipping in the summer things start looking a little trashy by August). I like well-maintained streets (Finally we are getting around to fixing them). I especially like the Southern Shores Volunteer Fire Department and I am willing to pay taxes for all of those services, which make our town a great place to live, and in the long term helps my investment.

Pat Wilson
Town of Southern Shores

WTKR

2010-07-28T23:40:00.000-04:00

Several of us on Council received an anonymous email today (7/28/2010) shown below. After Monday night's program on WTKR, the author can be guessed. I sent an email to Mike Mather, who wrote the story for WTKR, showing him a new set of allegations, based upon his story. I thought that you might like to read his response.

-----Original Message-----

From: G Kowalski [mailto:GKowalski@southernshores-nc.gov]

Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 5:55 PM

To: Mather, Mike

Subject: FW: SCANDAL IN SOUTHERN SHORES

Hi Mike,

I thought that you might like a copy of the latest email sent to members of the council regarding your future programs.

Take care,

George Kowalski, Southern Shores.

-----Original Message-----

From: starwars [mailto:nonscrivetemi@tatooine.homelinux.net]

Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 9:41 AM

To: haldenny@charter.net

Subject: SCANDAL IN SOUTHERN SHORES

Channel 3 aired their first expose entitled SCANDAL IN SOUTHERN SHORES on Monday July 26th. which focused on the sleazy town dealings with the fire department.

Subsequent segments will focus on the several conflicts of interest by the mayor and councilmenbers Hess and Kowalski, the citizen's petition calling for an investigation by the FBI as well as the Mayor's secret meetings with councilmembers Hess and Kowalski and secret budget preparation with the finance officer.

Hey, George.

I always like to know what I am doing before I actually do it. But I can say honestly that I have no plans to expand this story, unless something startling happens. As you probably heard in the story, every expert I contacted said your position with the fire department creates no conflict with town council, so I don't know why someone thinks I am pursuing that.

I do want to say thank-you for sitting down with me. I am sure you aren't thrilled with the story, but I did very much enjoy speaking with you. I have reviewed a ton of town emails copied under FOIA, and they show you are clearly engaged in the office for which you were elected.

I also will have to pass on a thank-you to Dave Shrader. Like you, I am sure he's less than delighted with the story, but he exuded professionalism when I met him. And in our "comments" section on the wtkr.com web site (which is now filled with name-calling and immature rants) he's responded with accuracy and dignity.

Take care,

Mike

From Those Who Know.

2010-07-27T15:25:00.000-04:00

For those of you who were at the last council meeting, you are aware of the fact that my days of quietly listening to the members of the public, while being yelled at with innuendos, ignorance, insults, and alike, are over. I will be responding, in some fashion, to all future controversies, immediately, or I will present the arguments and views of others, with whom I am in agreement with. As always, I am more than happy to discuss any concerns that any citizen has, as long as we can calmly speak to each other, as adults and have an equal exchange of ideas.

My first response is by presenting Dave Sanders who has returned to writing his excellent blog. You can find it here: http://southernshorestimes.blogspot.com/. Dave has much to say about what has been happening around town of late and his writings are thoughtful, honest, and filled with the accurate past. One day he may be the town historian.

The second response is a letter from my fire department friend Andy M., who wrote me the following email. I am publishing it with his permission:

George,

These guys are taking advantage of the reporters eagerness for a sensational story. They fail to mention that the whole thing is driven by the former mayor who just lost an election by an overwhelming majority. The angry resident that they quote is his stepson (corr."son-in-law", ed.). The other guy they show is the former town manager who resigned a few months after receiving a long term contract extension.

The truth is less exciting. However, it is the truth. The Coastland times seems to be anxious to print what ever the former mayor tells them. And now he has maneuvered CH 3 into making fools of themselves. Fortunately, we now have the internet available to publish information.

It would be very helpful to have an online reference that provides the truth that people can refer to when making decisions for the next election in two years. If there is already a plan for that, please let me know.

Your blog could be the link to the truth.

How about a detailed history of the funding of the fire department and the fact that the town has been advised about the requirement for capital expenditures for years?

An explanation of how the VFD is governed. Including the willingness of the board to meet and work with the town manager.

The comparative costs of SS and Duck and KH FD.

The history of the former mayor and the turn over in key staff that he caused in the town.

The town budget and the real reasons that it was increased.

I am willing to use some of my new found free time to help promote truth, justice and the American way.

Am

The Old Farmer's Advice

2010-07-25T10:36:00.000-04:00

The Old Farmer's Advice:

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.

Life is simpler when you plow around the stump..

A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered... not yelled.

Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.

Forgive your enemies; it messes up their heads.

Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

You cannot unsay a cruel word.

Every path has a few puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.

Don't judge folks by their relatives.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Live a good, honorable life.. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.

Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't bothering you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a Rain Dance.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

The biggest trouble maker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around..

Live simply.. Love generously. Care deeply.
Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.
--
Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight,
he'll just shoot you.
And,

Pat Condell on Ground Zero mosque: "Is it possible to be astonished, but not surprised?" - Jihad Watch

2010-07-24T18:43:00.000-04:00

Pat Condell on Ground Zero mosque: "Is it possible to be astonished, but not surprised?" - Jihad Watch

Murphy's Lesser Known Dictums...

2010-07-21T09:30:00.000-04:00

Hatred - the anger of the weak.
- Alphonse Daudet

History is a vast early warning system.
- Norman Cousins

Home is not where you live but where they understand you.
- Cristion Morgenstern

I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs instead of tugs.
- Shel Silverstein

It is human nature to hate the man whom you have hurt.
- Publius Cornelius Tacitus

It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.
- Rollo May

Humor may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and the artistic expression thereof.
- Stephen Leacock

Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
- James Baldwin

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
- Charles Darwin

The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves.
- Plato

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
- Theodore M. Hesburgh

It's impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your country, and your principles, all at the same time.
- Mignon McLaughlin

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.
- Maya Angelou

In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous.
- Robert G. Ingersoll

Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip.
- John Locke

Murphy's Lesser Known Dictums...

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

He who laughs last, thinks slowest.

Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

The things that come to those who wait will be the things left by those who got there first.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

The shin bone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.

A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

When you go into court, you are putting yourself In the hands of 12 people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Health Care Reform

2010-07-11T10:00:00.000-04:00

Senator Richard Burr from North Carolina has an interesting commentary on Health Care Reform that is worth reading.

http://burr.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=IssueStatements.View&Issue_id=a91c0b54-b9b6-33d2-acb9-4085dfc07a23

Talking Trash in the Town of Southern Shores

2010-07-08T08:30:00.000-04:00

The following article is written by Dave Sanders in response to the questions about trash problems raised at Wednesday night's Town Council meeting. In order to not repeat the mistakes of the past, Dave kindly agreed to write a historical synopsis of this issue. Enjoy!

Why trash?

If you look closely at the most pervasive issues in the town: Capital Improvements, cut-through traffic, height limitation, overhead utilities, parking, tax levy, trash, and the SSVFD (only in the last 5 years), I think you will find that the most time spent by council and staff, the most complaints registered, public comment, and the most changes in ordinances would be the topic of trash.

A Chronology of Trash in Southern Shores (as best my memory serves).

In the spring of 1986 after only a couple of weeks on the job as Property Manager for Southern Shores Realty, Mr. Stone asked me to attend a meeting with him at Town Hall. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss trash, the condition and appearance of Ocean Blvd., and possible changes in service.
Beside me, and Mr. Stone, the entire Town Council and possibly the Town Administrator attended. I do remember Kern Pitts and Harold Via were there and I believe Myra Ledyard, and Kay Hackney were both present.

At that time garbage collection consisted of two pickups a week throughout town, year round, with an additional pickup during the summer season from Duck Road, East to the Ocean Front (Beach Zone). This included both sides of Duck Road, Ocean Blvd., Circle Drive and Seacrest Village. Although there were a number of rental properties in the Dunes area and a few in Chikahuak, these areas were not included.
Each property was required to have a trash rack with two trash cans at the Town right-of-way. Rental properties were to have four trash cans in a rack. Pickups were scheduled on Monday’s (Tuesday’s?), Thursday and Saturday (Beach Zone only). There were a few rental properties that were required to have additional cans.

One topic of interest at that meeting was the possibility of an automated pickup system. There was considerable concern as to such a system being viable in a vacation rental area.

As a result of this meeting Mr. Stone asked that I do what ever I could to assist the Town in resolving the trash problems. I began attending the regular council meetings and offering suggestions whenever possible. We also agreed on a trial process to test the implementation of the automated pickup.

I selected 20 rental properties scattered about town to place rollout cans. On check-in day the tenants were presented with special instructions regarding where to place and when to roll them out to the street and back. Each location was checked and results recorded after each scheduled pickup

Even though the neighboring properties in each case were using trash rack cans instead of the roll-out cans I found that overall we had an 88% compliance with the pickup and roll back process. The council then began discussions with the contractor to implement automated pickups. The primary incentives I believe were the cost savings due to the reduction in manpower and speed of the pickup process (fewer hours).

Subsequent Years.

After the second or third season of the automated pickup program, it became apparent that not everyone was complying with the rollback requirement. Eventually, pressure on the council to do something resulted in an ordinance that threatened a $500 fine for each instance beginning with the second offense. At the end of the meeting where that was adopted, I approached Mayor Pitts concerned about the severity of the fines. He responded by stating that “we just passed that in order to scare people into compliance”, “we’ll never enforce it”.

After a while council quietly established a process where a part time employee surveyed the town after pickups to roll back any offending cans. This continued for a number of years up until Carl Classen’s tenure as Town Manager when a part-timer could not be found to fill the position.

Suddenly, in the mid-90’s a new phenomenon materialized that caused a lot of consternation in the community. Additional, bags of trash began to appear, stacked up around the rollout cans, causing a lot of missed pickups and strewn debris. For fear that the pickup arm would knock over and break the bags; the trash trucks would simply drive past these situations.

Because of complaints from tenants, owners, and town staff, I routinely hauled those to various dumpsters for disposal. What I found and eventually got council to understand was that the bags were actually the tenants and owners attempt to recycle. There were usually two bags at each location, one with glass and the other containing plastics or aluminum.

As recycling involves material that would be included in the waste stream I believe a little of that history is pertinent to this topic. Initial efforts of the town to recycle began with a set of dumpsters at the town storage lot behind the SSVFD South Station, one each for glass, aluminum, plastic, and paper/cardboard. Run by volunteers, I believe this may have lasted for about three years. At first the recycle center was open on Tuesday and Saturday mornings. But as the volunteer’s enthusiasm declined and the Saturday hours were eliminated, the program failed. Working families couldn’t participate without the Saturday program.

I believe it was at this point that a couple of dumpsters from the town storage facility were moved outside of the fenced town property into the parking lot behind the South Station (more on that later).

The next attempt at recycling involved a modest curbside pickup system contracted through SPSA (they may have been involved in the dumpster program). Small blue plastic boxes were distributed to all the homes for recycled items to be placed in at the street side for pickup. It wasn’t long before people started requesting two or even three more boxes. Also, a lot of these materials would blow out of the boxes since they were loose and exposed to the wind, this lead to the current curbside program with a new contractor.

During this time further issues regarding trash surfaced. The contract price for pickup kept creeping up, landfill fees increased, and other demands on town resources forced the council to look for ways to balance the budget and avoid a tax increase. Along with complaints from citizens that the Beach Zone properties were getting a “free ride” on that third trash pickup, the council decided to economize by eliminating that pickup.
Complaints on trash problems were submitted in record numbers that next spring, frustrating both council and staff alike. A decision was made to increase the number of cans required for rental properties to alleviate an overflow of trash.

You have to remember that at this point (late 90’s to about 2006) construction and real estate in general was booming here, creating more occupancy and more trash.

Back to the dumpsters at the SSVFD; these became the “safety valves” for overflow and missed pickup trash problems. Also, locals discovered that this was a good place to get rid of anything from broken chairs to hazardous materials that they didn’t know how to dispose of properly. The area became an unsightly, dangerous at times, mess.

More properties and more rollout cans equaled more opportunities to screw up.
If you have 700 vacation homes with an average of three rollout cans each and two pickups a week; what are the odds you would have a 100% compliance rate? How about a verified 90% compliance rate? That would result in over 200 rollout cans laying around on the town right-of-way at some point, on a weekly basis.
In the fall one year the town council with the Town Manager’s guidance decided to resolve the trash problem once and for all. The old ordinances were reviewed and a multi-faceted all encompassing ordinance, inspection, and elaborate fine system was devised.

All cans were to be rolled back within 24 hours under threat of a graduated fine program that began at $25 and increased by $25 for each subsequent occurrence (I don’t remember a cap on that). The first instance in each case resulted in a warning letter along with some informational material. Town employees were assigned to cruise the streets and record violations, a database was devised to keep track of violations, warnings and fine notices were mailed. Essentially, the main effort seemed to move from trying to resolve the problems, to punishing the tax payers who may have offended.

In the mean time, to resolve the mess at the South Station the council decided to remove the dumpsters, much to the relief of the SSVFD membership, but, in effect, exacerbating the problem for those property owners and residents leaving town on Sunday’s. They couldn’t leave their rollout cans sitting at the street for Monday pickup in fear of being fined.

To say the least, the response from those property owners warned or cited was less than enthusiastic. I believe staff was often berated, threatened, and stymied for a good explanation. A common question that I encountered was “If you are going to that much trouble to cite me, couldn’t you just roll that can back while you’re at it?

Eventually, the burden on staff and Town Manager became too complex and convoluted for them to bear. Council voted to remove the fines and pursue a program of education instead,
This brings us up to the comments made at last night’s Council Meeting. The trash problems still exist. There is no means of dealing with excess trash, missed pickups, cans not rolled back, or odd items and debris from home repairs. These things tend to be passed around and spread about to other locations in town.

Personal Opinion

Over the years I believe that the successive town councils have been involved in what I term “waste stream denial”. Most actions to alleviate the problem have resulted in unintended consequences or magnification of the issues. Yet, there doesn’t seem to have been any attempt to quantify or determine the true waste stream needs of the community.

The service has been based on cost rather than need.

To a certain extent I attribute this and a number of other problems in this community to the fact that the town holds very little property. There is simply no place for government to develop for certain needs in this town. One of the priorities of our government should be to purchase property within the community, especially land that might be traded with the associations for more useful locations.

Although the Kitty Hawk/Dare County facility was mentioned at the last council meeting as a possible solution, I seem to remember that on some occasions Southern Shores citizens have been turned away. But a partnership that would include Southern Shores in the use or expansion of that facility should be explored

Six Month Synopsis

2010-07-05T13:38:00.000-04:00

Having survived the last six months being a council member, I thought that I might write a short review of what has been accomplished during this time. I think that it is important that tax payers have an idea of the changes that have been created. Sometimes the information does not become public and we imagine therefore, that nothing is being done.

Of course, a major accomplishment has been the hiring of a new, experienced, town manager. I believe the success of how well a town operates is directly tied to the skills of its manager and staff. I have high hopes that this town will return to a leadership role in this county, reflective of its citizenry, and be known for innovation. We are playing catch up but at some point, I hope we get to the forefront.

The staff in the Public Works Dept. has changed. We have a new interim supervisor and improvement of services is a goal.

We raised the tax rate four and a quarter cents, three of which was for funding of future capital improvement projects. Some would argue that these are not improvements but repairs to an ailing infrastructure. Semantics aside, there are many roads to fix, canals to dredge, areas to improve, and all of this takes money. I have written about this topic extensively in previous blog posts.

We replaced the heat pump units, exchangers, and duct work in the Town office, the Pitt Center, and the Police Station. The mold infestation got to the point that replacement was the only option left.

We erected lamp posts on the Town's property and illuminated the parking lots and driveway, so that everyone can now see where they are walking at night and we no longer are violating our own lighting ordinance.

We updated and modernized the computer system in the town. We went from a shared hard drive and portable drive back up system to a modern Microsoft Exchange system with new hardware, on site back up servers with cloud back up included. The Police Department computer system was modernized the same way. All machines are now networked. All written data, including emails, is backed up. Everyone, including council members have town email addresses. All data passes through the town servers and Freedom of Information requests are now easily handled. Committee members, meeting in the Pitt Center have wireless access for any online research.

The Tall Pine Bridge was repaired by NC DOT hopefully adding a few additional years to its life. This project had been lying dormant for a year until it was resurrected.

We are in the process of hiring a new police officer to fill a position that has been vacant for a few years. We have purchased a police pick up truck and new cars to replace aging, older models.

We extended the shoulder season for Ocean Rescue and increased the roving lifeguard. Your safety and that of your family and friends and the safety of visitors is of paramount importance.

The fire department was granted an increase in budget funding to make up for the lack of funding in previous years. We need to support these volunteers because they do an excellent job of protecting us with their fire and rescue services and we get the most bang for the fire buck when comparing the budgets all of the fire departments on the beach.

I think that I may have forgotten a few items but I think that you are getting the picture. It has not been all rosy. You may remember that the dredging project did not go as planned and the contractor defaulted but with the help of our interim Town Manager, our interim consultant, and with the input and hard work of our dredging manager, we will be getting that project underway within the next several months and hopefully completed. We are beginning to plan and set in motion phase 2 of the dredging project. We have three roads to resurface and more to engineer for future resurfacing.

We are purchasing radios for the police and fire departments to comply with the State and Federal mandates for interoperability between various agencies so that we will be able to communicate when the County changes to the 800 Mhz broadcasting system, next year.

We passed a Wireless Ordinance which allows for the erection of cell phone towers in the Town under special guidelines. We are working on modifying the Town retirement benefits for employees and also modifying and adapting our bidding system to comply with current State laws.

We are like the little engine that could. A four square mile town that is on its way to recovery. Hold on! It's going to be an interesting ride!!

Tax Rates

2010-06-07T09:12:00.006-04:00

It is one thing to imagine what tax rates might be, what they should be, or need to be, but accurate information should be used in any decision making budget process. Here is a link to all of the tax rates of all cities and counties in the State of North Carolina, for the budget year of 2009-2010: http://www.dor.state.nc.us/publications/propertyrates.html

You will need a spreadsheet viewer, like Excel, to see these rates found in the first link on the loaded page: http://www.dor.state.nc.us/publications/2009-10taxrates_final.xls This is the 2009 tax rate listing but below it are all past years, going back to 1998.

Please remember that these rates do not reflect additional fees like stormwater fees. Also, these rates do not show what services are provided. To find that out, each town or county needs to be researched individually.

Happy reading!

How Did You Do It?

2010-05-30T16:53:00.002-04:00

If you were to believe a very small group of citizens, the tax increase of 4.25 cents is the worst possible catastrophe that could befall our citizenry. Of course, those of us, who have been elected, are the biggest fools, who have no idea what we are doing, and therefore any lies, exaggerations, mistruths, embellishments of the truth, criticisms, and insults can be thrown up against us. Such is the style of the “opposition,” a group who very rarely, if ever, attend a council meeting; a group, which very rarely contacts the town for information, explanations or discussions; a group, which does not want any facts or truth to change their skewed perception of reality.

As I have said before, I was elected to this position by citizenry who understood the problems that this Town faced and who wanted a change. That change has been happening and will continue. Unlike the Federal Government, you do not have to look far to see the results. The last four months of improvements have been mentioned in previous postings. So here is a list of what needs to be done next year.

The first penny and a quarter of the tax increase, which is approximately $258,000, will go towards operational expenses. This increase will cover the expenses incurred from the hiring of an additional police officer, the possible hiring of a public works supervisor, increase in fire department expenses, increase in COLA, merit pay for deserving staff members, an increase in retirement costs, increases in FICA and group health insurance, increases in vehicle maintenance and equipment leasing, an increase in audit expenses, the purchase of 800 mhz radios, the increase in cost for ocean rescue because the extension of the shoulder season and the increase in life guard coverage, the increase in recycling pickup days, the increase in unemployment insurance costs, the increase in insurance costs, and the increase in garbage collection and tipping fees. There have also been many budget decreases, too many to mention here.

Having read this list, the first thing that should come to your mind is how did they do it? How did the staff and council rearrange the budget, work the numbers, figure out the costs in order to only raise the operational costs by such a small amount, given the bills? Any complaining should be drowned out with praise. There should be pride in the fact that your elected officials, with their staff, managed to create this well thought out budget, which is very low compared to other municipalities in the State of North Carolina. Wow, amazing! Those people are creative! What a great interim manager! I am proud to live in my town! AND they even managed to hire a new town manager with an excellent resume. Holy Cow Batman! How about a pat on the back instead of circulating anonymous hateful emails!

The additional three cents tax increase is devoted to the increased infrastructure expenses, primarily roads and dredging. The list of roads to be resurfaced is shown in the budget along with the cost of each. This cost and construction plans were established by the previous council and town manager. I find the argument that this council picked the roads based upon which council member lives on them, idiotic. The Roads and Stormwater Committees established a road hierarchy for road repair, at least two years ago. The last council and town manager did not follow that hierarchy and Hickory Trail was selected to be resurfaced because its cost matched the money in the roads budget line and it was resurfaced, even though residents of the road came to a council meeting to protest the construction.

To argue that these projects should be done on a pay as you go basis is also idiotic. How many roads have been fixed in the past four years using this method? Maybe two and one cul-de-sac? The roads that are falling apart are not waiting around for their turn to be repaired. They continue to fall apart. After next year’s roads are repaired, more await their turn, with a big road repair staring us in the face, Chicahauk Trail, to the tune of $500,000 - $1,000,000 depending upon the costs for stormwater and complete road replacement. The real questions may be, where do we get the loan? How much? How much can we pay back and for how long?

And then there is the completion of Phase 1 of the dredging project and the beginning of Phase 2. As time passes, the cost will continue to go higher. It will get done but it will cost large sums of money. How much? At this time, I do not know but when I find out, you will know.

And finally, do not forget that your council lives in this town also and its members are subject to the same tax increases as you. We are like you and we will have to pay from our fixed incomes, the same level of tax increase. But, I believe that this increase in necessary so that we can rebuild the infrastructure of this town and create an environment that we, and the visitors that come to see us, would like to live in. And if our town is attractive, then our house values suffer less, possibly recover sooner, making this town a desirable place to live. As long as I am on this council, I will strive to make this town the best that it can be. I am willing to pay the increase on the front end to stop any financial loss on the back end.

Arizona Mexican Border

2010-05-23T11:04:00.002-04:00

FROM AN ARIZONA STATE SENATOR SYLVIA ALLEN:

I want to explain SB 1070, which I voted for, and was just signed by Governor Jan Brewer.

Rancher Rob Krantz was murdered by the drug cartel on his ranch a month ago. I participated in a senate hearing two weeks ago on the border violence, here is just some of the highlights from those who testified.

The people who live within 60 to 80 miles of the Arizona/Mexico Border
have for years been terrorized and have pleaded for help to stop the daily invasion of humans who cross their property . One Rancher testified that 300 to 1200 people a DAY come across his ranch vandalizing his property, stealing his vehicles and property, cutting down his fences, and leaving trash. In the last two years he has found 17 dead bodies and two Koran bibles.

Another rancher testified that daily drugs are brought across his ranch in a military operation. A point man with a machine gun goes in front, 1/2 mile behind are the guards fully armed, 1/2 mile behind them are the drugs, behind the drugs 1/2 mile are more guards. These people are violent and they will kill anyone who gets in the way. This was not the only rancher we heard that day that talked about the drug trains.

One man told of two illegal's who came upon his property one shot in the back and the other in the arm by the drug runners who had forced them to carry the drugs and then shot them. Daily they listen to gun fire during the night it is not safe to leave his family alone on the ranch and they can't leave the ranch for fear of nothing being left when they come back.

The border patrol is not on the border. They have set up 60 miles away with check points that do nothing to stop the invasion. They are not allowed to use force in stopping anyone who is entering. They run around chasing them, if they get their hands on them then they can take them back across the border.

Federal prisons have over 35% illegal's and 20% of Arizona prisons are filled with illegal's. In the last few years 80% of our law enforcement that have been killed or wounded have been by an illegal.

The majority of people coming now are people we need to be worried about. The ranchers told us that they have seen a change in the people coming they are not just those who are looking for work and a better life.

The Federal Government has refused for years to do anything to help the border states . We have been over run and once they are here we have the burden of funding state services that they use. Education cost have been over a billion dollars. The healthcare cost billions of dollars. Our State is broke, $3.5 billion deficit and we have many serious decisions to make. One is that we do not have the money to care for any who are not here legally. It has to stop.

The border can be secured. We have the technology we have the ability to stop this invasion. We must know who is coming and they must come in an organized manner legally so that we can assimilate them into our population and protect the sovereignty of our country. We are a nation of laws. We have a responsibility to protect our citizens and to protect the integrity of our country and the government which we live under.

I would give amnesty today to many, but here is the problem, we dare not do this until the Border is secure. It will do no good to forgive them because thousands will come behind them and we will be over run to the point that there will no longer be the United States of America but a North American Union of open borders.. I ask you what form of government will we live under? How long will it be before we will be just like Mexico , Canada or any of the other Central American or South American countries? We have already lost our language, everything must be printed in Spanish also. We have already lost our history it is no longer taught in our schools. And we have lost our borders.

The leftist media has distorted what SB 1070 will do. It is not going to set up a Nazi Germany. Are you kidding. The ACLU and the leftist courts will do everything to protect those who are here illegally, but it was an effort to try and stop illegal's from setting up businesses, and employment, and receiving state services and give the ability to local law enforcement when there is probable cause like a traffic stop to determine if they are here legally. Federal law is very clear if you are here on a visa you must have your papers on you at all times. That is the law. In Arizona all you need to show you are a legal citizen is a driver license, MVD identification card, Native American Card, or a Military ID. This is what you need to vote, get a hunting license, etc.. So nothing new has been added to this law.
No one is going to be stopped walking down the street etc... The Socialist who are in power in DC are angry because we dare try and do
something and that something the Socialist wants us to do is just let them come. They want the "Transformation" to continue.

Maybe it is too late to save America . Maybe we are not worthy of freedom anymore. But as an elected official I must try to do what I can to protect our Constitutional Republic . Living in America is not a right just because you can walk across the border. Being an American is a responsibility and it comes by respecting and upholding the Constitution the law of our land which says what you must do to be a citizen of this country.

Freedom is not free.

Madness?

2010-05-21T08:02:00.001-04:00

Susan and I finally got a chance to get out of the hospital mode for an afternoon and we went for a very short ride. We came across a section of Chapel Hill called Southern Village. This is a sustainable community that was built circa 2000. There are a number of houses for sale and we stopped and picked up a circular for a charming, 4 bedroom village townhouse. The asking price for the house was $439,000 and it had a tax value of $388,896. The current tax rate is $1.5404 per $100 of assessed value. At this tax rate, the yearly cost of the tax bill is $5,990.54. In Southern Village there are additional monthly living expenses such as the townhouse association dues, home owner association dues, recreational facilities dues, and a sewer fee.

The tax rate in Southern Shores for a comparably valued house, at the new proposed tax rate of .14 cents, is $544.45, a difference of $5,446.09 per year.

Even though the former mayor thinks that we should stop the "madness," I think that a reality check is in order. If we do not repair our infrastructure, then our houses will be worth less than their current value because Southern Shores will not be able to attract any buyers. There is a big competitive world out there and its vortex is not at the corner of E. Dogwood and Duck Road, like some would imagine.

We should be all thankful that tourists come to the Outer Banks and keep our tax rates low. If you think that they are not low, check out the tax rates of any other city or county, on their web sites, and see what rates are paid by the rest of the citizenry of North Carolina.

The proposed tax rate increase is 1.25 cents for operating expenses and 3 cents for capital improvement projects, primarily for road rebuilding and dredging.

Listed below are the 2009-2010 tax rates for beach towns in North Carolina. Any additional fees are not listed and there may be some, since some of these towns practice ongoing beach nourishment. In Southern Shores, a penny tax on a $400,000 assessed house raises $40 in taxes.

NC Beach Town Tax Rates Tax Rate

FY 09-10 General Fund (Cents Per $100

Rank Town Assessed Value)

1 Holden Beach 6.90

2 Emerald Isle 7.00

3 Wrightsville Beach 8.00

4 Ocean Isle Beach 9.00

5 Sunset Beach 9.00

6 Southern Shores 9.75

7 Pine Knoll Shores 11.50

8 Duck 11.50

9 Atlantic Beach 12.50

10 North Topsail Beach 13.00

11 Caswell Beach 13.00

12 Kure Beach 13.50

13 Oak Island 14.00

14 Nags Head 14.75

15 Indian Beach 15.00

16 Carolina Beach 17.50

17 Kitty Hawk 18.00

18 Kill Devil Hills 20.50

19 Surf City 26.00

20 Bald Head Island 27.00

21 Topsail Beach 27.00

22 Wilmington 33.25

A Rebuttal.

2010-05-10T16:50:00.006-04:00

I read with interest your email in which you state that you believe that the Council should not raise taxes and that to do so would be an irresponsible act, an act also lacking in compassion. You also claim that a tax increase would require the towns property owners to tighten their belts while the Town would not tighten its own. Let me explain my position.

I ran and I was elected because I, and those who elected me, felt that a change was necessary. The change was necessary to curtail the collapse of the Town's infrastructure from years of neglect. I, and those same individuals, believe that if you damage a Town's infrastructure you in turn, financially damage its residents by reducing their property values. The Town is less attractive, cannot function well, and creates an atmosphere of decrepitude. The past council had the same taxing philosophy that you express. That philosophy of a keeping the taxes artificially low created the current situation. This Town cannot compete and supply services for very long with a 9 3/4 cent tax rate. I have checked various town tax rates around the State and have found that town rates typically range between the 40 cents and 50 cents. I have found some in the 30 cents range. County tax rates range between the mid 50 cents to high 60 cents range. The Dare County tourist financial source presents an artificial tax rate when compared to the rest of the counties. The same can be said of us and our neighboring towns. Check Kitty Hawk's tax rate and see what your neighbors pay.

There are significant costs that loom ahead to repair the infrastructure of this Town. We have to repair our roads at a much faster rate than one road per year. We will be repairing four next year. Besides the many roads that need repairing, there exists a plan to rebuild Chicahauk Trail with its stormwater repairs. That repair is guesstimated to cost around a million dollars. I do not need to remind you that also ahead is the second phase of the canal dredging project and as of yet, your Council has no idea where those millions will be coming from. There are other expensive projects that also need to be addressed.

Because of the minimal tax rates of the past four years, nothing much was done. Your current Council, within the last four months, has authorized the replacement of the air conditioning units and all air ducts in the Pitts Center, Town Hall, and Police Station. The existing mold problem had been known for years, money was assigned but never spent. Your Council authorized the installation of street lights in the parking lots and driveway of the Town's complex to rectify a code violation that had persisted for years and comply with safety issues. Your Council authorized the repair and payment to NCDOT for the maintenance of the Tall Pine Bridge, recommended by NCDOT two years ago and not complied with. Hopefully, this will delay the replacement of this bridge for several years and the expenditure of more millions of dollars. And finally, your Council is currently having a modern computer network installed in the Town Hall and Police Station so that it can comply with Federal and State mandated Freedom of Information laws.

Your current Council is responsible. It responsibly has been seeking a skilled and experienced town manager who can lead the town, for years to come, through a series of expensive projects, by responsible expenditures of tax payer money. As far as I am concerned, the tax rate will go up. The only questions are how much and for how long. A one cent increase on a half a million dollar house is worth $50 per year to the homeowner and $172,000 to the town. Saving the money will not pay for the projects. Grants will be needed as will loans. Grants are hard to come by, especially for Southern Shores, since it is considered a wealthy town, with a wealthy population, by those agencies that award grants.

To call the current Council irresponsible would to me mean that it is continuing the philosophy of previous councils by not addressing the infrastructural problems that are eroding the Town and is delaying any required projects. Collapsing roads do not wait to be fixed. Silt does not stop filling the canals, and if we do not address these issues with haste, this Council is irresponsible. This year's tax increase will not be popular in some circles but it is a necessity for the long term. I believe that the majority of the town residents will be relieved to know that they have a Council that is concerned about the Town's issues and is working to fix them.

You mention foreclosures. Have you checked on the purchase prices of those foreclosed houses? How have those prices affected the value of your home? If this Council only thinks of a low tax rate and not repairs to roads and making this a more attractive place to live, how will you sell your house one day? Will you be, like others before you, who have taken a $100,000 loss and waited for over a year to sell their house? How does that financial loss compare to a cheap tax rate?

If you attend the next three budget hearings you will see a responsible Town Council. The Council members may not agree with each other, on all points, but they work together and they understand the issues at hand and they have and will be acting responsibly. To imagine otherwise is insulting. Remember that they are not exempt from the tax increases they place upon the residents.

And as to the email asserting that the public works department has listed a dump truck purchase in their requested budget, the suggestion was raised by the public works department at the last Council retreat. Council was underwhelmed to say the least. There is no request to purchase a dump truck in the current proposed budget.

Unfortunately, the Town Hall has been on a shoe string expenditure plan for the past four years and we will all have to pay for that mistake. There has been no long term expenditure plan. Other than keeping taxes low, there have been no goals set. The "we have always done it this way" and "this is a waste of money" mantra is slowly leaving the Town Hall. The Town government needs to be competitive, aggressive, attractive, compliant, and modern. It is only by implementing these goals, along with strong leadership, can we raise this Town to the level we all imagine it should be.

Do you have time for anger or hatred?

2010-04-21T23:40:00.008-04:00

In the past week, I have been called the "King of Corruption" and today a "total idiot". Why you may ask? It seems that this is because I am a councilman, in a four square mile town, that occupies a strip of sand, that makes up part of a barrier island, on the coast of North Carolina. I have performed this duty since December 2nd, 2009 and I wonder how many more names I will be called by the time my term is up in 2013.

I have been mulling over the reasons for this name calling and I can only think of two things that can be the cause: anger and/or hatred. Hatred defined by Wikipedia is: "an intense feeling of dislike. It may occur in a wide variety of contexts, from hatred of inanimate objects or animals, to hatred of oneself or other people, entire groups of people, people in general, existence, or everything." The definition of anger is a bit more complicated, since the world of psychology has got involved in the definition. I'll take my definition as characteristics exhibited by people who are continually upset about something or someone. Maybe anger leads to hatred.

The real problem is why do people in this town get so emotional about topics that they would never concern themselves with, in their younger days? If you step away from this town and go on a trip far away and take a look around, you will find that you may be the oldest person within sight. Young people and young families are moving all around you. They are smiling, happy, laughing, and filled with enthusiasm for the present and the future. There is change mixed with progress. You can shop until you drop. Eat anywhere and anything until you are full. The air is electrified and filled with pheromones. You can smile by just sniffing the air! Eyes are filled with wonder. Risk is reality. Nobody seems to be complaining. Children are playing. Every day is a new day filled with promises.

Why is it that here, in our town, lies dissatisfaction, unhappiness, disillusionment, disgust, aggravation, disquiet, grumblings, rumination, and complaining. It's never good enough! It's never right enough! It's never correct enough! Taxes aren't low enough! Services are not good enough! Garbage cans not bright enough! Garbage not collected enough! Police don't patrol enough! Nobody cares enough! Its never cheap enough, quiet enough, hot enough, cold enough, light enough, dark enough, young enough, or old enough. It's just never enough!

Did someone promise you a rose garden when you moved into town ? Whose fault is it that your current life is not what you thought it would be? Why let the "not enoughs " anger you and lead you to hatred? You are not the most important being in the Universe. Yes, you did well in your past and yes, you think everyone should follow your path because you deemed it to be the correct path. We should all think as you think it should be, and all will be well enough. But I am sorry to say that life goes on, with its many different perspectives and ideas, both good, bad, and different. Mother Nature is not interested in your thoughts and ambitions. Current ideas maybe contrary to yours and that is just the way it is. Everyone gets their chance at living the way they want to. Being angry and hateful, serves no useful purpose, other than feed the physician, the pharmacist, and the undertaker.

Of late, I have spent much time in a hospital setting. I have sat in waiting rooms with baby boomers fighting for their lives. I have heard lungs rasping while trying to breath. I have seen the yellow skin pallor produced by a failing liver. Thin shaking men and women trying to eek out one more day of life. I met the 36 year old son of a 61 year old father. The son, weary of spending the night with his father in the hospital, told me that his father was admitted the night before with what was thought to be a heart attack. The diagnosis showed him to be riddled with cancer, inoperable and untreatable. The prognosis was to go home, get your remaining life in order, and die within the month. The son was amazed that in a moment's time, his life and his mother's life were inexplicably changed forever. He had no anger and no hatred, just sorrow. Reality and the grim reaper came knocking at his father's door. It can all change within a moment's time for all of us and it will.

Relax, get happy, be neighborly, smile, and stop sweating the small stuff. Go smell the flowers because life will go on without you. Spend less time complaining about what should be or how it only can be, or how it must be. Be less angry, less hateful, less mean, and less complaining. Reflect upon what is and how much time you have left because you do not have that much and maybe even less than you think. Go volunteer and get busy and above all stop wasting valuable time being angry.

Coastal panel urges strict rules for terminal groins « The Outer Banks Voice

2010-03-26T16:35:00.000-04:00

Coastal panel urges strict rules for terminal groins « The Outer Banks Voice

Delegate Bob Marshall

2010-03-23T14:26:00.001-04:00

Virginia to Challenge Obamacare Health Mandates

Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall, R-13th Prince William-Loudoun

Author-Health Care Freedom Act-HB 10, Contact 703-853-4213

For the first time in American history individuals and businesses will be forced by the Federal Government to purchase private health insurance.

Obamacare fundamentally alters our form of government and turns citizens whose rights come from our Creator, into serfs with obligations to lawless Washington predators.

Despite many hours of debate on Sunday, March 21, not one Democrat Congressman could provide the constitutional authority for the unprecedented takeover of one-sixth of the U.S. economy.

America’s foundational documents make it clear that the enumerated powers granted to Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution do not grant Congress the predatory powers or authority to compel citizens under threat of jail or heavy fines to forcibly enter into contracts for any good or service.

Anyone who declines to buy insurance approved by the Obama Administration FOR ANY REASON, which can cost an average family of four up to $15,000 a year according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, can be jailed up to a year and fined $25,000. The IRS will hire 18,000 additional agents to track and hunt down objectors.

James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, which the U.S. Supreme Court cites for the original meaning of the Constitution, that state legislators have the responsibility to protect the lives, liberties and property of their citizens against Congressional usurpations.

That is why the Virginia General Assembly is standing up to the rough strong arm tactics of Congressional bullies by passing my HB 10 and similar Senate measures, to defend citizens and legal residents against lawsuits from the IRS and the Obama Administration.

Further, while Americans can chose a policy for themselves, that does not pay for elective abortion, every American will be forced to pay for coverage for the elective abortions of others, and conscientious objections to participating in abortion are ignored.

Written on the seal of our own Thomas Jefferson is the motto, "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." Virginia has just begun to fight and will enact additional measures to protect Virginians once the specific provisions of Obamacare become known.

Delegate Bob Marshall was interviewed by Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on his Health Care Freedom Act, HB 10, which passed 80-17 with 55% of the House of Delegates Democrats, a majority of the Democratic Black Caucus, and three northern Virginia Democrats. To see the six minute Megyn Kelly - Bob Marshall interview, click here or on the following image link:

Paid for and authorized by Friends of Bob Marshall

My Wednesday

2010-03-01T17:52:00.008-05:00

This is how I and others on the Town Council will be spending our Wednesday. We will be attending the second day's presentations on Thursday. It did cost the tax payer money to attend and yes, attendance is required by law. When I get Thursday's agenda, I will post it:

Local Finance: Making Sense of It All
2009-2010 Regional LeaderShop

Chapel Hill – 12/2/09

Wilmington – 1/13/10

Greenville – 02/17/10

Asheville – 02/24/10

Kitty Hawk – 03/03/10

Charlotte – 3/19/10

AGENDA

8:00 - 8:30 am

Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:30 - 8:45 am

Welcome and Introductions

William C. Rivenbark, Associate Professor of Public Administration

and Government, and Donna Warner, Director of Planning and

Administration.

8:45 - 10:00 am

Fiduciary Responsibilities

Participants identify their major fiduciary responsibilities and the

right questions to ask their auditors at fiscal year end.

10:00 - 10:15 am

Break

10:15 am - 12:00 pm

Understanding Financial Condition

An evaluation tool is presented to address the financial condition of

a local government. Policy decisions that impact financial condition

are identified to show how financial statements reflect the strategic

decisions of elected officials.

12:00 - 12:45 pm

Lunch

12:45 - 1:30 pm

Understanding Financial Condition

1:30 - 2:30 pm

Case Study

Participants analyze financial statements to assess the financial

condition of an organization. From this analysis, participants

determine what questions to ask their manager and auditor to fulfill

their fiduciary responsibilities.

2:30 pm

Adjournment of LeaderShop and Break

3:00 - 5:00 pm

Ethics Training for Local Elected Officials

This part of the program fulfills the 2 hour legislative requirement for

ethics training.

Family History?

2010-02-21T18:41:00.005-05:00

I went looking for my father's family in Poland but his birthplace and home is now in the Ukraine. While searching, I came across someone, from the same town, and the same era, who may be a relative. I will need to go and find out but I thought you might enjoy events that contribute to world history:

KOWALSKI, Janusz, son

Witold, Maria and Janusz Kowalskis lived in Warsaw. Witold was the head of a postal office. In September 1939 they left Warsaw in the direction of Siedlce. Their son was killed and Maria was gravely wounded. In Siedlce they took part in helping Jews. Some of those saved went on to Israel. Yad Vashem recognized them as "Righteous" already in 1968. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

KOWALSKI, Wladyslaw (not related)

Wladyslaw, a retired colonel, was a representative of the Dutch Phillips Concern. Thanks to this he enjoyed relative freedom of movement, even in the ghetto. One day a 10 years old Jewish boy asked him for bread. Wladyslaw took him home, and gave him a new identity. He smuggled seven (7) Jews from the ghetto in February 1943, then in November he found a safe place for four (4) Jews from the Izbica ghetto, and took into his home (12) twelve more. In heavy suitcases he brought building materials and with the help of a worker, Roman Fisher, built an underground shelter. The group of harbored Jews made toys, which Wladyslaw sold to help with the expenses. When the city was forcibly evacuated after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, he converted a razed building into a large bunker in which he hid with 49 Jews for 105 days, till the entrance of the Russians. They only had three glasses of water per day per person, a lump of sugar and some vitamins. Toward the end, they were reduced to eating fuel. In 1961 Kowalski stated: "I don't consider myself a hero, for I was only fulfilling my human obligation toward the persecuted and the suffering. They counted on me, so I could not abandon them to the danger of certain death. I wish to reiterate that I did no more than help forty -nine (49) Jews to survive. I could not sit idly and remain indifferent in the face of the barbaric acts of the Nazis and their attempt at mass murder.". The ceremony of his recognition at Yad Vashem took place in 1967. See: Paldiel, op. cit.

Serendipity

2010-02-20T23:18:00.002-05:00

As you know, Serendipity moved and is now ocean front again, a few thousand yards from where it once stood in water.

Bodie Lighthouse

2010-02-20T23:16:00.004-05:00

Have you seen Bodie Lighthouse's new look as of 2/20/2010?

Beach Nourishment

2010-02-20T16:31:00.007-05:00

Now here is the hot topic of the day. A topic that has historically shown itself to be a waste of money. Why? Because the average life span of a nourished beach is five years. Because all you need to do is read the prediction of the engineers, when they were discussing the WPA project to create a dune across the Outer Banks in the 1930's. The topic of contention was should the Federal Government waste money on dune construction at Kitty Hawk, where the current Hilton and pier stand and also at South Nags Head, where the current destruction has been taking place. These were two areas of rapid beach movement and it was felt that the dune would not hold. The engineers conceded to the politicians and now we are still dealing with the politics of nourishment but not the science of nourishment.

I drove down to the area of question in South Nags Head. I drove the private road (brown signs), East Oriental Street, and saw the current state of the area. Yes the area looks terrible. Yes, anyone renting the properties will not be happy with their beach experience. Yes, this may cause an income flow issue with some of the owners of rental property. BUT, at what cost to the Dare County Tax payer? If you have read any of Pilkey's books you know that all of these "erosion" issues have been predicted. Even the concept of "beach erosion" is faulty. The barrier island (Spit?) is moving West, as it is supposed to. The movement is not identical because of the composition of the substrata and unfortunately South Nags Head and Kitty Hawk have different geological strata composition which enhances those areas for quicker movement.

As in the stupidity of the Global Warming arguments, when true science was never used and natural cycles and geology where never introduced into the arguments, the same holds true with the beach nourishment issue. The economy/tourist issue is the only argument given but never whether or not this is a waste of money, because geological, environmental, historical, and oceanographic concerns are never raised. Only one third of a "beach" is above the water line. The remainder below, moves its sands in and out, North and South, and is a forever changing environment. It was never created to be static. South Nags Head and Kitty Hawk will naturally recede and move West faster than the rest of their neighbors for geological reasons.

I will only agree to spend twenty six million dollars on beach nourishment if the money is converted to pennies and placed on the beach, in bags. That might keep the beach around for a few days longer, unless of course, those taxpayers in Dare County, who are tired of having their money wasted, go an collect some of the pennies for spare change. At least, in this economy, they could have some money before it is all wasted, or the Parks Commission runs out and places restrictions on the area, claiming that some bird needs to nest between the bags of pennies.

I think that the tax payer money being held by Dare County, should be returned to the towns. I am sure that they each have a long list of infrastructure expenses that would welcome some additional cash flow. Sand is not one of them.

Maybe the Dare County and Nags Head Commissioners could have their next meeting on the beach at South Nags Head and line up their chairs along the water line and command the sea to no longer infringe on their shoreline? It certainly will be cheaper and have the same outcome as beach nourishment.

Blogging

2010-02-17T11:21:00.003-05:00

I am slowly finding out that the more local blogs that I read, the more misinformation I find. I do not know what causes this, other than the blogger has no exact information to write about and therefore decides to fill the page with misinformation, innuendo, supposition, and fiction. Blogging allows for all to express their opinions but opinions do not represent truth. I find this to be the case with information circulated within the town. I have been busy and therefore not keeping up my end of the deal with this blog but I think that I need to give you some of my perspectives and hopefully truth may be closer.

Some topics:

Dredging: The "failure" of the town's dredging contractor was the inability to reduce the water effluent sedimentation levels from 500 NTU to State required 25 NTU level. The hydrocentrifuge machines are separators and not filterers. They separate particles sizes to 44 microns. If you need to remove smaller particles then a filtering system is required. The "failure" was that the contractor thought that the charged polymer flocullant that he was using would attract to the remaining molecules and that gravity would "filter" out the sediment. That did not happen and therefore the 25 NTU level was not reached. If an agreement is reached between the contractor and the bonding company, a solution to this problem will have to be researched before the dredging continues next October. If everything works out well, the dredging project will continue. As far as I am concerned, there is no dredging failure but a delay. So far, every contributor to this project has been cooperating. Under current environmental laws, dredging is not an easy process and I doubt it will get any easier. It takes much patience and a tremendous amount of hard work to accomplish the goal of dredging.

Town Manager: No matter what you read in the newspapers or in blogs, any information delivered to you about the council's relationship between itself and its employees, that is held in closed session, is just that.....closed to the public. That information is not released and therefore information printed in the Virginia Pilot, telling you about why someone leaves the town's employment, is bogus. There are numerous law's and procedures that must be followed to protect the privacy of both parties. What should be important to you, is that your council is working well together and understands the importance of employing an experienced and knowledgeable town manager. To accomplish this goal, an experienced and knowledgeable consultant has been hired to design and orchestrate the process of finding a town manager with the goal of being successful within a ninety day period. That consultant will also be available to help the current interim town manager.

Budget: As you may know, the town has been underfunded over the past four years and finds itself in the dilemma that there are many capital improvement projects on the horizon and a number of infrastructure issues that need to be funded. The question is how and at what cost to the taxpayer. Most town residents have been aware of these issues and understand the dilemma. Your council started working on the budget early and has much more work to do in solving these financial issues. These issues are not just 2010-11 issues but are issues will be facing us for at least the next ten years. We need to incorporate a method of future budget planning that is proactive and not reactive and one that prioritizes the expenses. Your constructive input is appreciated. We are all in this together!

As more information comes forth, I will discuss them on this blog. Once again if you would like to speak to me, I can be reached by phone.

Debt Clock

2010-02-14T17:13:00.002-05:00

DEBT CLOCK

Council Retreat and Budget

2010-01-22T09:32:00.009-05:00

Today is Friday and your Council spent two days listening to presentations from all of the heads of the various departments of the Town government. I am collecting a clearer picture of the current financial status of the Town and the major financial issues that are facing us. We had an excellent financial presentation on Thursday.

I have requested that the Town budget be placed on the Town's web site for all citizens to read. You will need to familiarize yourself with the infrastructure issues at hand and the financial issues that are facing all of us. Please read the multiple postings and especially the "Financial Report and Handouts" here:

Retreat 2010: Presentations

The Council also met with an underwriter from RBC Centura who is experienced in issuing loans to local governments in North Carolina. The Council directed that a preliminary budget be presented at the February 16, 2010 Council Work Session.

I stress that this is a crucial financial year and all the citizens in our Town will need to become involved in understanding the issues. The Town, for its part, will do everything in its power to make any and all information available to its citizenry in a number of different ways.

Wireless Ordinance

2010-01-11T17:33:00.005-05:00

As you may know, I voted for the Wireless Ordinance and below is a synopsis of my thinking with regards to the Town's dilemma.

Before this ordinance, the Town, in effect, banned cellular towers from 99% of the Town. It allowed antennas only on water towers and as you know, it has but one water tower in residence.

The FCC had a different perspective. It had been mandated to increase cellular capacity within the United States and it required all carriers to spread their areas of coverage throughout the country. This was not happening because carriers argued that they were being inhibited to expand by local governments passing ordinances against them. To help the spread, the FCC passed a ruling which made it illegal for local governments to prohibit towers and consequently our past ordinance was illegal. Local governments then countered by delaying the issuance of building permits with the result that the FCC passed a ruling a month ago that limited the time that towns would need to permit towers to 150 days for tower construction and 90 days for collocation applications.

The Wireless Committee took on the roll of compliance with the FCC regulations and the Wireless Ordinance was created, with many people involved and countless hours spent by volunteers working out the details of compliance.

In a nutshell, all local cell phone providers were asked to select an area in town that would benefit their cell phone service provided to their customers. They all selected the same basic area but except for one provider, most did not show any interest to expand. This area was then used to create all of the current cell tower requirements. Once these requirements were completed, the acreage of the area was analyzed to see what land could comply with the ordinance. There are ten possible sites where a cell phone tower could be built that would be in compliance with the new ordinance. These sites presuppose that the cell phone provider needs or wants to build a tower within a site, that the tower height fits the site and provides the required coverage, and that the owners of the property are interested in contracting with a provider allowing for the construction of a tower. It also presupposes that the area in question can fulfill the requirements of the provider. For example, one area that complies is the fourth hole fairway of the local golf course. I doubt that neither the golf course nor the cell phone provider would find this spot geographically, environmentally, or economically feasible.

What has been accomplished is that the Town cannot be accused of banning cell phone towers. At the same time, the Town has a compliant wireless ordinance and is protected from being invaded by cell phone towers and for that we need to thank the members of the Planning Board, the Wireless Committee, and everyone else who participated in this multi-year project.

PORK

2009-12-27T17:18:00.002-05:00

I thought you would like to read the latest pork information from the Citizens Against Government Waste. It can be found here: http://www.cagw.org/ You can download the PDF file of the 2009 Pork roll or any other previous years. It should make for some fun reading but just make sure you have some anti acid within reach.

I also came across an interesting blog called Right on Target. You can find it here: http://www.rightot.blogspot.com/

This should entertain you for the remainder of the year. When you have spent enough time reading. Check out the North Marina and the progress of our dredging.

Education, Economics, and Self-Government

2009-12-20T14:53:00.003-05:00

I read an interesting article this morning about education, economics and self-government written by a man much smarter than me. I thought you might like to read it:

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp

Dredging

2009-12-20T12:53:00.006-05:00

At the emergency Council meeting on 12/9/2009, the Council unanimously approved a motion to direct the dredging contractor to begin mobilizing and setting up his dredging site at the North Marina. This process will take at least two weeks and should be operational in the first week of January.

The Council took this action even though there was no permit in hand. As of this writing, the permit is to be issued on Monday, December 21, 2009. I am anxiously awaiting it, as are all others who are involved in the project. Speed from the involved agencies is of utmost importance to us but it seems not to them. They know that we are in the middle of the dredging season. They know that it ends in mid February. They know the costs involved. They know how much time we have spent working towards this permit. Do they care about the projects success or failure or understand their culpability?

There is no next year. There is no finishing up next year what does not get done this year. There is no keeping of the grant money. This is it! This is the culmination of a seven year, twenty two agency fight to dredge our own canals, created by the developers of Southern Shores, over thirty years ago. Anything not dredged will have to be added to Phase 2 and to get a permit for this phase, the entire permitting process will have to start again.

As you can tell from my tone in this blog, I believe that government agencies were created to aid their citizenry. They were created to solve problems and not become them. They should be helping those who pay their salaries and not hinder them with tons of paperwork and red tape. Unfortunately, this bureaucratic misery is just the tip of the governmental iceberg of graft, corruption, laziness, and self serving rules and regulations by numerous competing governmental entities.

It is not going to get any better or any easier. I can only imagine what new agencies will be created to regulate the new health care plan or any new mindless carbon credit/global change governmental initiatives. We will become inundated with both Federal and State agencies that will submit their directives and want their papers filled out by every citizen or group that would like to be creative.

And that brings me to the final part of my diatribe and that is that it will be increasingly more difficult to remain just a town of volunteers. As each future town project awaits completion, there will be many bureaucratic hoops that will need to be jumped through, with new rules and regulations to be followed. I not sure that one person can keep up with them all. There will be an army of consultants standing in the wings to get the projects finalized, all at an increased cost to the tax payer. The new role of a council member will be to lead the charge through the bureaucratic mire by leading a groups of trusted consultants to accomplish various goals. Maybe towns will have to band together and financially pool their resources to accomplish projects that only thirty years ago took hardly any requirements because the current governmental enforcing agencies had not been created. Local governments may need to use each other as resources to help each other succeed.

I hope that my outlook is not too bleak but I will take that lead if necessary. I believe that large government never solved anything. All of our current societal problems have been created by past Federal and State Government agency rulings and these same government agencies now point their fingers at these problematic issues and tell us that they have the solutions, never admitting or understanding that they are our and their own worst enemy. Jefferson and Madison knew that government could be the ultimate enemy of democracy.

The Proposed Wireless Ordinance

2009-12-03T13:26:00.004-05:00

One of the projects the Planning Board has been dealing with is a Wireless Ordinance. This has been an ongoing project that is more than a year old. Much has been accomplished and a public hearing and council vote is a very strong possibility at the January meeting.

As you may know, the FCC has been ordered by our Federal Government to have wireless cell phone coverage available to all residents of this country by a certain date. In order to carry out this directive, the FCC has passed a ruling which prohibits towns from passing ordinances that prevent the construction of towers within their town limits. Just this past week, another FCC ruling was passed that prevented towns from stonewalling tower building applications and established required turn around time lines of 120 days and 60 days for tower and co-location applications respectively.

This proposed ordinance is designed to allow for the construction of cell phone towers but under defined, controlled, and limiting conditions. Cell phone providers have been involved in the process and the area allotted is of their choosing. You can view all of the work, including the current proposed ordinance here: http://www.southernshores-nc.gov/Wireless%20Committee.htm

Please remember that the locations given for possible cell phone tower sites are just those areas that comply with the proposed ordinance and each has their own proviso. To have a tower built in those areas still requires a need and agreement from a cell phone provider, a property owner who may want to have a tower on their property, public input, completion of the application process, and a ruling by the Town Council. This proposed ordinance is in no way a guarantee that a cell phone tower is required, needed, or will be built by any cell phone provider.

As always, if you have any questions, you can access the town web site and choose whatever method you would like to contact me.

Planning Board Meeting

2009-11-29T11:07:00.006-05:00

I met with members of the Planning Board, a week ago this past Monday. This informational meeting was for both our future mayor and myself, to get us up to speed with what has transpired within the realm of planning in the Town. It was a meeting of both good and bad news.

First the good.

The Planning Board has been working hard to come up with an overall working plan that will guide all decisions in a prescribed manner. That means that they they have separated their Planning Board projects (Planning Advisory Group) from their reviews of permit applications, subdivisions decisions, and zoning map/text amendment work. The projects are combined into one consistant process and all the plans are integrated. The plans are as follows: a Long Range Plan, a CAMA Land Use Plan, a Transportation Plan, a Stormwater Management Plan, a Wireless Plan, a Wind Generation Plan, a Hazard Mitigation Plan, and a Parks and Recreational Facilities Plan. All of the plans have their own purposes, objectives and statements of work. All of the plans involve the new Town Planner. Some plans are completed and some need more work.

This is a very large undertaking by a small group of town volunteers who spend many hours contributing free labor to the community. Their work should be appreciated and valued by all.

However, even though the previous administration claimed that they were a great team and everything was working very well, I have some not so great news.

A Town adopted CAMA LUP(Land Use Plan) has been required by the State of NC for past two years. The State gave this town a grant to create an LUP and even though the amount of money was small (with no additional financial support), work was begun, but it has stalled after the State read the first draft and suggested a need for 81 changes. The reason for the stall was the resignation of the previous code enforcer/planner and his administrative assistant. The solution to this issue is for the Council to finance the required continuation of this project and assign staffing to help the Planning Board. The administrative assistant was integral to the day to day workings of the Planning Board and that position remains vacant.

The Long Range Plan needs to be in place and needs to be followed. The Town has had previous long range plans and for the most part they have not been followed, even though most have been adopted by previous Town Councils. It is disheartening to read the 2005 LRP and see the work of intelligent, thoughtful, town volunteers being ignored. You can read the Council, officially received plan, here: http://www.southernshores.org/BI/Final%20Report010306.pdf I have used my descriptive words carefully since the 2005 Long Range Plan was never adopted by the Council because the mayor, at that time, did not like some of the dollar amounts listed in the plan. He demanded that the chairman of the committee change the amounts and both the chairman and his committee refused, so the plan was never adopted.

I end on a positive note. The Planning Board has submitted a Wireless Ordinance for approval by the Town Council. I am in favor of this ordinance. Southern Shores needs to have an ordinance in place, since it needs to be able to control the placement of cell phone towers within its borders. It does not have the legal right to ban cell phone towers. As a matter of fact, the new FCC ruling of last week speeds up the application process of cell phone tower builders and their applications cannot be stalled within the permitting process. If you have concerns with this issue, please come to the next Council Meeting. Here is a link to the agenda: http://www.southernshores-nc.gov/Agendas/2009/ag1212009.pdf

As always, you may contact me by email or reach me on my cell phone. For that information, please call Town Hall.

I am Certified!

2009-11-21T16:51:00.002-05:00

I am looking at my Certificate of Election. It came with my congratulatory letter from the Dare County Board of Elections. I have to present this Certificate to the Town of Southern Shores, which then has proof, that I indeed won the election and can be sworn in.

Some of you may be reading this and saying to yourselves, isn't this a bit much! Well, unless you have run for an elected position in NC government, you do not know, (and I never knew) what bureaucracy exists. Let me explain.

When I decided to run as a write in, I was oblivious to the "machine". The ladies at the Board of Elections were very nice to me when they handed me a bunch of forms to fill out. Name of candidate form and add the address, phone number and signature. Name of campaign committee, address, phone number and signature added to name of candidate with address, phone number and signature. Name of treasurer, address, phone number and signature added to name of campaign committee, address, phone number and signature added to name of candidate with address, phone number and signature. It all started again with more forms for how much you spent, etc. and then on to the next group of questions. I asked if there was a computer program where only one name, address, and phone number entry would fill in all of the forms. They answered that I could fill out the forms online but I never knew what that ultimately meant. When I was about to leave, I received a thick, multi-tabbed, campaign treasurer's manual (I was the candidate and treasurer of my committee, wives cannot be) with an instruction sheet on how to go online and take the committee treasurer course and take the examination.

Take a class in how to be a campaign treasurer????? Go online to a web site address?? YES!!! Fill out the appropriate request.......Name of treasurer, address, phone number and signature added to name of campaign committee, address, phone number and signature added to name of candidate with address, phone number and signature..........and if done correctly, a username and password will be sent to your email address and when you sign on, at that site, correctly, you will be allowed to take the treasurer's course and exam.

Yikes! Well, I had two free hours one morning before going to Elizabeth City, for a doctor's appointment, so I decided to take the leap. Signed on to the site and was linked over to a powerpoint type of presentation consisting of 141 slides with audio for each slide and a time max of 61 minutes and 10 seconds on the counter. I pressed 'begin' and began to see and hear each slide read to me and the importance of every fact stressed. After the first five slides, a test popped up. Five questions and I got four out of five correct and I passed it. After the next five slides another test popped up. I got three out of five correct but I did not pass. Oh no! Would this end my career as a campaign treasurer? Not on your life! The tests didn't count. I fought on through the slides.

I have to confess that I ran out of time around slide number 80 or 90. I was having a hard time maintaining interest and was beginning to fall asleep, especially when the next 50 slides where going to discuss each and every form that would or would not be needed to be filled out. Agony!! But I needed to get to that doctor and Susan and I tore out of the house letting the laptop roll through all of those form slides.

Three hours later, when I came home, my laptop was eagerly waiting with a test page showing. I was almost to the last page. I took the test, got a three out of five question correct and failed! But then a screen popped up thanking me for my participation and telling me that I had successfully completed the training session and told me that I could be a campaign treasurer for the next four years.

Wowee zowee! I successfully completed the training but do me a favor, do not ask me to be your campaign treasurer. When you run for office, I think you also need to experience filling out the required forms and taking the required training, with included test. You will be a better person for it!

Finally remember that if you ever decide to enter the forest of the election campaign, an enchanted land of form filling and test taking awaits at your doorstep.

Thought you might want to be warned!!

The Sociopathic Epidemic

2009-11-11T15:00:00.001-05:00

The Sociopathic Epidemic

I just had to post this since I thought that it had a perspective that rang true.

Dredging

2009-11-10T08:53:00.003-05:00

I went to a dredging meeting yesterday and I am happy to report that all of the individuals involved are working very well under the circumstances given. They have left no stone unturned. If only the State and Federal agencies worked in the same fashion.

If you have not seen this already, you can go the the dredging contractors web site and read about his work: http://piedroba.com/Dredging.htm

If you would like to see videos of the proposed "Total Clean" filtration system, you can see them here: http://www.deltank.com/support/videos_and_past_projects1.html

Just a cautionary note that our use of this system as of yet has not been approved by CAMA but we are working on it.

If you want more up to date information, you can find it in the Broadcast news.

Who are you?

2009-11-07T23:45:00.004-05:00

If you go to this link, http://hamptonroads.com/2009/11/southern-shores-and-nags-head-oust-incumbent-mayors and read two thirds of the way down, you will find our former Mayor's description of what he thinks of you. It should reinforce why you voted the way you did. Thank you.

Election Update

2009-11-06T18:56:00.005-05:00

Some of you woke up Friday and morning and found out that the election results for councilman had changed. The winner was still the same but the number of votes were not. So let me clear up some confusion.

First of all, a good link to the gist of the problem can be found here: http://www.obxalert.net/. My only wish is that they would spell my name correctly: KOWALSKI. This link gives you the overall idea but let me give you more exact information.

The Dare County Board of Elections recounted the votes. The count from the Pitts Center was correct in all details. The problem lay in the votes from the Baum Center. The two computer voting machines lumped all of the write in votes together and the votes for Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse had to be removed. Once that was done, the difference in vote count was two, in my favor. Since this election was a municipal election, the 51% majority rule in not in effect and no run off vote is required. The count stands after the second count. The official tally will be announced on Tuesday morning.

I hope this, along with the article in http://www.obxalert.net, clears up any questions that you may have. The bottom line is that every vote counts and it was your two votes that won the election for me and I thank you!

You Did It!

2009-11-04T06:46:00.010-05:00

THANK YOU!!

FOR YOUR VOTE!

THANK YOU!!

FOR MEMORIZING MY NAME!

THANK YOU!!

PRACTICING ITS SPELLING!

And thank you for turning out, casting your ballot,
and creating a change in our town of Southern Shores.

It was a pleasure to run, to meet you, to speak to you, and to shake your hand.

Have a great day!!