The new center is located next to Cape Lookout High School on Bridges St. in Morehead City. At a projected cost of $3.5 million the e911 center came under fire from critics and even some commissioners. That’s not a really big price tag considering all the upgrades to radio, telephone, and computer systems included in the estimate.

At any rate the project was completed well under the initial estimate. The final total was something like $2.89 million. I just hope we didn’t skimp on somethings that will only need major upgrading next year.

In years past there were dispatchers at four different “public safety answering points”. Morehead City, Beaufort (Sheriff’s Department), Atlantic Beach, and Emerald Isle each had a dispatcher. Now they’ll all be centrally located in Morehead City. Which to me seems like it has both pros and cons. If all the dispatchers and emergency communications are in ONE facility, that would create a single point of failure. But we’re limited in financial resources so I guess we can only take redundancy so far.

It is refreshing, though, to see the county doing something in advance of it being needed. We all know Carteret County is growing by leaps and bounds. This trend shows no sign of slowing down, and our emergency communications were in serious need of updating to keep up with the growth occurring in our area.

Max winds in the Carteret County/Crystal Coast area are anticipated to reach near 50mph. The town of Emerald Isle has issued an evacuation order and will be closing the bridge at 5pm.

Current models predict the storm will proceed in a northerly direction narrowly missing the Crystal Coast. Either way many area residents are taking precautions to protect their property.

Many windows are boarded up and I’ve seen a few places bring out the storm shudders. I can already see and hear that the wind has picked up to a steady 30mph or so sustained wind along with higher gusts.

More details will be forthcoming as the storm approaches.

However, land in the Cannonsgate development seemed to escalate so high so quickly it really should have  caught the attention of the authorities before it got so out of control. I mean some of these lots changed hands several times in a matter of weeks. Each time going for more and more. Then these lots were sold to out of state investors at radically inflated prices.

The governor was allowed to purchase his lot at an extremely low price. Investigations reveal he received around a 25% discount on his lot as compared to what similar lots were being sold for in the development. But that’s not what irritates me the most.

What really irritates me is the notion that his cronies were able to “push along”  CAMA permits. This is wrong on so many levels.

First other developers in Carteret County aren’t able to push CAMA permits along. In fact some of the smaller folks I know have been denied permits for such things as paving their parking lots, re-building walkways down to the beach, and other nonsense. Yet these corrupt individuals were able to lean on the departments, and officials entrusted with protecting our wetlands and beautiful coast to benefit them.

This whole thing stinks. I truly hope some heads roll. It is not fair for government officials to have ANY kind of involvement in this sort of business. As you can see the rules get bent and in some cases broken. This makes for an uneven field of competition between private builders. It’s almost like government sponsored enterprise, and we all know how that turns out.

The biggest issue to me is that apparently if you know the right people, or have a deep enough pocket you can buy your CAMA permit and the folks in charge of enforcing the laws that protect our fragile coastline will turn a blind eye. I think the investigation should start with the ex-governor Easley and start working downward. Hopefully all these crooked, corrupt officials pay the price for their actions.

I’m pretty sure the land that is Cannonsgate was in the past regarded as wetlands and couldn’t really be built on. But I guess if you can build your own sewage station then you can just bulldoze a wetland and start selling lots. It will be interesting to see who else is going to get wrapped up in this mess.

The editorials they publish are downright disgusting, low class garbage. Its hard to believe someone gets paid to write them and even harder to believe people read them and take them as the gospel. Well in my opinion they really crossed the line with the last one I read. It was published Sunday,  November 8th and entitled Free ObamaPhones.

I would think anyone with the brain power of an ant could see right through it and recognize they were actually publishing one of those cheesy chain emails that float around from time to time spreading rumors about certain politicians. You’ve seen them I’m sure. They take many forms and target just about every politician.

The Carteret News-Times would have you believe the Obama administration is “redistributing” taxpayer money and giving it to welfare recipients so they can receive free cell phones. It’s outrageous the editors of the News-Times use their paper to spread such chain letters. I’m by no means a fan of President Obama, his administration, or the joke that has become the U.S. Government in the last century for that matter.

Here’s a link to the editorial should you want to subject yourself to this garbage: News-Times ridiculous editorial

In the editorial they slam the President on this from an angle that we are wasting taxpayer money. What’s funny to me is the fact the link THEY PROVIDE (I guess they didn’t read it at all) explains very clearly that the cell phone is NOT subsidized by the government.

If you want to check it out for yourselves here are some links that help to discredit the chain letter the News-Times recklessly re-published.

Politifact

Snopes

Emailchecker

Thankfully there are some folks in Carteret County that could see through the baseless accusations and pointed out in the comments that back in the 80′s a similar program was initiated for land line phones. So this is not something concocted by Obama to bankrupt our country (which I think it already is anyway).

So come on News-Times, we get it, you’re all a bunch of die-hard right wingers who don’t think anyone should get any kind of help from anyone. Although I bet you all have had some help from someone at some point in your miserable lives.

My sister sent me a video of the entrance to her subdivision. She lives in Hadnot Creek and apparently their road had a pip running underneath it that has been completely washed out. It looks like the road is really unsafe for driving over.

The road will have to be repaired soon. If there were an emergency, it would be nearly impossible to get an ambulance or fire truck back there. Hopefully it is fixed before too long.

This weather is a reminder of just how powerful mother nature can be, even when you think hurricane season is over. Carteret County schools were on a 2 hour delay this morning due top the weather. There was a lot of ponding on many roadways. I for one will be glad when the rain stops. I had the Veteran’s Day holiday off from work, which was nice, but the weather was not so nice.

So stay dry out there Carteret County and be safe.

These elected officials make the decisions as to what types of new businesses can enter our communities and where they can be located. They are the ones that will introduce new ordinances that you may like or dislike. So next election please get out and vote. Out of 19,465 registered voters in Carteret County only 3,884 ballots were cast. I’m sorry, but that’s downright pitiful. So when ordinances and other legislation gets passed, changed or repealed that makes you unhappy, I hope you’re not one of the 15,581 NON-VOTERS that didn’t make it out this round.

Okay onto some of the results. As I reviewed the unofficial results I couldn’t help but shake my head, and then start laughing. I thought I was reading some kind of April Fool’s joke or something. Take Cape Carteret for instance. Well congratulations Mayor Harkless. Mr. Harkless slaughtered the write-in candidates with 92.2% of the vote. And a big congratulations to the Commissioners of Cape Carteret as well. There were 3 seats at stake and only THREE people running for them. 11 people wrote-in candidates. I can’t help but wonder why whoever they wrote in didn’t just get on the ballot. They likely would have had a shot.

Emerald Isle was in the same situation. Mayor Art Schools ran unopposed. Of the 153 votes in town, he had all but 1 of them. Congratulations Mayor Schools. For Emerald Isle Commissioners there were 3 seats up and 3 people ran. There were 11 write-in votes. What a race huh?

Indian Beach had 3 commissioner seats up and 3 people ran. Zero write-in votes here though.

Morehead City’s race for Mayor was no more interesting. Mayor Jerry Jones received 238 of the 245 votes. 7 votes went to write-in candidate(s). There were 2 Commissioner seats up and once again 2 people were on the ballot. Some real nail biters here folks.

To me it feels and looks like there’s no real choice as to who gets elected to these positions. Which is fine if everyone is completely happy and satisfied with the way things are being run in their municipality. But that is certainly not the case. Because I’ve heard folks in each one of the municipalities complain about things their elected officials could fix. But do they vote? Do they try and replace some of these folks that are pretty much given a free seat in our local governments by getting on the ballot themselves?

Personally I would like to see some younger blood getting on these ballots and maybe making Carteret County and the communities within it a little more progressive. What would you like to see?

I had to park about three blocks from the courthouse this morning. I thought I was going to be late, but I was right on time. But the courtroom was full and had became standing room only.

After standing in line for about an hour, I was finally able to resolve my legal matter. The judge was extremely polite to everyone who came before him. Even though there seemed to be a never-ending line. He was also very fair in my opinion, and he may have instilled a sliver of confidence in our legal system in me.

But mainly just be warned of the parking situation up there, I mean it’s a zoo in Beaufort at 9am around the Carteret County Courthouse. Usually arriving early is enough, but here you need to get to the courthouse by about 8:30am to be on the safe side.

If you do have to go to court, I wish you the best of luck with your case though.