The document notes that longtime Seagate residents considered Seagate to encompass a larger area.

Related link:

PDF: Existing Conditions – Seagate Neighborhoodl Plan

Kendal Roy Smith (Photo courtesy Brunswick County Sheriff's Office)

Smith was arrested in July 2009 in Shallotte. He was driving a patrol car when he pulled out of a parking lot at a high speed, according to a StarNews report at the time.

Smith, then a lieutenant, was fired from his job at the Holden Beach Police Department, the report said.

“There are just so many variables,” said Wilmington resident Judy Bradley, who has been a wedding coordinator and designer for 17 years. Bradley, owner of a wedding planning business called Eventz!, said, in her experience, fees can range from $75 to $375.

“It’s different if somebody says, ‘Hey, we just want to get married on the beach and we’ve got our two witnesses.’” said Bradley, who is also officiates at weddings. “But if it’s going to be a big wedding with a lot of attendants on each side, it gets to be more involved.”

Some churches have fees for non-members. For example, a couple that wants to get married at First Baptist Church at 411 Market St., Wilmington [Map this], but is not a part of the congregation is charged a fee of $250, said Judy Brown, church secretary.

For church members, it’s up to the couple.

“If someone in my congregation asks me to do their wedding, I figure I’m already paid for that,” said the Rev. Dr. Michael Queen, senior pastor at First Baptist. “That’s a part of my work. Ninety percent of the weddings I do are my church members, so I don’t ever expect to be paid for a wedding. Having said that, most of the time you do get something for doing the wedding even if it is a church member. People feel some sense of obligation to pay the minister something.”

Queen’s advice for couples is to take their cues from the rates they pay other people involved in the wedding, such as photographers, caterers, directors and musicians.

“If you do the wedding, the rehearsal and counseling a time or two, you’ve invested several hours,” he said. “And I think then they can look at what they pay everybody else in that context and they can figure out what they need to do.”

For more help, the website WeddingOfficiants.com takes a detailed look at this issue.

Here is a link to a Budget Bites post I did about it a year ago.

N.C. DOT spokeswoman Jennifer Garifo said the decision to close bridges is usually a local decision by law enforcement. An exception, she said, is the Sunset Beach Bridge, which N.C. DOT will close at 40 mph.

Following is a list of bridges, with the wind speeds at which they usually are closed. Most information comes from town officials or police departments.

As Hurricane Earl neared the Cape Fear region in September 2010, N.C. DOT bridge engineer Trevor Carroll said officials would “lock down” the region’s drawbridges once winds reached 30 mph – 40 mph for the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge.

“We don’t want openings for marine traffic to get in the way in case of an evacuation situation,” he said.

Once the city gets a complaint, that starts the process of code enforcement contacting the affected property owner to educate them about the complaint and what they need to do to get the situation resolved, Talbert said.

Sometimes, if a structure is vacant, the process may take more time because the city has to track down the owners — they often live outside the region or state and sometimes there are several property owners for one structure, all in different locations.

If someone does make a complaint, the city starts a case. First the city makes an initial inspection. If a violation is found, the case is initiated and the property owners are sent a letter. The owner has 15 days to address the problem if it is a public nuisance or 30 days if it a zoning violation.

If the property is no longer in violation after the next inspection, the case is closed.

If it is still in violation, the owners are fined $100 for the first day. If the problem still exists at the next inspection, the owner is fined retroactively, $100 a day for nuisance and $200 a day if it’s a zoning violation until the property is brought into compliance, according to Talbert.

Under that agreement, the developers had an Aug. 1, 2010, deadline to start construction of the store.

“They failed to meet that date, and didn’t respond with any written notices as to why they did not,” said Roger Henderson, a spokesman for Lowes, which has its headquarters in Winston-Salem.

Henderson said letters were sent to the developers Aug. 2 and Aug. 16, 2010, notifying them they had not met the conditions of the agreement.

Lowes did not receive any monetary damages.

“Each party walks away with no further obligation to the other,” he said.

Jim Hall and Dr. C. P. Bolles at City Hospital in the 1890s. (Photo courtesy New Hanover County Public Library, Fales Collection)

In 1869, some 15 “inmates” (as patients were occasionally called) were moved into the Marine Hospital building. According to an item in the Morning Star, patients from outside the city were “admitted only by special arrangement.” News stories indicate the facility employed both black and white nurses.

Another series of Morning Star stories followed the case of an African-American patient, an amputee suffering severe loss of blood who, in late May 1870, received a “transfusion” of blood from a lamb. The Star was much taken with this novel procedure and printed glowing bulletins on the patient’s steady improvement until his death on June 10, 1870.

In 1881, the N.C. General Assembly passed an act allowing the City of Wilmington and New Hanover County to set up a joint hospital. (The facility was occasionally called the “City-County Hospital,” but most newspaper stories, and the city directory, continued to refer to it as “City Hospital.”)

The newly organized hospital acquired a building and lot at 10th and Red Cross streets, on the former site of Klein’s, a beer garden. Dr. W.W. Lane was named its first superintendent, a post he held for 16 years. Lane, according to historian Diane Cashman, pioneered the use of James Lister’s sterilization techniques in the area.

According to Dr. Robert Fales, City Hospital averaged a cost of 30 cents per patient per day. Many of these were charity cases; in 1891, the hospital’s annual receipts totaled just $719. (In 1894, the hospital trustees reported treating 202 charity patients in the previous year, and 68 paying patients.)  The county covered three-fifths of operating expenses, and the city, two-fifths.

The building was expanded in 1884 by James F. Post, the architect-builder who had worked on Thalian Hall. By July 1884, a local newspaper described it as “a very handsome cottage hospital.” Another news item reported that “(t)he grounds are very beautifully laid out and adorned with trees, plants, shrubbery, grape arbors, etc.”

In 1886, the hospital hit a total of 39 patients. (Its usual census in those years ran between 25 and 30.) At least some of these may have been in some form of respite or nursing care. That same year, cotton broker James Sprunt paid for about a dozen City Hospital patients to take a day-long excursion down the Cape Fear River on the steamer Passport to Smithville (Southport), where they were served “a good dinner” at Miss Stewart’s.

Four private rooms were maintained upstairs at the City Hospital, according to the Wilmington Messenger, for patients “who are able to pay moderate outlays for treatment but can ill afford to pay the travel expenses incident to treatment in a Northern hospital.” 

Until 1888, City Hospital seems to have been limited to white patients. In that year, however, “a large, commodious building” was added on the grounds “for the accommodation of the colored people.” 

Other buildings also were located on the grounds. In 1898, a small structure, used as a dispensary, burned down and was replaced.

In 1897, Dr. R.E.  Zachary of Brevard, a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina and a newly licensed M.D., was hired as resident surgeon to replace Dr. Lane, who was retiring. Zachary departed within a year, amid allegations of incompetence and scandal, and Dr. C.P. Wertenbaker of the Marine Hospital filled in until the hiring of Dr. Charles P. Bolles Jr. as the new superintendent in 1899.

During the 1898 Wilmington riot/uprising, a number of wounded black men were treated at City Hospital.

By then, standards seem to have suffered a decline. Dr. Bolles soon complained to county officials that the hospital’s surgical instruments were old and rusty and that the hospital urgently needed a new sterilizer. In 1900, Dr. Bolles departed to accept a position with Hugh MacRae & Co., and Dr. Lane (who had been in private practice in Wilmington) returned as superintendent.

In 1901, City Hospital was replaced by the new James Walker Memorial Hospital, built under a bequest from James Walker (who had constructed the old Marine Hospital building). While James Walker was being built on its old Red Cross Street site, City Hospital seems to have operated temporarily at Dickinson and Rankin streets.

The size of police forces of both counties and all 23 municipalities was the focus of a recent StarNews analysis, prompted by a reader’s question as to the ratio of officers to residents in both coastal counties.

While the data, gathered through telephone surveys, provides a glimpse into the size of each municipality’s police department, it’s important to note that the ratios are subject to seasonal variations, as well as other distorting factors.

Population data for this analysis was collected through 2009 U.S. Census estimates, but the figures only reflect respondents who consider themselves residents of a given locale.

Some communities, the beaches and islands especially, are known to balloon with tourists and seasonal residents during the summer months, strapping police departments with a heavier burden.

Also, the ratios only factored in the number of full-time police officers in each locale. Many departments supplement their forces with part-time officers, auxiliaries, volunteers and interns.

Bald Head Island’s Chief of Public Safety, Chip Munna, asserted that population variations should be taken into account when considering the municipality’s ratio of police officers. He said his force was stretched farther than the ratio implies.

“That’s strictly people that claim residency, that’s not the population,” Munna said of the census estimates. “We’re a tourist community just like all of the area beaches.”

Also to be considered is the number of civilian personnel in each department. Lucy Crockett, a spokeswoman for the Wilmington Police Department, said that while ratios have historically drawn significant consideration by officials, the figures have increasingly lost meaning as “civilianization” of key positions grows among modern police departments. She said civilians are now performing functions that were formerly the responsibility of sworn police officers but that don’t require powers of arrest, like crash investigation, for example.

“That means over time, the formula no longer has much meaning,” she said.

Ratios for full-time officer positions:

New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office: 295 deputy positions
Population: 195,085
Ratio: 661 to 1

Wilmington: 265 officer positions
Population: 101,350
Ratio: 382 to 1

Wrightsville Beach Police Department: 23 officer positions.
Population: 2,652
Ratio: 115 to 1

Carolina Beach Police Department: 37 officer positions.
Population: 5,881
Ratio: 159 to 1

Kure Beach Police Department: 10 officer positions.
Population: 2,515
Ratio: 252 to 1

Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office: 145 deputy positions.
Population: 107,062
Ratio: 738 to 1

Bald Head Island Department of Public Safety: 13 officer positions
Population: 294
Ratio: 23 to 1

Belville, Bolivia, Calabash, Carolina Shores, St. James and Sandy Creek: No police department. Patrolled by the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office.

Boiling Spring Lakes: 8 officer positions
Population: 4,784
Ratio: 598 to 1

Caswell Beach: 4 officer positions
Population: 472
Ratio: 118 to 1

Holden Beach: 9 officer positions
Population: 853
Ratio: 95 to 1

Leland Police Department: 32 officer positions.
Population: 5,936
Ratio: 186 to 1

Navassa: 4 police officers
Population: 1,913
Ratio: 478 to 1

Northwest: 2 officer positions.
Population: 976
Ratio: 346 to 1

Oak Island: 24 officer positions
Population: 8,297
Ratio: 346 to 1

Ocean Isle Beach: 13 officer positions
Population: 530
Ratio: 41 to 1

Shallotte: 16 officer positions
Population: 2,210
Ratio: 138 to 1

Southport: 10 officer positions.
Population: 3,242
Ratio: 324 to 1