WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH — One of New Hanover County’s prominent beach towns will turn the page on its leadership, blending seasoned experience with fresh voices as two new aldermen and a new mayor take the oath Thursday night.
Two seats were open on the Wrightsville Beach Board of Aldermen this year. Ken Dull ran unopposed to take over the now-exiting Mayor Darryl Mills’ place, while Alderman and Mayor Pro Tem Hank Miller was voted out, having lost his seat by 16 votes to Todd Schoen. Miller secured 454 votes out of 1,832 voters in Wrightsville Beach’s municipal election this year; Schoen secured 470. Margaret Baggett pulled in the most support with 491 votes.
READ MORE: Traffic impacts worry WB residents as multi-bridge replacement looms
Schoen, Baggett, and Dull will be sworn in at the aldermen meeting on Dec. 11. The common denominator among them: their long history in Wrightsville Beach.
The message, consistent between all the aldermen, past and present, was that Wrightsville Beach, before anything else, was home.
“There is no other place,” Dull said. “This is it for North Carolina.”
Dull and Miller told Port City Daily some of their biggest accomplishments included transitioning Wrightsville Beach’s water system under the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority and hiring the town’s first communications manager to improve transparency.
Incoming aldermen, and the new mayor, are also looking to the future to tackle some of the biggest concerns facing the beach: traffic and parking ahead of figuring out how to best prepare for the three-bridge replacement project from the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
Outgoing Alderman Hank Miller
Born in Wrightsville Beach, Miller moved away briefly before returning in 1983 and said he ran for the board of aldermen more than a decade ago because he wanted to set his children up for the best possible future. His eldest was born in 2011 and his younger son was on the way in 2013 as Miller first campaigned for office. He has won his four-year aldermen seat twice since, in 2017 and 2021.
“It’s incumbent on us to manage the town and its growth so we preserve what we can for our future generations, which includes my kids,” Miller said.
Miller boasts a long list of achievements from his three terms in service. One of his first accomplishments was the installation of bike paths, which started in 2013 with the River to the Sea Bikeway Master Plan. In addition, Miller said the town is in the best financial shape it’s ever been in. When he first came onto the board in 2013, the tax rate was 13 cents per $100 value and has gone down three times — now at 5.31 cents per $100 value.
“We actually just never raised the rate. We didn’t actually decrease it,” Miller explained. “The valuation adjusted it a few times and then the law re-valuation basically cut it in half; but we have been revenue neutral since I joined, with increased parking revenue and fiscal responsibility.”
Wrightsville Beach made upwards of $6 million in parking revenue for FY 2024-2025.
In March, the town also hired its first communications manager, Bailey Hartsell — something that Miller said the alderman “beat that drum” on.
“We got away with not having one for a while because we had the Lumina News,” Miller said, speaking of the island newspaper focused only on the beach town; however, the publication shuttered in 2020. “When we lost that, if you didn’t come to the meetings and you didn’t read the news, you had no idea what was going on.”
Miller emphasized the importance of people being in the know and open communication between local government and constituents.
“The truth is always better than what they make up in their head — or sitting on the porch, having a drink,” he said. “And I don’t mean that negatively, but it’s all about communication. 99% of the problems in my opinion are from lack of communication.”
President of M&N Construction Supply and a senior broker at Cape Fear Commercial, Miller said he was not upset about the loss. The campaign process is always a learning experience for his family. His 14 year-old son in particular showcased that to him.
“He said: ‘We hold our chin up, we go out, congratulate the winner, and move on,’” Miller recalled.
Miller plans to focus more on work, though he also expressed a willingness to help out wherever he can, being a veteran of local government. During his aldermen tenure, he also served on the Wilmington Metropolitan Planning Organization. Yet, he doesn’t see himself pursuing any government office outside of Wrightsville Beach and isn’t sure if he’ll run again.
Miller has, however, been meeting with incoming aldermen Schoen and Baggett, the latter of whom he has known since college. He spoke with them about their plans and offered words of advice and background knowledge, encouraging them to heed caution on spending too much, even if the money is there — instead leaning in on fiscal responsibility.
“It doesn’t do Hank Miller any good for them to fail,” he said.
From alderman to mayor: Ken Dull
Even as Miller prepares to move on, his colleague Ken Dull will be moving into a new role as mayor and said there are still issues facing Wrightsville Beach. Among them, chiefly, is parking and traffic, especially with the bridge replacements overseen by the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
The bridge replacements have been top-of-mind, since they were announced in 2023. NCDOT will replace three — one on Causeway Drive and two along Salisbury Street — with construction beginning by 2028. Dull — who moved to Wrightsville Beach in 1988 — calls the project the “elephant in the room,” as it will disrupt traffic on Causeway Drive, Lumina Avenue and Salisbury Street.
“There are several things that are out of our control in Wrightsville Beach,” he said, the roads being one and ABC permits another.
The town’s main thoroughfares are owned and managed by the state. While Dull is assured by the solid working relationship between NCDOT and the aldermen, the project will largely be out of the town’s hands, though the impacts will be on its residents — and visitors.
Dull pointed to the ad hoc committee on the bridge replacement and open communication with NCDOT as continued consolation. Getting community involvement in decision-making processes and discussions with the NCDOT has already begun and more meetings are expected to come in 2026.
Having served as alderman since 2017, Dull said he was drawn to public service to give back to a community that has uplifted him, first as a member of the Wrightsville Beach Planning Board for six years.
Upon election as alderman, Dull came in at a time the town faced a water crisis. Well #11, which draws water from the underground Peedee Aquifer, shut down due to a chemical byproduct called “GenX” being discovered in the Cape Fear River, as dispersed from the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant.
“And our other wells were already starting to fail,” Dull said.
The contaminant, known to cause cancer, was found in the well after untreated water from the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority moved laterally and affected Wrightsville Beach’s wells. The wells had to be shut down to protect the community.
Solving the issue was a team effort, Dull added, but the board was able to reach a deal in 2022 to get Wrightsville Beach’s water supply system turned over to CFPUA to serve the community from its granular activated charcoal filtration system, which treats PFAS in the water supply. The whole process to transfer to the system took five years to complete and was solidified in September. It’s something Dull is proud of having achieved.
“It’s not real glitzy stuff, but that was a real big pull,” he said.
Dull said he wanted to campaign for mayor to become the face of the town after learning Mayor Darryl Mills — unresponsive to PCD for an interview — decided to not seek reelection.
“I want to help set the vision collectively with the board — but, ultimately, I’m the one steering the ship,” Dull said.
Dull has spoken with his predecessor and praised him as “a good friend,” adding he will continue to reach out as need be: “I always believe that the people who have walked ahead of you, you should always listen to.”
Aside from the bridge replacement, another major concern of Dull’s is noise from street-racing and souped-up vehicles. He and the board of aldermen have received a number of complaints.
“We’re going to demo a noise camera that if somebody goes by with their car and it hits a certain decibel, it’ll read their license plate,” he explained.
According to General Statute 20‑141.3, street-racing can result in a Class 1 or 2 misdemeanor, and per the town’s noise ordinance, a violation will result in a fine.
“We just want people to act like they would on their own streets,” Dull said.
The demo and Dull’s beautification plans, specifically around the 2.5-mile “Loop” — at the heart of Wrightsville Beach — are set to begin in the spring of 2026. Dull plans to hire a landscaping engineer to spruce up the circular path.
“The Loop” is also the name of the new weekly newsletter the Wrightsville Beach town government launched in June. In addition to Communication Manager Hartsell’s hiring, the newsletter is intended to improve communication between the town leaders and staff and residents.
Dull has already been in touch with incoming aldermen Schoen and Baggett as well and offered them words of encouragement: “Be like a sponge. Absorb and learn.”
Alderman Elect Margaret Baggett
Baggett moved to Wrightsville Beach in the early aughts after visiting the area since 1983. In the last five years, she has been a constant at the town’s public meetings — attending aldermen, parks and rec, planning board, ad hoc committee gatherings at every turn. She eventually began serving on the planning board and parks and recreation committee this year.
The inner workings of the town inspired Baggett to seek the alderman seat because she thought residents weren’t being listened to enough, and decisions on items such as special use permits were made without community input.
She said speaking up during public comment periods only allotted participants a short amount of time and it yielded few real-time responses from aldermen.
“So that’s when I was like, I think we ought to start doing town halls,” Baggett said. “We’ve done one — and, hopefully, those will continue.”
Her ideal solution is to hold town halls quarterly.
Baggett is also concerned about traffic and parking. She wants to see a phone application that provides up-to-date counts on parking spaces available across town. She is willing to toy with having a lower parking rate for less busy times of the day in places with fewer people and cars, to incentivize motorists and refrain from further inundating Wrightsville Beach during peak hours. What those rates may be is yet to be considered.
While complimenting new hires on town staff, such as Hartsell, Baggett also wants to see more cohesion between departments and boards. For instance, she would like to see the board of aldermen meet more often with the planning board to go over the CAMA Land Use Plan.
Adopted in 2018 and implemented in 2019, revisiting it yearly would help the town leaders execute changes according to the town’s current needs. For instance, she added infrastructure issues faced by the town would be more readily solved — even prevented, if the land use plan was revisited more. She suggested building upon it to create a strategic plan for the town that would address environmental and economic concerns more readily.
“If there are problem areas that need to be addressed, instead of reaching the point of needing replacement, we could carefully plan and repair it,” Baggett said.
Community input for these plans is also welcome, she assured.
Alderman Elect Todd Schoen
Community involvement was what sparked Schoen to run as an alderman. A small business owner who never held office before, Schoen, 51, is happy to provide the board a younger perspective — and hopes it will inspire others his age to campaign in the future.
“It just seems like it is time to start with a new generation,” he said. “I don’t know that the current board’s ages are representative of the current demographic.”
Shortly after I-40 opened into New Hanover County, Schoen moved to Wrightsville Beach in the early ‘90s from New York to attend the University of North Carolina Wilmington. UNCW was also the reason he was first introduced to Wrightsville Beach, via a surfing magazine. He fell in love with the area at 17 and never turned back.
“That story’s been written millions of times — where people have come here for UNCW and never left,” he said.
Schoen utilized door-to-door campaigning for this year’s election, walking from his house on Harbor Island to the South End.
“[I] spoke with as many people as I could,” Schoen said. “I literally met hundreds of people one at a time, and then had multiple meet-and-greet events to bring people to hear and meet me.”
Schoen is planning to take a two-day governance course offered by his alma mater in the new year to prepare and better understand his role in government.
Issues concerning him are heavier traffic, matched with the influx of people moving to Wrightsville Beach and visiting during tourist season. He added the bridge replacements were also important, and explained any plans to mitigate the impact on residents and business owners would be made in coordination with new town manager, Haynes Brigman.
He expressed excitement about working with Brigman, who took over from Tim Owens, after he abruptly retired in 2024. Miller, without speaking badly of Owens, called the new town manager a “trade up.”
“The town manager really runs Wrightsville Beach,” Schoen said. “So having a town manager that’s excited about improvements and moving the town forward sets the tone.”
Schoen also said he had a sense of comfort working alongside Dull, explaining the new mayor was used to “big projects” such as beach renourishment and infrastructure upgrade plans from his time as alderman. While Schoen couldn’t speak to other big decisions, he hopes to learn the ropes as well from town staff and seasoned sitting aldermen, including Dull.
Above all else, Schoen maintains he is always available to speak and resolves to be approachable to residents.
“Every single person in Wrightsville Beach should have my number by now,” he quipped. “There’s no reason they can’t or shouldn’t reach out to me.”
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