CAROLINA BEACH — Six Carolina Beach Town Council Candidates and two mayoral candidates met Tuesday night for the Visions and Views 2017 political forum, an event hosted by The Pleasure Island Chamber of Commerce and The Pleasure Island Foundation for a Sustainable Community.
Opioids, plastic bans, MOTSU and more: mayoral debate in Carolina Beach
The forum brought members of Port City Daily, Star News, and The Island Gazette to serve as moderators during the event, and present the candidates with questions. Questions were submitted by members of the community, as well as created by the moderators.
Carolina Beach’s 2017 Town Council race features six candidates vying for two open seats. The incumbents LeAnn Pierce and Gary Doetsch are both running for reelection. New candidates include JoDan Garza, Tammy Hanson (who ran in 2015), Gary Toppin and Sarah Friede (who is running to return to city council).
Questions included topics like candidate positions on banning smoking on Carolina Beach, their position on offshore drilling, and beach renourishment plans. Candidates were also allowed a chance to ask a question of an opponent of their choosing.
Offshore drilling
The first question of the night asked for candidates’ opinions on offshore seismic testing, oil drilling, and wind farms. The entire panel was opposed to offshore drilling and seismic testing, and the majority supported the idea of wind farms and sustainable energy options. Pierce and Toppin both wanted to find out more information on wind farms and alternative energy options, but would support the ideas if feasible. Garza was more emphatic, suggesting that the town could generate all of its own power via solar, wind and wave-turbine power.
Parking and traffic
Two related questions asked candidates they would handle parking and traffic.
Pierce suggested that the town’s emphasis on “walking, biking and golf carts” could help mitigate the need for parking, but also acknowledged that the town would have to consider a parking deck in order to mitigate the deficit of parking spaces in the town, an idea that was echoed by several of the other candidates including Hanson and Doetsch. Doetsch and Pierce both suggested a public-private partnership to build a parking deck, potentially combining parking with commercial space.
Friede suggested the use of a trolley from the Food Lion, located near the northern entrance to Carolin Beach, to help both cut down on traffic and move bulk parking away from crowded downtown area.
Toppin suggested that the rise of ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft could decrease the number of cars on the road, making a deck unnecessary and recommended a traffic study to see what the long-term affect of ride-shares would be. He also suggested re-marking the town’s parking spaces to allow a flexible combination of a single vehicle or and multiple golf carts in a single spot.
Beach Erosion
All of the candidates acknowledged the important of state and Federal funding in protecting the beach, but – as Freide noted – that funding is not secure beyond 2019. Candidates were asked how they would prepare locally.
Doetsch and Pierce both noted the work they’d already done on Town Council, working to set aside a reserve of funding. Pierce and Garza also suggested modifications to the room occupancy tax; Garza specifically suggested reducing ROT spending on advertising for Carolina Beach and increasing money for refurbishment.
Garza and Hanson both suggested forming an organization of coastal communities to lobby for federal aid.
Fines for dogs on the beach
A simple question that drew complicated answers: is Carolina Beach’s $250 for having a dog on the beach outside allowable hours too high?
Many candidates, including Friede, Garza, Hanson and Pierce, suggested it was too high, citing the need to balance “getting people’s attention,” as Pierce said, with actually generating ticket revenue. Pierce pointed to the high rate of contested tickets, saying that it was better to have a “$100 or $150 ticket” than to take people to civil court for a higher fine.
Toppin reflected on his personal medical experience with the the dangers of dog-bites, and suggested the potential for injury could justify the high fine.
Doetsch said categorically the fine should stay where it is, adding that Police Chief Chris Spivey had seen many tickets contested, but none overturned.
Smoking on the beach
One of the questions presented was the potential of banning cigarettes on the beach, something most of the candidates believed would not be enforceable. While littering is prohibited and an enforceable offense, banning visitors from smoking may not be possible.
“I don’t smoke, I don’t care if you do but I don’t like it … it is my understanding that we cannot enforce that on our beaches,” Pierce said.
Pierce, along with Doetsch, said it should be a matter of personal choice but hoped that residents and visitors would show personal responsibility in disposing of cigarette butts.
Friede had a different approach, suggesting the matter should be presented to the state legislators to change the law that would allow municipalities to ban outdoor smoking on the beach.
Questions from candidates
The second half of the forum took more of a debate style allowing the candidates a longer time to answer a series of questions, as well as provide a chance for rebuttal.
While the majority of the candidates passed on the opportunity to ask questions of their peers, Garza did ask Doetsch about the recent mishap with dredging of the town lake which has been put on hold while the town meets the requirements of the Military Ocean Terminal at Sunny Point (MOTSU).
Garza pushed Doetsch to say who was responsible for the incident, saying delays were costing the town daily. Doetsch would not specifically assign blame, saying only that the issue was complicated and that he believed the town had acted with its rights.
Voting
Election day is Nov. 7 and voters and one-stop voting begins Oct. 19.
