CAROLINA BEACH — The Town of Carolina Beach failed to approve a motion to purchase land from the Carolina Beach Presbyterian Church for the construction of a new water tower after what council members described as an attempted ‘fleecing’ of the town. The only member to vote in favor of the motion was Mayor Pro Tem Tom Bridges, who also sits on the church’s board.
The property in question is approximately 10,000-square-feet of undeveloped property near Dow Road. The property has most recently been appraised at less than $10,000, according to Town Manager Michael Cramer, but the church proposed a sale price of $101,260.
“I am only saying this because I want to be on record saying that I am not going to support this. I think the town needs the water, I just think it’s egregious paying 10 times the appraised value for a spike strip on a piece of property that is not being used,” Councilman Steve Shuttleworth said during Tuesday’s council meeting.
All of the members of Town Council voted against the purchase of the property except for Mayor Pro Tem Tom Bridges — who also happens to be board member of the Carolina Beach Presbyterian Church.
According to Town Clerk Kim War, Bridges was compelled to vote on the issue instead of recusing himself due to state law. Since the sale of the property would not financially benefit him, recusal was not an option, Bridges said.
A rock and a hard place
Much of council seemed displeased with the church’s offer.
“None of us up here are particularly happy with the price but we feel like were put in a position that we feel like we really don’t have a choice and we want to have this facility for our public to have clean drinking water,” Councilwoman LeAnne Pierce said.
Different members of the council shared Pierce’s sentiment agreeing that the price was too high, but there were few options but to pay the church.
“We’re over a barrel here, I don’t want this to become some kind of a trend where the town caves to something so egregious in my view, so that the next deal is another fleecing,” Mayor Joe Benson said.
The town is already facing financial woes and is running low on its reserve funds after going over budget on other projects.
“You’ll hear today that were down to 20 percent in our reserve account, we’re about to have a discussion to spend more money on a fence, but we’re going to spend 10 times the fair market value that I think we ought to go back to the church and have a conversation with them. They are taking advantage of us and I think they know it,” Shuttleworth said.
In defense of his church, Bridges claimed this was not the first choice for them. The church purchased the land in question and still owes money on the property, he said. If the church ever wants to expand, they no longer would have the ability to do so on that property.
Bridges also said there was a lot of hesitation from the church as a whole to sell the property and a congregation-wide vote had to pass before the sale could take place.
Councilman JoDan Garza challenged the statement that it was not an easy sale claiming the chance to make 10 times the value of the property would be easy to convince most people of in the church. He also said he would expect the church, who has been neighbors with the town for years, to be more willing to sell its property at the appraised value because it would benefit everyone.
Ultimately, the vote failed to pass and council will have to readdress the future of the water tank at another time.
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