Olde Towne Crier

March 2008

Olde Towne

Community Association
Executive Committee

President:

Stuart Smith

371-9555

Vice President:
Denny Kern

383-0559

Secretary:

Clare Heinz

371-00579

Treasurer

Bobbi Fitzpatrick

371-0836

Annual Meeting

The Olde Towne Community Association Annual Meeting will be held on April 26, 2008. New officers for the OTCA board will be elected at this time. The current slate of candidates is as follows:

President : Denny Kern

Vice President: Joe Breault

Treasurer: Bev Farrington

Secretary: Bobbi Fitzpatrick

Please complete the attached ballot and vote. Additional candidates can be written in. Please make sure your write in candidate is willing to serve on the board of the OTCA.

OTCA Meeting
April 1, 2008
7 p.m.

Doug & Bobbi Fitzpatrick’s Home

10159 SOTW

We hope to see you there!

Easter Party

Parents and children gathered in the Olde Towne park to celebrate with the Easter Bunny. Planned by Jennifer Ferzola, who had a wonderful program organized for them. They had a great time playing games like pin-the-tail on the donkey, two legged sack race, egg-in-the-spoon race, painting eggs, egg hunt among a few to list. Easter Bunny was graciously played by Joe Breault (hank you for dressing up for the children). and a big thank you to his wife Mary for making his bunny costume. The children posed with the Easter Bunny for a group photo. There were about 12 children, as well as parents and adults attending. We were blessed with a beautiful sunny day for the children to have a great time. See a wonderful slide show of pictures at http://oldetownenc28451.blogspot.com. Thanks to Beverly Farrington for doing this, it looks wonderful. Bev is also looking for information about the history of Olde Towne. If you would like to contribute, please contact her at oldetowne28451@gmail.com.

Park Improvement

We have finished clearing the walkway between SOTW and the park. A new children’s play set is still being planned.

Future Events

BBQ and Annual Meeting: April 26

Lobster Feast: TBD
Children’s Halloween Party: October 20

Oyster Roast: November 10

Children’s Christmas Party: December 15

Welcome Newcomers

If you have just moved to Olde Towne please call Patricia Ashburner at 383-0632 and let her know you’re here, or stop by at our next association meeting. We’d love to meet you.

Going Green?

Cape Fear Green Building Alliance meets at 7:00 PM the 3rd Tuesday of each month at The Balcony on Front Street (above the old Roudabush's store).

Cape Fear Bio Fuels Coop meets at 6:00 PM the 2nd Thursday of each month at Tidal Creek Co-op (upstairs) on Oleander Drive.

If anyone has questions or would like more information, they can call Willie Dalrymple at 371-6948.

Mark McAllister attended the March 12 Olde Towne Community Association meeting and spoke about his desire to make himself known and available to Olde Towne residents and take concerns back to commissioners. Mark said he was working on:

• Getting familiar with 2010 Belville and 2020 vision.

• Keeping an eye on changeover from administration to town manager.

• Size and effectiveness of staff.

• Law enforcement: spoken to NW and Navassa police. He’s talked to Mayors of Leland and Navassa. He goes to their meetings to they know who he is. Budget will need to be reworked to accommodate police officer.

Olde Towne residents expressed the following concerns:

• Belville provides and residents desire few services but pay very high cost. Why does Belville need a town administrator, planner, financial officer, town clerk/tax collector, assistant, plus pay attorney $60K. Do we need a planner when nearly all planning is complete or a financial officer for a small town? Belville needs to reduce taxes to be consistent with services.

• Belville is spending a great deal of money on the town hall to say we’re in Belville.

• Downtown development – most residents do not care if downtown is developed. We do not want our taxes spent to help a developer. Town is spending our money to develop downtown. Need to use TIF financing to get around the referendum. Downtown – would prefer a hotel group to a complex. Other stuff will come. Proposed plan nice – developer makes money – our taxes help them. What is return on our money? Return 20-30 years because of repaying financing.

• Community input came up with some neat ideas for Belville – need to implement. Loose dogs in neighborhood.

• Sheriff department policy.

• Litter control plan.

• Street signs repair/replace plan.

• Enforcement of 4 wheelers.

• Belville entrance project plan?

• Plan for windstorm 2008. Hurricane cleanup plan. Debris clean up?

• Citizen emergencies – 911?

• Communications equipment?

• Step backwards joining Belville. Don’t want citizen input.

• Control cat/dog population.

• Huge amount of population coming to this area.

• Olde Towne has reputation as complainers. We lost county services. We have a right to complain if you were here before it was messed up. Can’t stop growth but have a right to complain if nothing is being done. Complaints are not Olde Towne concerns. They are all of Belville concerns.

• Moved here didn’t want services. Should keep Belville small.

Mark said he is willing to find answers – will take to commissioners.

Jack Batson said we could pay 2 cents more and have law enforcement.