RecoveryActfunds lowerenergycosts, providejobs Serendipityarrives

THEY'RE STILL OUT THERE: Surf action at Hayman
Boulevard. Pages B2, B3
obsentinel.com
A1
OUTER BANKS SENTINEL | WEDNESDAY, JAN. 20, 2010
Wednesday, Jan. 20 – Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010 | The Newspaper for Today’s Outer Banks | www.obsentinel.com | 50 Cents
Recovery Act funds
lower energy costs,
provide jobs
BRIEFS
DEMOCRATIC WOMEN TO MEET
The Democratic Women
of Dare will hold its
monthly meeting Thursday,
Jan. 21, at Kelly’s Restaurant in Nags Head. Speaker
will be Britton Shackelford
of N.C. Waterman United.
Social begins at 6:30 p.m.
The meeting starts at 7.
Cost is $19, which includes
tax and tip. Reservations
are necessary. Email
susanmpope@embarqmail.
com or 255-2893.
BY SANDY SEMANS
SENTINEL STAFF
ROAD CLOSURES IN KDH
Road closures continue
as the town of Kill Devil
Hills water main improvement project proceeds.
The intersection of
Avalon Drive and Virginia
Dare Trail will be closed
through Thursday, Jan. 21.
The intersection of Raymond Avenue and Eden
Street is expected to be
closed through Friday, Jan.
22. No water outages are
expected.
HISTORY DINNER SET
A Kinnakeet History
Dinner, sponsored by the
Kinnakeet Civic Association, is set for 6 p.m. on
Friday, Jan. 22 at the Avon
Volunteer Fire Dept.
Local historian Danny
Couch will be the special
guest. Bring a salad or side
dish to share and photographs or other items of
Kinnakeet history to display. For information, call
Robin Ames at 995-4768.
DEATHS – A7
KLAUS RITTER | SENTINEL
Bodie lighthouse getting facelift
Restoration of the Bodie Island Lighthouse is now underway and thus opening the
possibility that the structure will at some point in the future be open for climbing.
Funding for the Bodie Island Lighthouse was requested in 2006 and again 2007,
but was not included in the National Park Service budget until 2009. The significant
restoration is to address structural and safety issues, repair or replace corroded metal
features around the gallery and lantern decks, repair and strengthen the stairs, repair
masonry and stone, and rehabilitate portions of the floor, windows, and framing,
upgrade electrical systems and ensure lightning protection. Work which began in the
Fall is expected to take approximately 18 months for completion. The first order Fresnel
lens has been removed so that it can be restored offsite and will be re-installed when
the lighthouse renovations are completed.
Federal Recovery Act
funds are projected to help
lower home heating and
cooling costs for those with
low incomes and provide
jobs, particularly for the
hard-hit construction
trades.
The $65 million federal
funds sent to the state to
use for weatherization
projects dwarfs the $9.7
million that funded the
regular Department of
Energy program last year.
And this year, when 30
percent of the units have
been completed, another
$65 million will be added to
the budget. The state has
three years to spend the
funding.
Harold Davis, director
of the N.C. Weatherization
Office, said that statewide
during the last fiscal year,
6,815 households applied
for the weatherization help
offered under the regular
program.
Clients are prioritized by
key factors: income level,
families with young children, elderly, disabled, and
those with high energy
burdens and energy usage.
Agencies serving multiple
‘It is by far the
hottest topic going
for our agency.’
Reginald Speight
counties are required to
serve those counties in
proportion to the number
of households in poverty.
This ensures that every
county gets its fair share
of the weatherization dollars.
“Of those applicants,
383 were determined to be
ineligible for the program;
mostly due to being over
the income guidelines. The
6,432 were approved,” said
Davis.
“In response to the
increased interest in this
program due to the Recovery Act, agencies have
had to increase both their
outreach efforts and staff
to meet the demand.”
During the last fiscal
year, the average time
it took for an agency to
approve a client that had
applied was about 23 days,
said Davis. “From July 1,
2009 to date, the average
SEE RECOVERY ACT, PAGE A11
William Howard Alderton, 78, of
Colington
Proposal
would further
restrict
gill nets
Douglas Durand Cornette, 60, of
Duck
John ‘Jack’ Michael Hebenstreit, 82,
of Frisco
Calvert Hughes Moore, 83, of Kill
Devil Hills
Joseph Nagy, Jr., 92, of Grandy
Antha Corrao Ponton, 96, of Corolla
Robert Joseph Stewart, Jr., 59, of
Colington Harbour
BY SUSAN WEST
SENTINEL STAFF
INSIDE
ALMANAC.................................... A2
CLASSIFIEDS ................................. B6
COLUMNS .................................... A5
COMICS ........................................ B4
DIVERSIONS ................................. B5
ENTERTAINMENT......................... A9
KITCHENTALK ............................ A12
NEWS............................................ A3
OPINION...................................... A4
RELIGION ..................................... A6
REPORTS....................................... A8
SENTINEL SCENES ........................ A4
SPORTS ......................................... B1
DON BOWERS
Serendipity arrives
at its new home
BY JOE WARD
ISLAND FREE PRESS
The journey of Serendipity, the “Nights in
Rodanthe” beach house,
resumed pretty close to on
schedule on Monday morning, Jan. 18, and once the
hulking building got rolling
it took just 22 minutes to
get it to its new space down
Highway 12.
People lined the highway
taking pictures, and some
walked along with the fa-
mous house the whole 2,500
or so feet to its new lot. A
helicopter circled overhead.
“It was like a parade,”
said Jim Charlet, manager
at Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station and Historic
Site, who was one of the
onlookers.
Frenetic day-long efforts
to get Serendipity off the
beach at its old site, where
it was threatened by the
ever-encroaching surf of
SEE SERENDIPITY, PAGE A10
WANDA LAW
Dietz on display
Cassidy Dietz of Kill Devil Hills stands just
below her picture, Fall Leaves, a mixed-media
piece she created in her third grade art class
taught by Cindy Wise at Nags Head Elementry.
It’s currently on display in the annual Dare
County Schools Art Show at Glenn Eure’s Ghost
Fleet Gallery in Nags Head. The show features
works from dozens of students from the
different schools. Glenn Eure has graciously
allowed us the use of his gallery for the past
17 years, Wise noted.
Fishermen would see
large sections of coastal
waters closed to larger
mesh gill nets from May 15
through Dec. 15, under a
proposal developed by the
North Carolina Division of
Marine Fisheries.
The proposed restrictions were presented in a
Jan. 11 letter from Louis
Daniel, state Division of
Marine Fisheries (DMF)
chief, to Roy Crabtree,
southeast regional administrator of National
Marine Fisheries Service
(NMFS).
The letter states that the
rules would allow gill net
fisheries to operate in a
manner that would avoid
the incidental capture of
SEE PROPOSAL, PAGE A10
The Capitol Steps put the ‘mock’ in ‘democracy’
BY PETER HUMMERS
SENTINEL STAFF
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PETER HUMMERS | SENTINEL STAFF
‘President Obama’ and ‘Secretary of State Clinton’ listen to her
husband ‘Bill’ during the Capitol Steps concert at the Outer
Banks Forum Saturday.
It was clear that the the
Capitol Steps’ satirical
revue was going to be special soon after they were
introduced to the audience
at the Outer Banks Forum
for the Lively Arts Saturday evening.
As their accompanist
sat silently at his piano
on an otherwise bare
stage, a disembodied voice
announced: “Ladies and
gentlemen: Welcome to
this performance of the
Capitol Steps. Please take
a moment to familiarize
yourself with the emergency exits located around
the room. In the event
of an emergency, please
remain seated and wait for
a federal bailout.”
It didn’t let up after that.
“Joe Biden” came on stage,
introducing himself: “Hello, I’m Vice President Joe
Biden, and I’ve been asked
not to speak in public. But
here I am.”
The Capitol Steps was
formed in 1981 when
three staffers for Senator
Charles Percy were planning entertainment for
a Christmas party. Their
website states, “Our first
idea was to stage a nativity play, but in the whole
Congress they couldn’t
find three wise men or a
virgin!”
They went on to produce dozens of albums,
appearing on “Good
Morning America,” the
“Today Show,” “20/20,”
“Entertainment Tonight,”
“Nightline,” CNN’s “Inside
SEE FORUM, PAGE A10
A11
OUTER BANKS SENTINEL | WEDNESDAY, JAN. 20, 2010
obsentinel.com
RECOVERY ACT: helps with energy costs, jobs
FROM PAGE A1
time it takes to approve
an application has been
reduced to about 15.4 days.
Usually delays are due to
incomplete applications
or supporting documentation. Because these are
federal funds, our agencies
are tasked with ensuring
that all information is collected and verified before
rendering any service.”
Ethan R. Lema, weatherization director for the
Edenton-based Economic
Improvement Council, Inc.
said that the 10-county
northeast region of the
state, which includes Dare
County, that is served by
that organization, will
receive a total share of $2.7
million in Recovery Act
funding during the course
of the program.
The money is disbursed
in phases, said Lema. Ten
percent is released in the
first phase; 40 percent
in the second; and when
30 homes are completed,
the remaining 50 percent
will be provided. Approximately 600 homes in this
region may benefit from
the program, which has an
expense cap of $4,000 per
residence for both materials and labor.
The allotment for Dare
County is to cover about 70
homes.
Thus far, the agency has
received a total of 286 applications, which includes
11 from Dare County. “That
is considerably more [applicants] than in the past,”
said Lema, who added that
he is not surprised at the
interest or the need for
help.
Work on the Dare
County homes is expected
to begin this month.
To meet the challenge
of the increased number
of requests for help, Lema
said that his office has
added four administrative
staff positions and hired
eight other workers.
“We are also required
to subcontract locally for
many of the homes to be
weatherized. All subcontractors must be trained,”
said Lema, referring to
the weatherization classes
now offered at some community colleges across the
state that workers must
attend before beginning
work.
“All work is done based
upon priority of need
among our residents,”
said Lema. “Work is done
across the ten-county
region. Eligibility is based
upon 200 percent of the
poverty guidelines.”
But applications in the
more heavily populated
six-county region to the
west, which includes Beaufort, Edgecombe, Martin,
Nash, Pitt and Wilson have
increased even more.
“Our recruitment efforts
have netted well over 2,000
applications and recruitment is ongoing considering the number of initial
applicants who may not
follow-through with the
submission of all of the
necessary information,”
said Reginald Speight of
Martin County Community Action organization,
which is administering the
program in that region.
“The 2,000 figure is an
estimate and these aren’t
all complete applications.
Some may be missing
information necessary
to determine eligibility.
This amount is staggering, compared to previous
recruitment efforts. It is by
far the hottest topic going
for our agency.”
The total funding for
the complete program in
that region will be slightly
more than $7 million after
the benchmarks are met.
Speight said that the
agency, per mandate, has
been busy completing
units funded under the former program before it can
begin on projects funded
through the Recovery Act.
“It is our plan to commence Recovery production during the week of
Jan. 18. Funds that have
been expended have been
for newly hired staff, training, purchase of equipment, travel for recruitment efforts, etc.,” said
Speight.
“We have hired nine
additional office staff,
two of which were hired
in November, the other
seven began Jan. 11. We
hired five additional crew
members all of which
were hired on Nov. 30th
and went through the pilot
training via Wilson Community College on Dec. 1-3.
We plan to hire an additional three crew members
around late February or
early March from the next
training class scheduled.”
Speight said that the
current response time for
an approved application
for the commencement
of work is roughly three
to six months. If all the
available funding is spent,
approximately 1,792 homes
may benefit from the program.
“However, with the new
hires, trained staff and
our intention to establish
offices and crews/subcontractors in each of
our service locations, the
maximum wait time for
each county is anticipated
to be roughly three months
depending upon the shifts
in priority ranking. Once a
home is assessed and heating/cooling systems have
been evaluated, the start
to completion of install
measures is approximately
four hours per home.”
The program is open
to both homeowners and
renters who receive permission from their landlords.
The process begins with
a home inspection, which
includes testing for gas
leaks, carbon monoxide
and other health and
safety issues; checking
combustible appliances
such as stoves, furnaces
and water heaters; tuning, repairing or replacing
heating equipment; sealing air infiltration sites,
installing attic, wall and
floor insulation; sealing
leaky ducts; adding ventilation; installing fire and
carbon monoxide detector;
installing compact florescent lights; and general
heat waste measures.
Families with incomes
below 200 percent of
the poverty guideline
are eligible, as are those
receiving cash-assistance
payments under Work
First or Supplemental
Security Income. A family
of one may have income
up to $21,660 and a family
of four up to $44,100.
Those living in the
northeastern portion
of the state should call
252-482-4459 to receive
an application from the
Economic Improvement
Council in Edenton.
[email protected] | 480-2234
Family affair
DARYL LAW | SENTINEL
The Joe Lamb, Jr. & Associates Realty company celebrated the opening of their new offices in Kitty
Hawk with a ribbon cutting on Jan. 14. Pictured, from left, are Jodie Herman of the company along
with family members Joe Lamb IV, Joe Lamb III, Zee Lamb, Pat Lamb Hardy, Dan Hardy, Warren
Judge of the Dare County Board of Commissioner then Ann and Joe Lamb Jr., with their hands on
the giant scissors. The family-owned and operated establishment has been in business since 1968.
The new offices are located east of the bypass at the 2.7 mile marker.
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