Ghost walk

Saturday was the final night of the New Bern Ghost walk and some members of my lunch Rotary volunteered to help at the Cedar Grove Cematary. There were 5 groups of actor's playing various roles with a common theme pertaining to the occupancy of New Bern by Union forces during the Civil War. The weather was perfect, the crowds were quite large, and everyone seemed to enjoy their evening stroll through a time in New Bern's history that has become somewhat blurred with time. Quite a bit of money was raised for the New Bern Historical society and me, I found it to be a haunting experience.

October in New Bern

In New Bern, October is a month of fun and festivals. We just got back from the Chili Festival which is always a fun filled event held in Havelock which is about a 20 minute drive from New Bern. Chef's from all over the state come in to see whose chili will be chosen number one by a panel of 12 judges. Many other types of food were prepared by various non profit organizations and sold to raise money for the charities they represent. Many performances, including Community and High School Bands, College choirs, professional wrestlers, and Civil War re-enactment soldiers entertained the thousands of visitors.

Also held this weekend was the Neuse River Run. This year's event had over 800 contestants who competed in 5 and 10 K runs/walks. The run begins in Bridgeston and proceeds to the Neuse River Bridge and finishes in downtown New Bern. All proceeds from the event go to 12 non profit organizations.

The Mum Fest was held in downtown New Bern last weekend. This annual event is rated one of the top 20 festivals in the South and grows each year with new vendors and performers. Click the link to learn more about the Mum Fest http://www.mumfest.com/

New Bern's Ghost Walk will be held October 26 and 27. This years Ghost walk will give you a chance to experience the Civil War Years in New Bern at the 17th annual New Bern at Night Ghostwalk. The Ghostwalk tour features historic homes, churches, and the town’s oldest cemetery, dating back to 1798. This year’s event transports you to the Civil War Years, with Confederate and Union soldiers, spies and other “spirits” that disclose their intriguing stories. Guides are available at each site to give the history of homes while the “ghosts” tell the story of the Battle of New Bern and share other tales of what the town was like during this turbulent era in American history when brother fought against brother.

Oh say can you see

The 4th of July is all about fireworks, small town parades, friends, family and cookouts. This year I managed to experience a little of all the above. I started the day by attending the Riverbend 4th of July parade. This is a great event to attend as it typifies a small town 4th of July celebration. The parade is only about 3 blocks long but the enthusastic crowd cheers their local celebraties, Fire departments, and civic organizations. The parade ends at the town hall where they have pony rides, games, food and drink and a country rock band.

After leaving Riverbend I rode to Havelock to join some friends, retired Marines, for their annual 4th celebration that comes complete with barbeque, watermelon, cole slaw, and pepsi cola. Havelock is the home of Cherry Point Marine air station and there are plenty of former Marines that attend the party. The air was filled with patriotism as you might expect. Great time but I had to leave early to get back to New Bern and prepare my boat for a fun filled evening on the water with friends. We, along with everyone else in the area with a boat, boated to Union Point and watched the awesome fireworks. What a sight. We enjoyed it throughly and will no doubt be back next year.

New Bern regional airport

Last Saturday I had to go to the airport to pick my wife up. She was coming in from Philadelphia. I was suprised when I walked in the the airport to see so many people, some getting their luggage, 2 lines, one Delta, one US Air, both of which weemed to be full. New Bern, and all of Eastern NC, are fortunate to have an airport with such outstanding service. We have 8 US Air flights daily to Charlotte, 3 Delta direct jet flights to Atlanta, and several weekly flights to Philadelphia. Thats hard to beat for a small county like craven, Pamlico, and Cateret.

Lake New Bern

Last night my wife and my son spent the afternoon at Lake New Bern. Lake New Bern is a 60 acre, 40' deep absolutely beautiful lake located in the center of New Bern. We set up a tent, started the charcoal, and proceeded to enjoy the afternoon reading, walking-me, and fishing. After I walked around the perimeter of the lake, around 2 miles, I checked to see how many fish my wife and son had caught. The sum of their catch was 0. So I asked if they would mind if I gave it a whirl. First cast and bang, I hooked a nice large mouth bass.

Humbly I unhooked the fish and walked away.

Fun at the Palace

The photo on the left shows New Bern's Tryon Palace during a concert held Tuesday June 4. What a wonderful evening. Over 1000 people showed up to hear the North Carolina symphony. Afterwards there was a spectacular fireworks display courtesy of one of our local corporations. All this for free. Great evening and I hope they will do it again soon.

Happy on the river in New Bern

Happiness is being on the Trent River in New Bern with your grandson and your two best friends, Roscoe and River. Doesn`t get much better than this.

The Golf Factor in the New Bern Area

The golf scene sure has changed in the New Bern area over the past 40 years. New Bern golf and country club was the first and only course in the area until the mid 1960's. I believe Carolina Pines was the next course to open, sometime in the mid 60's, and Riverbend followed in the late 60's. The Shoreline course in Fairfield, the Minnesot course in Pamlico County, the Quaker Neck course in Jones County, all sprung up in the 70's. The 80's brought the Harbour Pointe course in Fairfield and the Emerld in the city of New Bern. In the 90's Taberna and the links joined the crowd. The end result is that we have a plethora of fine courses to chose from in this area. As in life I believe variety is the spice of life when it comes to golf. Most of us get comfortable playing our home courses and miss out on the challange of facing a course ofwhich we are not familiar. I think we should all get out and play some of the other fine courses in the area.

Goodby to a piece of history

On May 15 at 3 pm the the old Alfred Cunningham draw bridge over the Trent River in downtown New Bern NC was closed forever. It will be torn down and replaced with a new Bascale style bridge. The new bridge is estimated to take 2.5 years to build and will hopefully be ompleted for the 300 aniversary of the founding of New Bern. It will be sad to see the old bridge go, she did a great job for 60 years.

New Capital Projects

The board of County Commissioners met for a regularly scheduled meeting Monday, May 7th at 7 PM. During this meeting The Superintendent of Craven County Schools submitted his request for county funding for fiscal year 07-08. His request represents an 18% increase over what we budgeted last year. The County manager and his staff will be meeting over the next few weeks to discuss the School Boards request. We also heard from Dr.Scott Ralls, the president of Craven Community College. The college requested what amounts to a 7.72% increase over fiscal year 06-07.

Over the course of the next month we will be hearing from many county department heads and other organizations that receive funding from the county government. By the end of May the County Manager will present a budget proposal to the board of commissioners. The commissioners will meet throughout the month of June to fine-tune the budget. By state-statute, a new budget must be adopted by June 31st.

In addition to the regular agenda, there was a public hearing concerning the county borrowing 60 million dollars for the following projects.

1.Creekside Elementary School-$14,000,000. This school, which is currently under construction, is located on Old Airport Road. Creekside is being built to relieve overcrowding at Brinson elementary which is over 60 years old and at times has enrollment of close to 1000 students. Creekside will relieve current overcrowding at Brinson and should accommodate the growth in township 7 for some time.

2.New Jail-$30,000,000. The current jail was built to accommodate 70 inmates and at times has over 200. The State Department of Corrections has been telling the county for years to alleviate the overcrowding or they would require us to send our inmates to other jails. This would be very expensive in terms of manpower to move the inmates and the cost to house them in another counties jail.

3. Loan to Craven Regional airport. $1,800,000. I guess by know everyone has heard that Delta has 2 flights, soon to increase to 3, to Atlanta. These flights in addition to the 8 flights daily by US air to Charlotte give us a very viable airport for a small county. The airport board believes, and I agree with them, that with all the development occurring in Township 7 it is necessary to purchase several hundred acres that surround the airport. There are documented cases throughout the United States where airports have been forced to close and relocate because new housing developments were built near existing airports. The $1,800,000 we are lending the Airport will be to purchase necessary land to prevent housing developments from occurring around the runways. The airport will repay the county the $1,800,000 in 4 years. FYI, the county owns the airport, however we are not involved in the operations of the airport. They have a board of directors and an airport director(retired General Braaten) that manages the day to day operations.

4. Capital Improvements to the County Schools. $10,023,175. Many of our schools were built in the 40's,50's, and 60's and are in need of additions, updates, and or repairs. These funds will help to keep some of the older schools functioning for some time.

5.Tryon Palace History Center $1,000,000. The state has allocated $35,000,000 for the building of a history center in downtown New Bern. The funding for the history center will come by way of a bond referendum that will be voted on statewide in November. Before legislators would agree to commit state funds for the center they wanted a commitment from local government. They feel that if local governments have an ante in the project they will work harder to ensure its success.Tryon Palace Commission marketing studies indicate the history center will attract an additional 100000 visitors to New Bern. Even if their numbers were to be off by 50% the increase in sales and occupancy tax paid by visitors from outside of Craven County will allow us to recoup our $1,000,000 commitment in a few years.

The County Commissioners voted to fund these projects by way of what is called a certificate of participation. We basically give the lender an instrument similar to a mortgage. These improvements will not result in a tax increase as long as the state government does not alter our existing revenue stream.If you have any questions about these projects please call me at 633 0075 or 6335720.

Steve Tyson
District 7 Commissioner