THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994 TAG: 9406190046
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940619 LENGTH: PLYMOUTH
The 30- to 50-knot boats would connect Manteo with Elizabeth City, Edenton, Plymouth and Columbia on Albemarle Sound. On Pamlico Sound, another fast water route envisioned in a commission engineering survey would link Manteo to New Bern, Washington, N.C., Bath, Belhaven and Swan Quarter.
{REST} Many of the proposed water routes would involve considerably less travel time than by road, the survey stated.
Members of the blue-ribbon economic commission bickered for four hours at their Wednesday meeting in Plymouth before they agreed to a much-revised resolution concerning a General Assembly bill introduced this month by state Rep. Howard J. Hunter Jr., a Hertford County Democrat.
Hunter's bill would give the economic commission $1.2 million spread over this year and 1995 ``for the purchase, maintenance and promotion of two boats to be operated on Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds for tourism purposes.''
Commission members balked at buying or operating any fast ferries, said Chairman Andrew Allen, until ``we know what we're doing - we need some direction on this.'' Allen is a Plymouth businessman and Washington County commissioner.
Under 1992 enabling legislation that created the commission, the 15-member group received $600,000 in startup money and a promise of another $1.2 million next year. Hunter's proposed boat bill would appropriate an added $1.2 million to be used for the fast-ferry project.
At the meeting, it took the tact of Ray E. Hollowell Jr., a Manteo developer and commission member, to successfully revise the original resolution offered in support of Hunter's legislation.
When it appeared the first resolution would put the commission in business as the owner-operator of a fast ferryboat, commission members Dallas Taylor, a Hertford County banker, and Mary Lilley, head of the Williamston-Martin County Chamber of Commerce, both dug in their heels.
``I can't support owning a boat at this stage,'' Lilley said.
``We haven't even determined what it would cost,'' Taylor added.
Hollowell then offered a reworded resolution that supported Hunter's proposal as ``a pilot project'' but emphasized a feasibility study and economic survey would have to be completed first.
The commission quickly passed the new resolution.
It was the first step toward any kind of economic pump-priming by the commission since the group was created by the General Assembly last year.
``We haven't started a single program,'' complained commission member Charles H. Shaw Jr., a retired Chowan County oil executive, at the group's regular meeting last month in Edenton.
Planning and support for the fast ferries was originally developed in the tourist branch of the Northeastern North Carolina Economic Commission. The tourist division is headed by Bunny Sanders, who was appointed to the post last year by Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.
Because the language of the original General Assembly enabling legislation that created the commission establishes the tourist division as a separate, autonomous entity, some members of the regular economic commission have privately complained that Sanders' independence has prevented the group from working together.
At a tense meeting earlier this year, a majority of the commission voted to ask the legislature to amend the enabling legislation to make the tourist division answerable to the full commission. No action has been taken on the request.
Black members of the commission voted as a minority bloc to keep Sanders in her present autonomous role.
Sanders is the daughter of Mayor E.V. Wilkins of Roper, who is chairman of the board of Elizabeth City State University and a powerful leader of North Carolina African-American Democrats.
Support for the Wednesday resolution that moves the commission forward - if slowly - on the fast-ferry proposal came after Sanders arrived at the meeting with a detailed economic study of the high-speed water transportation plan.
The report was prepared for the tourist division by Charles D. Miller & Associates of Virginia Beach.
Miller, a maritime consultant in transportation and business planning, accompanied Sanders to the meeting and told the commission members about the rapid worldwide growth of fast water transportation.
Miller said the sounds and rivers of northeastern North Carolina are ideally suited to the development of a high-speed water transportation system for tourists and commuters.
``Let's get some boats here; create some excitement,'' pleaded Angie Tooley, planning director for Hyde County and one of the original proponents of high-speed ferryboats.
When Tooley proposed bringing fast water transportation to Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds to open up economic development, Hunt hailed the idea as ``the cutting edge of progress.''
Both Hyde and Washington County commissioners have endorsed the fast-ferry proposals.
by CNB