Minutes from November OCBA Meeting

November  13, 2012,  Community Center

Draft Minutes to be approved at the December meeting.

Attending: Dick Jacoby, Janey Jacoby, Carol Pahl, Rudy Austin, Clayton Gaskill, Connie Leinbach, Robin Payne, Arlene Burley, 

The meeting was called to order by Rudy Austin, president, at 7:05 p.m.

Minutes:  There were no minutes available to approve from the September meeting. These will be approved at the December meeting. The October meeting was Meet the (Hyde County commissioner) Candidates Night with no minutes.

Treasurer’s report: Carol Pahl reported that $72,000 is in the checking account; accounts receivable: $5,000; accounts payable: $25,000, mainly for the brochure and website costs.  Assets: $112,000, which includes accounts receivable and CDs.  Balance: $87,000. As for membership dues, collection is a little behind from last year at this time, but Carol expects it to pick up and it should be the same amount collected as last year.

Brochure/PR: OCBA needs a dedicated person to do the website and PR.  The group decided the best use of funds would be to combine what we were paying Valerie (for brochure distribution) and Ivey Belch (for the website updates) into one, part-time visitor’s bureau-type job.  A meeting will be held at 4 p.m. Nov. 30 in the OWWA exhibit at Community Square to draw up the job description.   Ocracoke’s 300th anniversary will be in 2015 and it would be good to have someone in place to help promote this and be a liaison with Scenic Byways, Salt Water Connections and others for maximum public relations.  

Now that Highway 12  is a national Scenic Byway, the challenge is to tell that story among all the connecting counties.  Scenic Byways is getting ready to do a marketing plan. They will come to the island in January to look at Ocracoke, and have hired the same award-winning publicist who created the “I love New York,” and “Throw another shrimp on the barbey,” (for Australia) slogans.  This is a real coup for us and Scenic Byways.

Standing/storm water: Robin Payne reported that OCBA is a key player in the consortium to move forward to start correcting these issues.  OCBA needs to submit a grant request by Feb. 1 to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. However, we need engineering pre-plans to document and prioritize the needs to accompany the request.  A motion to pay Anlauf Engineering of Kitty Hawk up to $5,000 for this engineering plan, with the exact amount known at the Dec. meeting, was made by Arlene and seconded by Carol Pahl. Motion approved and carried. The money will come out of the CD set aside for the public restroom project.

Robin also said that we need to be proactive on this with the Hyde County commissioners by meeting with them to educate them on this issue.

Highway 12: Rudy reported that Fred Westervelt is in contact with Eileen Fuchs, senior public involvement officer with NCDOT, who can come to the island to talk about the highway. Preferred public information session is from 4 to 7 p.m. Dec. 17.

Nominating committee:  November is the time for this committee to form and propose the officer slate. Rudy Austin and Clayton Gaskill are up for re-election.  The group agreed on Fred, Carol and Dick Jacoby for the nominating committee.  The election will be at the Dec. 12 meeting.

Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree: Connie Leinbach reported that this event was canceled for the second year in a row due to a hurricane. Next year’s is scheduled for the last weekend in October, 25 & 26.

A motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:20 p.m. was made by Janey Jacoby and seconded by Dick Jacoby.

Respectfully submitted,

Connie Leinbach, acting secretary

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