Hyde Commissioners Meet Tonight

The Hyde County Board of Commissioners meet (via teleconferencing equipment) at the Ocracoke Community Center tonight (Monday, March 2) at 6pm. 

Click here to view the agenda and packets. 

By reading the agendas, packets, and minutes from previous meetings you'll find a treasure trove of county information. 

Before the regular meeting begins, the commissioners will hold a public hearing on a new "Hyde County Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance." At the Planning Board meeting last week, the board voted to recommend an increase to the freeboard required on new construction.

Freeboard refers to the height requirement for the finished floor of new buildings. The current Hyde County requirement is 6' above sea level (a FEMA regulation) plus 1' of freeboard. The new ordinance would simplify the wording in the Ocracoke Development Ordinance and require all new construction (or elevated houses) to be 9' above sea level. 

This is the first Public Hearing on adoption of a revised Flood Dam- age Prevention Ordinance for Hyde County. Hyde County expects to hold an additional Public Hearing in April 2020 to ensure adequate opportunity is given for public input.

You can read the entire document in packet 1. 

Scroll a bit farther down the packet and you'll find a proclamation that Commissioner Swindell is bringing to the BOC for a vote. He would like Hyde County to proclaim itself a "sanctuary county" for any and all firearms that the federal government might seek to prohibit. 

That would mean, for instance, that if the federal government instituted an "assault weapons ban" then Hyde County law enforcement would be exempt by county law to enforce the ban. 

Read it for yourself below. And if you have any feelings about it, come out tonight and express them. There's a public comment period early in the meeting. Be a part of the process! 

You can comment about anything, BTW. It's fun. 

To brush up on your Civics lessons, the Second Amendment reads like this: 

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

It's got a weird use of commas compared to today's punctuation rules, but it definitely starts out with "well regulated Militia," so the framers must've thought those words were as important as "shall not be infringed."

See you at the meeting!