OCBA June Meeting Notes
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OCBA Civic Meeting Notes
Meeting Date June 17, 2020
To view a video of the meeting click this link:
https://www.facebook.com/poker4dbs/videos/10219928044425263/
Annual OCBA Contributors Meeting
Presentation of Budget, Jeff Dippold, OCBA Bookkeeper
As of May 31st the OCBA has $151,000 in checking account and a $34K CD which is earmarked for future public restroom support, making the total assets $186K.
Offsetting that are payroll liabilities of about $1500 for June for employee withholdings and employer payroll taxes
The OCBA has a significant cash balance because for the 1st 11 months, the OCBA has taken in $87K in revenue more than expenses due to Dorian and COVID and events that have been curtailed and money not spent. Occupancy Tax Board funds came in that were not spent, OTB reimbursed for actual expenses that were spent. In addition TDA received $21,500K per month through the OCBA for a significant portion of staff costs and 100% of the advertising budget for the island. Through May, $47K of money allotted for Element Advertising was not spent and in addition to that another $15K in planned advertising for the year was not spent. It will be discussed during the meeting later about the separation of the TDA and the OCBA, but for now we are looking at returning to the TDA about $80K - $85K by June 30th that wasn’t spent of staff costs and advertising.
Going into coming fiscal year, the OCBA will have about $60K- $70K in checking account plus the CD of $34K left.
Question?- Are we also returning the Fireworks money to the OT Board?
Answer: The fireworks money never comes into our checking account. Its 100% paid for by the county, it is just reflected as a flow through.
Bob Chestnut: The OTB reimburses the OCBA so we never have a situation where the OCBA would have to give money back to the OTB.
With the coming budget year and the separation of the TDA and the OCBA , particularly related to advertising, the OCBA will need to review its business model. The revenue sources will now be somewhat limited for the OCBA with the primary drivers being membership dues, walking map fees, and sponsorship of events through the OT Board are the main sources of funding. For example, at the recent OT Board Budget meeting, the OCBA was awarded $88,766 for the year which included; $70 K for events and $18K for fireworks. The fireworks amount is less than what has been funded in the past due to the cancellation of the 2020 show because of COVID. There was about a $4K fee for cancellation, but the remainder of the deposit paid will be rolled into the 2021 show costs. Next year’s plan will be to have a full 4th of
July celebration. The rest of the funds awarded will go toward additional events for the 4th of July, The Pirate Jamboree, and for Holiday lighting and activities. In addition, part of the funding will be paying for event coordination. The OCBA is not in a position to pay for the coordination of events itself, and the OT Board has stepped up to fund these events and a staff person that will handle events and the administration of the OCBA Board. These funds will allow the OCBA to have a staff person to organize the events, as well as serve as an administrator for the OCBA and to work on marketing coordination for the events and the island’s businesses.
Additional Items of Expenses for the OCBA for the year will be:
Walking Map will remain with the OCBA, but is revenue neutral
Accounting Services, Computer Programs, and Insurance
The OT Board is also helping to fund a Visitors Center at Community Square which the OCBA will manage at $7500/ year.
So under the Current Business Model of the OCBA, the organization will be operating at a loss of $14k/ year. This makes reviewing the business model very serious, because at this rate funding for the OCBA as an organization will dry up in 3 years.
The board recognizes it is at a crossroads and must seriously review how it will operate moving forward. The OCBA Board approved this budget.
If anyone has any questions, please
jdippold@visitocracokenc.com
Introduction of new OCBA board members- Jenny Scarborough, OCBA Board Member
The OCBA Board, and the OCBA Contributors voted on 4 new board members and we are happy to welcome them Katie O’Neal, Rob Orr, Lynn Murphree, and William Gilbert
Katie O’Neal is a recent graduate of NC State University, and grew up on the island working in a family business and is the Exceptional Children Educator for the Ocracoke School and passionate about the history of Ocracoke.
Rob Orr was born and raised in Topsail NC and moved to Ocracoke in 2011. He is a graduate of Elon College with a degree in finance and is the managing director at the Berkley Estate which is a lodging and event venue. He also is the owner and operator of a 38’ Sport Fishing Charter Boat and he is excited to work to help enhance the business environment on Ocracoke
William Gilbert is a 2017 graduate of High Point University with a degree in Business Administration and a minor in Sales and works in his family business, The Anchorage Inn and Marina. He grew up on Ocracoke and has resided here since graduation. His favorite part of Ocracoke is the small town community feel and the laid back nature of Ocracoke.
Lynn Murphree moved to Ocracoke in 2015. After working in the restaurant industry here on Ocracoke for a few years, Lynn opened her own business in May of 2019, Helios Hideaway. She has a Bachelors of Science in Management and Small Business Entrepreneurship and she worked in Management in Raleigh for 10 years.
They were voted in unanimously by those contributors who responded. When you see these folks out in the community please welcome them to the board.
Announcement of Retiring OCBA Board Members and Staff Updates- Bob Chestnut, OCBA Board Member
We thank all the new folks joining us. I am here to pay tribute to Martha Garrish, Justin LeBlanc, and Rudy Austin who are stepping away from the OCBA Board.
Martha and Justin were here during a very difficult time for the OCBA, as we went through the restructuring and the contract with the TDA and they worked really hard through this time and we were lucky to have their passion and expertise. They will be missed.
We are also here to say Thank You to Rudy Austin, who sadly is stepping down from the OCBA Board.
“It is hard to imagine the OCBA without Rudy. 22 years ago when I first came to my first OCBA meeting, Rudy was thePresident, and had been President, leading the organization. He never hesitated to go to bat for the community regardless of the issue, tirelessly supported the community of Ocracoke and the OCBA and Rudy, we thank you for your service.”- Bob Chestnut
We will plan a formal farewell for Rudy soon.
We will be selecting new officers for the OCBA Board at our July meeting.
In addition to board and officer changes, we also have some personnel changes due to the conclusion of our relationship with the TDA. In order to administer the contract we had an Executive Director, Helena Stevens, Event Coordinator, Sara Teaster, and Administrative Assistant, Dana Long. Touching back on what Jeff was saying about the budget, moving forward we will only have one part time employee serving in the role of Administrator. We want to thank Helena, Sara, and Dana for all of their work with the organization, especially through these difficult last nine months. They have all done a great job, and had it not been for the change in board structure, would all still be serving with us.
The personnel committee has been interviewing candidates, and the hiring committee will present a recommendation to the board and the board will vote on the candidate.
Remember for the fiscal year of 2019-2020 only two months were “normal” due to Hurricane Dorian and the COVID Pandemic. This has been dramatic period for our island, and coming up this will also be a dramatic time of change for our organization as we separate from the TDA.
This is a time to for the OCBA to freshen things up and to take a new direction and return to the way the OCBA Board was some years ago, as a strong community organization.
People will need to get involved, and looking for involvement from contributors, community, and members on what the OCBA will become and what goals we look to achieve.
Walking Maps are now available. Please contact info@visitocracokenc.com if you need maps
Question? How can members give input and be involved? Will board meetings still be closed to the public?
Answer- This is something that the board will need to take into consideration and what kind of transparency we have with the public on our decision making process. Open meetings can help to get contributors get involved. In prior years, board meetings were open to the public.
Question?- List all current board members:
Bob Chestnut, Jenny Scarborough, John Giagu, Chad Macek Katie O’Neal, Rob Orr, William Gilbert, Lynn Murphree
OCBA by laws can be provided to anyone who would like a copy
jennyscarborough@hotmail.com
At any point, any community member can contact any OCBA board member to provide input, ideas, or agenda items
TDA Update
(The TDA had asked to be a part of this agenda, but were unable to attend the meeting in person and have provided this statement to be read into the record.)
OT TDA update:
We are in the process of reworking our advertising process. The contract between OCBA and Element has been terminated, and we will be looking at other advertising agencies to work with in the coming year. Meanwhile we will be focusing more on small scale marketing especially as we try to see how the rest of the year will shape up.
We have hired Helena Stevens to be our director, and we will be working with her to focus on revamping the website and come up with ideas of how to move forward while following the state rules mandating our work.
We have secured office space above Teach’s Hole for use by the TDA so we will now have a fixed location for our director to work out of and for our committees to meet in.
Two of our 5 board members will be stepping down in October when their terms are up, and we will be working with Tom Pahl and Randal Mathews to find replacements for those valued members.
Questions- (Were submitted ahead of meeting for TDA, and are included for the record)
Given the dissatisfaction with the way the island was represented by Element, what is the TDA doing differently in its new approach to hiring a marketer?
How is the TDA board thinking about the 1/3 of its budget that may be spent on infrastructure improvements that benefit tourism? What long-term goals and plans does the board have for projects it can support?
What structures (metrics?) is the TDA board using to evaluate its own performance?
Hyde County Updates- County Manager Kris Noble
We have been working really hard on our annual budget and working to trying and figure out how to offer the same services, with significantly reduced revenues.
Our property tax and sales tax loss due to Dorian and COVID was significant.
We will have our final budget workshop on June 29th at 5pm and we will adopt the budget on July 1st.
The budget has been slimmed down, and if we received more revenue this year, we can always apply that money to projects and need.
We have submitted 114 homes on Ocracoke for the HMGP for elevation. All have now been submitted to the state and were included with the Florence application. This is good news because it will speed up the process and there was more money allocated for Florence.
The ferry situation has been on everyone’s minds. Many members of leadership have been working daily to try to get the funding to the ferry division t o get them funded. Hatteras routes will be added this week and passenger services/ tram service we hope will be soon as well.
Convenience Site- Republic is our new servicer, and over the last three weeks we are working on the transition process. We have had a few kinks but we are looking forward to this new relationship. We now have a new co-mingle bin for your recyclables. We lost our chipper truck in Dorian and we have figured out that we will contract out chipping starting July 1st with Custom Tree Service to do our Chipping. You can go see Dave and sign up for chipping services and Custom will come one day per week to provide these services.
Flood Maps- We just adopted the new FEMA flood maps, and we adopted a new Flood Ordinance, which actually increases the flood level. We felt the FEMA level base flood elevation was too low. This new ordinances will require 9’ flood elevation for residential and business to 7.5’
The Ocracoke Development Ordinance- church steeples will be exempt from the height requirements and buildings will now have 365 days, up from 180 days to improve non conforming structures post storm event.
Our new Ocracoke Development Ordinance will have a meeting on July 6th to review height restrictions in relation to the new flood ordinances of base flood elevation.
We have a new Substance Abuse Counselor added to the Hyde County Staff, Mike Wheeler. He will be here on Wednesday June 24th to start to meet some of people on Ocracoke. He will help to set up AA meetings and offer help to those who may be suffering from substances abuse issues and recovery.
We have some staff changes in for the county to announce. Our new Grant Administrator, Stephanie Watson and she will be handling some of the additional money for Dorian response, the HMGP projects, and additional grants. She will be located in our offices. Teresa Adams has retired, and we will be releasing a job description soon for this role. Justin Gibbs has moved on and we have replaced him with Joey Williams who has been on staff here on the EOC team. David White will be our new EMS Director. And we have hired a new person to work in the land records office and she will be performing a land records audit.
*Until the position for Teresa Adams is filled, people can reach out to Donnie Shumate with questions.
The EMS team has moved into the Masonic Lodge and we are actively looking for a rental until the facility is built.
Each Volunteer Fire Department in Hyde County will receive a $5K check donation.
Question- Can you give an update on the Trams?
Trams are funded 50% by public transportation and 50% by OTB. Public transportation is having a hard time finding the funding but they are working on it.
Question- Can you give an update about the Passenger Ferry?
We are optimistic about having these run this year. We don’t know yet about this for sure. Question- What was the Property Tax loss you were refereeing too.
$30 Million in losses of property taxable structures from Dorian. Tax rate is the same. Taxes are calculated on the state of your property on January 1st. Some years these are Pick Ups- you have improved your property over the course of the year, but this year it was all losses.
NC DOT Ferry Division- Jed Dixon
We will be increasing our schedule to add additional routes to our Hatteras/ Ocracoke runs. Departures will run every 30 mins.
Passenger Ferry runs this year uncertain at this time.
House and Senate budget recommended funding for the ferry division, but needs to go all the way to being approved. 3 boats are running on the sound class routes right now.
A new well at South Dock will be drilled to accommodate the Park Service Restrooms.
National Park Service- Dave Hallac
