Progress continues on the Central Park fountain renovation.
Public Works has completed piping and electrical. Excel has completed the crushed stone base, and has begun pouring some of the concrete:
Reflections on Cape Charles and the Eastern Shore
Progress continues on the Central Park fountain renovation.
Public Works has completed piping and electrical. Excel has completed the crushed stone base, and has begun pouring some of the concrete:
The Cape Charles Town Council voted Thursday to move forward with plans for a new municipal building. There were five options on the table, and Council chose Option #5, constructing a new building for all functions except the library. The library will remain at its current location. The town would sell the Municipal and Civic Center buildings and the third floor of the library building.
Staff recommended Option #1, mainly because the cost was lower than Option #5. The consensus among Town Council was that, even as Option #1 was cheaper, there were too many issues and too many unknowns regarding the renovation of the structure at 14 Plum Street.
Councilman Bennett noted that anytime an older structure is renovated, you never know what will be found once construction begins. In many cases, structural work will add time and significantly raise the cost.
The logistics of renovating 14 Plum were also problematic. The police would move out of the first floor, staff would move from the second to the first while the second floor was renovated. After the second-floor work is completed, staff and construction crews would switch while the first floor is renovated. The disruption to the daily work routine while all this went on would be too much.
Option #5 would include selling the library, then buying back the first floor, keeping the operations just as they are. The third floor would become apartments or condos.
The location of the new municipal building will be at the geographic center of town, just south of the Rosenwald School building.
During comments at Thursday’s Regular Meeting, Town Manager Hozey said that a developer has made the decision to build affordable/workforce housing in Cape Charles.
There are very few details available, but the project will be located near the town lots that house the Keck Wells. Currently, town water and sewer are not available.
According to Mr. Hozey, the developer is not looking to make a profit on the work and just wants to break even. The size and number of units are not known at this time.
The Mirror will gather more details as they become available.
The Wastewater plant treated an average of 142,949 gallons as of April 15, 2022. The most used was 171,769 gallons on 4/09/2022. The staff conducted normal maintenance, including work on the emergency holding tank, and washing down the entire plant.
The Water Plant produced 989,438 gallons, 130,000 used for processes. The top usage occurred on April 8th, with 183,133 gallons produced. The average was 141,348 gallons per day.
The Eastern Shore Public Library (ESPL) Board of Trustees is looking for public comment on its comprehensive five-year strategic plan for the library system. For the past year, library staff and Trustees have been working to develop a new mission and vision for the library system and the Heritage Center. They then developed goals to meet the vision. The 2022-2027 plan is based on numerous outreach events, public meetings, staff training, library trends, and general community discussions. To view the 112-page plan, which is divided into sections, go to the Library’s website, espl.org, and click on the purple banner. A print copy is available for view at one of the four ESPL libraries.
To submit a public comment, address it to Cara Burton, Library System Director, ESPL, PO Box 25, Parksley, VA 23421 or drop it off at any of the four libraries in a marked envelope. Comments must be received by May 27, 2022, to be considered by the Library’s Planning Committee. Comments must include an address and phone number to be included as an official comment in order to obtain further clarification if needed. Valid submissions will be entered into a drawing for $50 of WESR Shopping Show gift certificates in appreciation for the time taken to review and provide feedback on the library’s future.
Strategic planning is an ongoing process at Eastern Shore Public Library. Community and library trends are continuously monitored. The Eastern Shore Public Library System is required by the Library of Virginia to submit a Strategic Plan every five years as a requirement for receiving State Aid. As part of the planning process, a Trustee planning retreat was facilitated by Nan Carmack, Director of the Library of Virginia Development and Networking Division on May 13, 2021, at the ESVA Chamber of Commerce. Staff and Library Foundation members were represented.
This 2022-2027 Plan has a new, important element: the Eastern Shore of Virginia (ESVA) Heritage Center. The new plan also includes operations within the new ESVA Regional Library and Heritage Center facility. While the plan encompasses the whole system of four libraries in Cape Charles, Chincoteague, Nassawadox, and Parksley, it does focus on the new Heritage Center and new headquarters facility.
To submit a comment by email or request to have a pdf of the full document emailed, contact Cara Burton at cburton@espl.org.
Hi I’m Shelby. I am a 1-year-old terrier/hound mix female and am “fishin’ for a home”, here at the SPCA. I am spayed and up to date on my vaccines.I love people and seem to possibly tolerate some other dogs here as well. Though it is not certain how I would do in a home with other dogs yet. With my hound mix I may not do very well in a home with cats, as I have never lived with any.
I am clean in my kennel, and the staff believes I am house trained, but this may need some reinforcement after living in the shelter for a few months.I really enjoy treats, walks and company and would make a great companion to an adult willing to take the time and work with me.
If you think you may be interested in adopting Shelby you can visit our website at (www.shorespca.com) and print out an application. You can also email us and request one at shorespca@gmail.com.Or contact us at the shelter Tuesday-Saturday 10a.m.-3p.m. (757)-787-7385
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA — This week, Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), delivered more than $16 million in Community Project Funding (CPF) awards throughout Coastal Virginia and hosted a town hall at Virginia Wesleyan University.
On Monday, Rep. Luria delivered an $8.2 million CPF award to replace the Accomack and Northampton Counties public safety radio communications systems. One of the largest CPF awards in the country, the state-of-the-art radio system will improve communications for emergency responders and make our communities safer.
She also presented $500,000 in CPF funding on Monday to the New Road Community Legacy Project, which will be used to redevelop a 9-acre site into a mixed-use, residential community for site development to prepare for construction of approximately 30 housing units in residential community and expand the existing community.
Rep. Luria also delivered a $2.5 million CPF award to Cape Charles segment of the Eastern Shore Rail Trail, which will be used to convert 2.3 miles of the decommissioned Eastern Shore Railroad right-of-way and VDOT right-of-way into a multi-use recreational trail.
On Tuesday, Rep. Luria hosted a town hall at Virginia Wesleyan University to provide an update on her legislative work in Washington, D.C. and answer questions from constituents in Virginia’s Second Congressional District.
Then, she presented a $5 million CPF check to Hampton Roads Transit (HRT) on Thursday. These funds are being awarded to HRT to replace a functionally obsolete bus operations and maintenance facility which lacks capacity to house and service both the existing and new fleet of vehicles. The funding will also help support year-round public transit operations based out of Virginia Beach.
In March, Rep. Luria announced more than $18.5 million in funding for seven community projects to directly address Coastal Virginia’s most pressing needs. The funding will reverse decades of disinvestment in our communities, spur economic development and growth in the region, and make community healthier, safer, stronger, and more resilient.
The Academy for Lifetime Learning is proud to announce that they are offering three $1500 scholarships to 2022 high school graduates this year. These scholarships were created to benefit Eastern Shore high school graduates who plan to continue their education at a two-year college or university. One of the three, the Betty Ross Nursing Scholarship is for high school graduates who wish to pursue a two or four-year RN nursing program. The other two are for students going into any field of study. These scholarships are to be used to defray college expenses.
The Academy for Lifetime Learning of the Eastern Shore of Virginia is an all-volunteer, not-for-profit- organization. Members share a common interest in continuing learning experiences and offer numerous and varied classes to the community. Information about and requirements for the scholarships may be found here. The online application form may be found here.
If you have any questions, please call Mary Kay Mulligan at 757-787-4891
Use of heat, steam and suffocating foam to slaughter sick animals is condemned as bird flu epidemic threatens poultry stocks. – The Guardian, March 5, 2022
Here is an excerpt from The Guardian article, which can be read online:
“Vets and animal advocates in the US are calling for a restriction on cruel methods of culling birds, as farmers face killing millions of poultry due to a highly virulent avian flu tearing through the country.
“In 2020, millions of birds were killed across the US after the Covid-19 pandemic shut down slaughterhouses and left animals stranded on farms. Now, bird flu, which has already led to the slaughter of millions of birds in Europe, is likely to result in another mass depopulation. . . .
“However, two commonly used methods to cull animals on-farm are attracting increasing backlash. The use of firefighting foam to suffocate animals and ventilation shutdown, in which animals are killed with extremely high heat and steam, are still permitted in the US, despite being effectively banned in the EU and labeled ‘inhumane.’
“Poultry flocks sickened with avian flu are commonly killed with carbon dioxide poisoning or firefighting foam, where birds are smothered with a blanket of foam.
“The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) says the method involves ‘drowning in fluids or suffocation by occlusion of the airways’ and is ‘not accepted as a humane method for killing animals.’. . .
“Last year, a group of AVMA [American Veterinary Medical Association] members submitted a resolution to classify ventilation shutdown as ‘not recommended.’ A decision on the resolution has not been made, but animal welfare experts say it is time for US-wide rules to govern the treatment of farm animals before slaughter.”
Photo: Delaware Public Media.
Under public scrutiny and criticism, an AVMA panel is giving “further consideration” to the AVMA’s consent to the practices of smothering chickens, turkeys and ducks to death with firefighting foam and subjecting them, along with factory-farmed pigs, to “ventilation shutdown,” a method that “ incorporates components such as heat, humidity, and carbon dioxide, in addition to shutting down the ventilation system, to cause the death of pigs or poultry.” As the panel reconsiders its official stance, please urge the AVMA to adopt a “not recommended” standard of opposition to these brutally inhumane practices in its “AVMA Guidelines for the Depopulation of Animals.”
CONTACTDr. Janet Donlin
American Veterinary Medical Association
1931 North Meacham Road, Suite 100
Schaumburg, IL 60173-4360
Phone: 800-248-2862 Fax: 847-925-1329
Web: www.avma.org/about/contactDr. Cia Johnson, Panel on Depopulation
& Director of the AVMA Animal Welfare Division
American Veterinary Medical Association
1931 North Meacham Road, Suite 100
Schaumburg, IL 60173-4360
Phone: 800-248-2862 Fax: 847-925-1329
753BC: Traditional date of the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus, orphaned brothers, suckled by a she-wolf.
1519: Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes lands with a small army on the Mexican mainland near present-day Veracruz. To help motivate his men for the task of conquest ahead, he orders his ships scuttled. They are looking for glory and gold, and when they eventually reach the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, they find it.
1529: Signing of the Treaty of Saragossa, which plays out as the third diplomatic act between Spain and Portugal, dividing the world into their “legal” spheres of influence and colonization. Portugal, you’ll recall, had a long history of seaborne exploration into the southern Atlantic and along the coast of Africa, working to find an oceanic path eastwards to the Spice Islands (then called the Moluccas, later the Dutch East Indies, now called Indonesia). Spain focused on the direct route westward, and after Columbus’ discoveries in 1492 both countries realized that some means was needed to assign sovereignty to future discoveries and colonial outposts.
First Act: In May of 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull Inter Caetera, which defined the Line of Demarcation as a pole-to-pole meridian located halfway between the Cape Verde Islands (Portuguese) and the easternmost islands claimed by Columbus (Spanish).
Second Act: The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in June of 1494, cleaned up some of the ambiguity of the papal bull regarding pre-existing Spanish and Portuguese settlements on the “wrong” sides of the Line. It also moved the line a hundred miles or so westward, which magically gave Portugal a substantial toe-hold in South America, which they parlayed into the massive colony of Brazil. The meridian of Tordesillas did not- alas- extend all the way around the earth, and between Magellan’s (Spanish) claim on the Philippines and Portugal’s claims on the Moluccas, the need for an antipodal line of demarcation resulted in today’s treaty.
1574: Death of Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, one of the leading lights and great patrons of the Italian Renaissance in Florence.
1770: Captain James Cook in HMS Endeavour arrives at New South Wales and begins exploration and survey of the Great Barrier Reef.
1836: Battle of San Jacinto. Led by Sam Houston, the Army of Texas completely surprises and routs the Mexican army of General Santa Ana, who is also Mexican President. The short, sharp fight opens with the Texas army screaming from the woods adjacent to the Mexican camp with cries of “Remember the Alamo!” and, “Remember Goliad!” 18 minutes later, the fight is over, with over 700 Mexicans dead and what remains of Santa Ana’s army completely shattered and fleeing into the countryside. Santa Ana himself is captured, and Houston negotiates a complete Mexican withdrawal from Texas. Although Mexico does not recognize it until 1848, Santa Ana’s defeat effectively marks the beginning of Texas as an independent republic.
1861: Union forces abandon and burn the Gosport* Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia. Confederate engineers poking through the smoldering wreckage are later able to salvage the lower hull of USS Merrimack and convert it into the ironclad gunboat CSS Virginia.
1870: Birth of 1870: Birth of Vladimir Lenin, Russian communist revolutionary, and head of the Bolshevik Party who rose to prominence during the Russian Revolution of 1917, one of the most explosive political events of the twentieth century. The bloody upheaval marked the end of the oppressive Romanov dynasty and centuries of imperial rule in Russia. The Bolsheviks would later become the Communist Party, making Lenin leader of the Soviet Union, the world’s first communist state.
1889: Birth of Adolf Hitler (d.1945), in the little town of Braunau am Inn, in Austria-Hungary.
1889: The Oklahoma Land Rush, staged at high noon, opened the former Indian Territory for free settlement. Within hours, over 10,000 people coalesced in one spot and founded Oklahoma City.
1898: Two months after the sinking of USS Maine, and one day after Congress declared war on Spain, the US Navy begins a blockade of Cuba.
1903: Birth of Eliot Ness (d.1957). The head of “The Untouchables” of the nascent FBI, who finally nailed Chicago gangster Al Capone on Tax Evasion charges.
1910: Death of Samuel L. Clemens (b.1835), a.k.a. Mark Twain, rumors of whose death are no longer greatly exaggerated. Interestingly, he prophesied a year earlier:“I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.”
1912: First publication of Pravda (“Truth”) as the official organ of the Russian Communist Party.
1918: Death of Baron Manfred von Richthofen (b.1892), a.k.a. “The Red Baron.” The German fighter ace amassed 80 confirmed kills of Allied aircraft, leading his Jagdstaffel 2 squadron to consistent successes not by dramatic acrobatics, but by disciplined tactics and superb marksmanship. The RAF credited his shoot down this day to Canadian Captain Roy Brown, but much controversy surrounds this decision: Richthofen was killed by a single .303 bullet through his chest (shot with an upward trajectory) and he landed his Fokker Dreidecker virtually undamaged in a French field. After recovering his body, the British squadron gave him a funeral with full military honors.
1920: The League of Nations recognizes the Balfour Declaration and creates the British Mandate of Palestine from lands ceded by the Ottoman Empire at the close of the Great War.
1928: For the first time since May, 1926, the New York Yankees are out of first place.
1939: Ted Williams’ first major league hit, a double. His last hit was a home run on September 28th, 1960 at Fenway Park.
1945: Soldiers of the Soviet Red Army enter Berlin.
1953: USS New Jersey (BB-62) shells communist forces in and around Wonsan Harbor from Wonsan Harbor itself.
1955: Volkswagen opens its first U.S. dealership in Englewood, NJ. An invasion of Beetles follows.
1960: Brazilia, a completely artificial city carved out of the jungle, is commissioned as the new capital of Brazil, replacing Rio de Janero. The governing idea was to build a functional city completely from scratch, with every aspect subject to strict design approval, and localized zones established for every manner of commercial and governmental function; banking sector, hotel sector, government sector, etc. It was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986 in recognition of its modernist architecture and “artistic” city planning.
1970: The first “Earth Day”.
1972: Apollo 16 successfully lands on the Moon. The landing was delayed 7 hours when a control rocket failed in the command module just after Lunar Module (LM) separation. Rather than descend to the surface and risk missing the lunar ascent rendezvous, the LM crew of John Young** and Charlie Duke flew formation on Ken Mattingly in the CM until the problem was solved. The delay cut from three to two the number of excursions taken in the lunar buggy but the instrumentation set up and 212-pound haul of lunar rocks made the mission an outstanding scientific success.
1978: A Korean Air Lines jetliner is forced down by the Soviet Air Force. Deviating with a sudden turn to the east from its normal Paris-Seoul polar flight route, the aircraft was intercepted crossing into Soviet airspace. Instead of landing at the airport indicated by the Soviet fighters, the crew put the plane down with a hard landing on a frozen lake south of Murmansk. Two passengers were killed and several others injured. Soviet authorities were “amazingly unhelpful” in helping to understand the incident. This episode is not to be confused with the September, 1983 shootdown of a KAL 747 over Sakhalin Island, at the other end of the 11-time-zone-country.
1978: April 22, 1978, The Blues Brothers made their world debut on “Saturday Night Live”:
1989: A massive explosion in turret 2 of USS Iowa (BB-61) kills 47 sailors. The initial investigation did not conclusively determine the actual cause of the disaster, with potential theories ranging from a suicide by a disgruntled gunner, to unstable powder, to faulty training and procedures, to the usual leadership and management finger-pointing. A second investigation studied in great detail the condition of the powder in the silk bags, first milled in 1930’s, and came to the conclusion that improper powder storage during Iowa’s 1988 overhaul created conditions that generated highly flammable ether gas inside the bags. Iowa’s turret was cleaned and stabilized but was never fired again. The ship was decommissioned in October of 1990, was struck from the Naval Register in 2006, and is now a museum ship at the port of San Pedro, California.
1989: End of the first week of a student-led mourning period over the death of Chinese reformer Hu Yaobang, who earlier resigned in protest from the Chinese Central Committee in January. On this day, over 10,000 students poured into Tienanmen Square to not only mourn, but to protest the lack of reform promised by the government. The protests would continue to grow, but remained peaceful until early June, when the communist government began its crackdown.
1993: Federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms storm the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas with Bradley fighting vehicles and tear gas, igniting the compound into an inferno that kills 77 U.S. citizens. Attorney General Janet Reno authorized and defended the action of the ATF agents.
1995: A truck bomb devastates the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 U.S. citizens and injuring 680 others going about their business. Timothy McVey is later convicted and executed for the crime, which he freely admitted was timed to the Waco raid.
1999: The German Bundestag returns to Berlin, the first government to sit there since the Reichstag was dissolved in 1945.