Notes Apropos of Nothing: New Cape Charles Town Council takes the Reins

Local government, in a supposedly free country like ours, should be a dull and onerous endeavor, much like a parent-teacher conference. In this regard, the newly elected Cape Charles town council does not disappoint.  To be sure, and granted it was only the first Regular Meeting, but this appears to be an activist group, full of themselves and savoring governance. Which is worrisome–distracting this group from doing things will be like distracting a dingo from eating your baby. This meeting went well into the night.

After serving as vice-mayor for the town of Cape Charles for many, many, many years Councilman Chris Bannon was unceremoniously removed from the post by the newly elected town council. It was a moment of sadness and humiliation for a man who was first appointed to the post by Pontious Pilate and has served the town well for so long. Bay Creek’s gallant Steve Bennett was appointed new vice-mayor.

I was a very serious moment–of course, just because it was serious doesn’t mean it wasn’t filled with absurdities.

Other appointments included making Paul Grossman council’s ambassador to the Planning Commission. Bennett was assigned as the liaison to the Harbor Focus Group (whatever that is).

The first tasking of staff involved coming up with a resolution that would request that higher powers ban large vessels from discharging waste into the bay.

Terrifying, Councilman Grossman mentioned the name that shall not be named–okay, they said that they want to take a serious look at annexing properties up to and along Route 13.

Things to consider from the last Annexation, you know the Bay Creek one circa 1991: Does the number of residential lots approved by the Town for development exceed the capacity of the sewer treatment plant? Since no new homes have been built in Marina Village East since 2008, will the Town put pressure on the Developer/Declarant (BCS) to file for renewed approval of Permits which expired after 5 year Ordinance Provision or 2013? Time to get to work on this guys and gals.

Grossman also mentioned that it was high time to reign in the secretive cabal known as the RAFT committee, a group of ill-informed non-engineers that are in the process of shoving a ludicrous and probably expensive piece of trash, I mean policy down Town Council’s throat. Grossman correctly noted that the town council needs to be fully aware of what these characters are up to.

There is a faint smell of baby-boomerism associated with this Town Council, as they already have a tendency to want to stick their noses into everything. It was a chilling reminder for the rest of us that the scope of government, and really the size and scope of politics in our lives, has grown uncomfortable, unwieldy, intrusive and inefficient.

This is truly a great group of people who we believe will work well together for the betterment of Cape Charles–we applaud the enthusiasm, but it is good to remember that they put brakes on a car for a reason.