CAPE CHARLES, Va. — Amid rising inquiries from local citizens about the Cape Charles Beach Master Plan, Town Manager John Hozey provided the Mirror an update on the project, confirming that it remains in its early stages.
Hozey explained that the town has yet to engage the consultant firm, VHB, for any design work. “The consultant has not yet been engaged to design anything,” Hozey said. “There were two phases to this work; developing the plan and then designing projects that might come from the plan. So far, we have only hired them for phase one.”
The first phase, according to Hozey, involves research, analysis, community outreach, and concept development. “We are currently still in the outreach and concept development stages,” he added.
The contract for the initial phase was awarded for $99,840, and VHB has been working on the project since January of this year.
No timeline has been provided for when the second phase, which will involve project design, might begin.
Town Manager John Hozey: “We are currently still in the outreach and concept development stages.”
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All that for only $99,840, and with VHB working on the project since January of this year (2024), nothing yet to show for it!
Boy, I would love to be a consultant for Cape Charles, wouldn’t it be just grand – m0ney for nothing, that’s the way you do it, better than picking guitar on MTV, where you might get a blister on your little finger, maybe get a blister on your thumb!
Ca$h filled envelopes are being passed around and the chicks are free…
In my mind it was a great local place to enjoy, with some visitors around, which was nice and good for the economy. The selling point for this county is that it isn’t a built up mess like VB, OCMD and now Chincoteague are being ruined. CC has places to dine, shop and enjoy. Once you leave Cape Charles, there isn’t anything to compare until Onancock, with no beach. However, no development or plan has been implemented, other than tourism marketing. With that said, the problems have already started. Cabana’s up overnight, for a week at a time. Parking issues, People using bay as a bathroom because it’s too far to walk to the one rundown bathroom or porta potty , eww.. Trash left behind, drinking, unsupervised children and dog mess not being cleaned up. The beach isn’t that big and only has a small window for use. Can’t we just make it nice for the tax paying folk and their visitors? Why spend all this money?100K and still no plans, for tourists? I’ve just had a several hundred dollar tax jump, actually 3 in the 4 years since I purchased a home here. I’m not seeing or experiencing anything to Justify or make my experience here great.
A good plan would be to make it great for the locals to enjoy, clean it up and make it nice for us. The advertisement makes it look like a big beach with all this stuff going on? Don’t get me started on golf carts. What is the bottom line, big investments? People do not move here to deal with tourism. It would however be nice if we didn’t have to travel to VB, Norfolk for medical care. Sadly with a new hospital minutes away, a decent grocery store, to shop for anything really. I am a big supporter of shopping local, much to my surprise, I have found it very hard to do here. Let’s work on those things. Put our tax money to work for the tax payers, not tourists.
At the recent beach Master Plan public meeting I was highly critical of the planning process. The Town Manager and Town Council were negligent in awarding the $99,840 contract to VHB before understanding the need. The initial survey should have been conducted and the results analyzed before any design contract had been awarded. This could have been done at a minimal cost. Had that been done, the need for minor changes would have been clear (bathrooms, disabled beach access) rather than an initial plan from VHB which transformed Bay Avenue into Atlantic Avenue. The citizens of Cape Charles deserve a fiscally responsibility Town Council with some much-needed basic business acumen before decisions are made to throw our tax dollars at predatory consultants.
If there is money around it must be spent? Oh! I have an idea, why don’t you lower taxes.
I have thrown away all my clocks, from now on, if I want to know the time I’ll drive to the strawberry plaza
Welcome my friends to the show that never ends! We’re glad you could attend watch your taxes raise again and again.
I love this show! When is the sitcom coming to the TV?
I’m watching from a distance and LMAO!
I will return once the casinos and the beach concerts arrive!!!
Damn shame what you people have done to Cape Charles, with no shame.
Cape Charles is what is known as a consultant’s dream town, a town where the residents are so rich and have so much money they don’t know what to do with it, so that they don’t mind at all dropping a few million on a consultant to do their thinking for them, which makes the people of Cape Charles feel important and good about themselves and all warm and squishy inside when they tell the folks back home where they came from how important they are here in Cape Charles because unlike back home, here they have highly qualified consultants on board to make sure things here are done right, and they are glad to be able to pay extra for that, because it makes them feel like good Americans doing their fair share to make Cape Charles great again!