FENWICK ISLAND – Officials in Fenwick Island will consider a change to the town’s charter that will allow them to increase the debt limit.
At a town council meeting last Friday, Councilwoman Vicki Carmean broached the subject and presented a section of the town’s charter to the council that sets the town’s current debt limit at $500,000.
“This has bothered me for years and as time has gone on it’s just one of those things that has stayed in the back of my mind,” she said.
Although she has no concrete suggestions, Carmean said she wanted the town to consider raising the debt limit, a change that could be sent to the state legislature with other charter changes in the next year.
“My thought was that as long as we’re going to change some things with the election law, it might be a good idea to be able to relook at this section 34,” she said.
Carmean explained that the town’s low debt limit, which she said was set in 1965, did not provide a financial safety net if the town were to experience a catastrophic weather event.
“We are in a bad situation in terms of weather conditions,” she said. “We’ve been very lucky over the years. We went from 1962 to (Hurricane) Sandy, the two major storms, but if we were to have a really bad storm like the one that hit in 1962, half a million dollars would not cover the cost of replacing the infrastructure.”
Councilman Gardner Bunting relayed his experiences with the 1962 hurricane and its impact on coastal communities at that time.
“What I saw was unbelievable damage,” he said. “Then I got to ride up with the National Guard north of town and that was devastated.”
Carmean added that the $500,000 the town could borrow would not be enough to cover the destruction of storms of that magnitude.
“If we have a bad storm, if this building and the police building went down and the streets were ripped off, we wouldn’t have enough money to even begin to get back into business,” she said.
Carmean expressed an interest in changing the charter to reflect both a larger debt limit and the council’s ability to employ those funds through a supermajority vote.
Town Manager Terry Tieman suggested the charter and ordinance committee review amounts and methods for setting a new debt limit, but added that the town was in a favorable financial position.
“Fenwick Island has a very unique position among many communities in that they have no debt, long-term or short-term,” she said. “This is the first community I’ve worked in that has no debt, so you are in a very enviable position.”
Mayor Gene Langan said it was an aspect the town rarely advertised.
“To me, I attribute that to a fiscally conservative council and Gardner (Bunting), who has been treasurer,” he said.
Bill Weistling, chair of the charter and ordinance committee, agreed to take the next step in considering changes to the charter, but asked the council to reconsider language regarding a supermajority vote, something that could impede the use of funds if out-of-town councilmembers could not make it onto the island.
“If we have a bad storm like in 1962, Bernie (Merritt, councilman) and Julie (Lee, councilwoman) would not be able to make it down here and that would not be a supermajority,” he said.
After discussions, the council referred the issue to the town’s charter and ordinance committee for a recommendation.
