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October 1, 2020 |
 |
 Wingate Lassiter |
So how's the best way to learn about
all the candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot?
A reader asked me that question the other day and I didn't have a good answer. Nevertheless, here's what I've found (so far):
Start with the Johnston County Board of Elections website to get sample ballots (after first determining your voting precinct's number). But that will only give you candidates' names, not their backgrounds nor their views on issues.
The Triangle East Chamber of Commerce Candidates Connections site has recorded responses to several questions, but it's not complete. All eight school board candidates have submitted video clips, but lacking are three of the eight candidates for county commissioner and not all local candidates for N.C. General Assembly seats have taken part. Even so, it's a good start.
A useful guide on candidates for statewide federal and state offices is a website entitled North Carolina 2020 Voter Guide produced by Democracy North Carolina and Common Cause NC, which "are not affiliated with any candidate or party."
Regional media outlets like The News & Observer and WRAL-TV have guides but it appears you have to be a subscriber or at least sign up to have access. And many candidates likely have their own websites (but I haven't taken the time to look).
As I have find other options for unbiased information, I'll pass them along in upcoming editions. Meawhile, if you have suggestions, please pass them along to my e-mail link shown below.
A late-September
yet still warm Sunday afternoon on the sand.
Greetings from Carolina Beach revisited
When I was a young boy growing up in Smithfield in the 1950s, Wrightsville Beach was my family's go-to vacation place on the coast. That's because my father spent several summers there making music with a college-based jazz band in the 1930s.
Later my big sister, who had settled in New York City after college, discovered Long Beach near Southport. She found it was a great place to look for sea shells --- one of her passions. So we frequently joined her family there.
That phase passed, and we switched our preference to Emerald Isle for a while.
Next came a re-acquaintance with Atlantic Beach, thanks to my son's family, and then a return to Long Beach with my daughter and boys --- which has been re-branded as Oak Island.
This week we're at Carolina Beach with my son's family (doing virtual learning with Wake County schools). I haven't spent any time here since high-school days, when the youth of First Baptist Church came down for annual spring retreats at Melba Gardner's place on the ocean.
Folks, that was in the mid-1960s --- more than half a century ago.
Boy, has this place changed! But given the explosive growth of North Carolina's beaches over all those years, I'm not at all surprised.
Today's Carolina Beach is likely the
most densely developed residential and rental beach
on the Tar Heel coast. They've allowed cottages four
stories tall crammed together along street after
street, and it appears there's no end to this town's
reconstruction.I did find remnants of the old Carolina Beach I remember. The downtown Boardwalk district, though small, is still there, sort of. And in between all the new cottages and several high-rise hotels and condos are a few of those one-story beach houses that used to be the standard.
This time of year it's not overly crowded down here, although we saw a substantial number of folks on the beach on Sunday. But with the density of development, it may look more like Coney Island in mid-summer. Not my favorite kind of place to be.
A couple of redeeming features of this area are Carolina Beach State Park at the junction of the Cape Fear River and the Intracoastal Waterway, and Freeman Park along a narrow piece of land at Carolina Beach's northern end. We've got a number of such places protected from development along our unique coastline. Wish we had a whole lot more.
A classic
beach scene: Lots of walkers and a scavenger
with his metal detector.
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