Killing Oriental's Golden Egg Goose

I've been listening to a recording of the Town's public hearing of July 3rd concerning closure of streets and the related contract between the Town and Chris Fulcher. Very confusing.

There were some interesting passages during the discussion. At one point, Commissioner Summers observed:

“Grace Evans brought up something that I think is really important here.  One of the reasons we have a problem now, with our anchorage, is because of the five acres that was sent out there with Oriental Harbor Marina… We have killed the goose that laid the golden egg for Oriental… That’s what we did and I absolutely believe that."

What I believe Commissioner Summers is talking about is the Town Board's decision, several years ago, to abandon the public's riparian interests in a very attractive anchorage area that enticed many boaters to visit the Town, and to cede the area to use by the private developers of Oriental Harbor Marina.

The Town let marina developers steal the public's riparian waters, which the Town is supposed to protect in trust for the public.

Under normal riparian rules, the boundary between the public waters extending from the terminus of the South Water Street public right-or-way (ROW) and those of the marina developers is a line running at right angles to the center-line of the channel.

The developers plat below, however, shows the southerly limit of the marina's riparian rights as running along a line extended from the northern edge of South Water Street out into the harbor.  On the plat this line it is labeled as "Riparian Line / Extension of Water Street Right of Way" - it is hard to read, so I have drawn a red dash-dot line over it, labelled "Extension of limit of Water St. ROW."

The Town Board either did not understand, or did not care, or (even worse) did care, that the Riparian border line platted by the developers was incorrect and bit heavily into the remaining riparian area extending from the public trust ROW.

About twenty of Oriental Harbor Marina's slips are actually within the public's riparian waters extending from the South Water Street terminus.  About five more slips are within the "15' buffer zone," from which the Town could have excluded marina construction had the Town been willing to assert the public's riparian rights.

This was outright theft by the developers, aided and abetted by the collusion or gross negligence of the Town Board.

It is what can happen if the Town's citizens don't pay careful attention to how the Town Board manages public trust assets.

Who is protecting the public?

(Click on Map for Larger View)

Here is the un-retouched detail (except for my pencil-marks) :

(Click on plat for larger view)