By Connie Leinbach
Randal Mathews is fully in the arena now and would like to see more locals involved.
Mathews is in his second term as Ocracoke’s representative on the Hyde County Board of Commissioners, and in December he was elected chair.
His arena analogy comes from a framed quote by Theodore Roosevelt.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…”
Mathews is grappling with the north end of Ocracoke and dredging at both ends of the island and beach access.
People beard him all the time about issues, but do they help?
“Island residents and businesses will need to be involved and be in tune with what is happening and how this will impact us if we don’t take action,” he said.
The issues with the north end of Ocracoke are paramount.
“We don’t have a short-term solution,” he said about the overwash area on NC12. “NCDOT won’t pull the trigger on it. The Park Service will need to play an important role in maintaining our easement though the park as it’s not just our highway but our electricity and communications.”
He notes that though the NPS might own the island, the people own the NPS.
Hyde County Manager Kris Noble said at the January OCBA meeting that the Park Service is doing another “Adaptive” study for $200,000.
The study will show challenges, options for beach nourishment, and moving the road or the ferry terminal, Mathews said.
“If you want to talk about a 30-year plan, that’s fine but come up with a short-term solution because we don’t have a short-term solution right now. If you shut it all down, it’s going to destroy the economy here. It’s going to make access here much more challenging.”
He and Noble have been working on these issues, and dealing with the myriad agencies involved in solutions has been frustrating.
Last year, Noble decided that she was the one who needed to lead.
“She inserted herself into this permit process (for dredging) because it requires multiple state and federal agencies to OK projects,” Mathews said. “It’s a continuing issue and will stay at the forefront of our agenda.”
Noble’s obtaining concurrent permits has helped make dredging nimbler, Noble had said at the January OCBA meeting.
Dredging money for Sloop Channel in the Hatteras Inlet and in Big Foot Slough in the Pamlico Sound comes from the Shallow Draft Fund for which Hyde received a $1.5 million grant and for which state reps exempted Hyde from having to pony up a 25% matching amount.
So now, Hyde has money to widen Sloop Channel, ask for a new spoil area and still have a couple of hundred thousand left with plans for another swipe through in the spring.
Then Noble will reapply for more shallow-draft funding.
A newbie to politics when he became commissioner in 2021, Mathews said he quickly realized that Ocracoke is the main player in Hyde County.
“Ocracoke is more than 40% of the tax base, and we’re almost as much as the whole rest of the county,” he said. “We have hundreds of thousands of visitors. We have the tourism powerhouse in Hyde County.”
The county budget: The first year he was commissioner, he got a letter from the state treasurer about the dire financial condition of Hyde County.
“We’ve gone through four years of audits, and we’re in good shape,” he said. “The county employees had to work really hard and there was a lot of pressure from the commissioners to fix this and be accountable.”
As a commissioner, his job is to pay attention to every dollar spent.
“Other commissioners need to understand the power of our tax base and that contribution which helps fund county services,” he said. Spending on both sides of the Pamlico Sound is important, he said.
March will be busy with budgeting, Mathews said, as they scrutinize every department. For that, he’ll be on the mainland a lot.
Mathews is only the second such Ocracoke commissioner to be named chair.
The other one was Alton Ballance, who was the youngest commissioner to be elected from 1984 and 1992, and who held the seat for two terms and was chair for a couple of years.
