City to seek dockmaster’s station bids

Published 6:34 pm Thursday, July 25, 2013

Bid documents are in the process of being completed so the city can seek bids on construction of a dockmaster’s station, public restrooms, boaters’ bathrooms and laundry facilities for boaters at the west end of Stewart Parkway.

Mosley Design Group has completed a set of sealed drawings that will allow the bidding process to proceed, according to a memorandum from John Rodman, the city’s planning and development director, to the mayor and City Council. The structure is designed so it reflects the architecture of the historic Pamlico Lighthouse.

The committee that guided the project design hopes the bidding process and selection of a contractor will be completed by the end of August, according to Rodman’s memorandum.

The two-story structure’s lower level will house the public restrooms and bathrooms and laundry facilities for boaters. The upper story will provide office space for the dockmaster and serve as a harbor-observation area.

“The proposed structure would accommodate the general public, especially small children and adults who may be walking and viewing the waterfront along Stewart Parkway. In addition, the City’s docking facilities are being used more frequently and with more dock space being planned this would only complicate the problems of inadequate public facilities,” Rodman wrote in the memorandum.

Steve Moler, a member of the city’s Planning Board, does not like the proposed location of the dockmaster’s station. Plans have it going where the existing flagpole and monuments are located.

“I do not feel comfortable using a prime spot on our waterfront for boaters restrooms. I would build it in the area where the present dockmaster’s hut and temp toilets are located,” Moler wrote in an email last summer.

In that email, Moler called for a public hearing on the location of the dockmaster’s station.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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