By By MIKE VOSS
Contributing Editor
Want to watch the ECU-Tulsa football game Nov. 15 on a big screen, a really big screen?
If so, show up at the Washington waterfront that Sunday to watch the gridiron match-up on a 20-foot-by-20-foot screen that will be set up outside. Plans call for the screen to be installed on the fence behind the former Maola plant on Water Street, according to Hodges.
“It’s free. We are just doing it for fun,” Hodges said.
Washington’s City Council, during its meeting Monday, gave its unanimous approval for the big-screen showing to take place. The event is co-sponsored by the Beaufort County Pirates Club and the Washington Daily News. ESPN will carry the game, with the game slated to start at 8:15 p.m.
“All the players are like 8-foot tall and running around,” said Mac “Bear” Hodges, an East Carolina University alumni, as he lobbied the council for its approval.
Hodges said event organizers are trying to arrange for the ECU band to perform at the event. If that happens, the event will begin about 6:30 p.m. or 7 p.m., Hodges said.
The Beaufort County Pirate Club has about 300 members, Hodges said, with up to 200 of them possibly attending the event.
Hodges said event organizers will not be selling alcoholic beverages as part of the event, but attendees will be able to bring coolers, which may or may not contain alcoholic beverages, to the broadcast. The Pirates Pub &Grill has on-site and off-site permits for alcoholic beverages, Hodges noted.
Attendees may buy food and beverages from Pirates Pub &Grill, located at Harding Square at the south end of Market Street, Hodges said.
In other business, the council heard a report from Phil Mobley, director of the Parks and Recreation Department, concerning the walkway the will pass under the new bridge being built over Runyon Creek at Havens Gardens. Mobley said the concrete pilings for the section of the walkway under the bridge have been put in place.
While the segment of the walkway directly under the new bridge will be concrete, the northern and southern ends of the walkway will be timber.
The concrete decking will be a little lower than the timber segments.
The city is looking at installing “hog-slat” concrete decking under the new bridge, Mobley said in August.
“We’ve got to make sure its handicapped-accessible,” he said then.
Plans call for the walkway to be built over Runyon Creek, with the walkway connecting to land on the west bank of the creek. The walkway, estimated to be about 300 feet long, would form something like this bracket: ].
The walkway, which will have observations areas, would connect parts of Havens Garden that are separated by the highway, allowing pedestrians to move between those areas without crossing the highway. The walkway also would connect boat ramps north of the highway to sections of Havens Garden south of the highway.
The walkway is part of an overall plan to improve and reconfigure Havens Garden after the new bridge is built. Those proposed improvements include upgrading the boat ramp and a parking area north of the existing highway.