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Federal Grand Jury subpoenas, dated Oct. 29, 2024, were delivered to six sitting Dare County commissioners.

The subpoenas seek testimony from commissioners – as listed on the documents – Bob Woodard, Rob Ross, Danny Couch, Ervin Bateman, Steve House and Wally Overman.

Board Chairman Robert L. (“Bob”) Woodard made an appointment to testify before the Grand Jury on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. At noon, he appeared as scheduled at the Terry Sanford Federal Building in Raleigh.

“I was requested to be there to talk about our involvement with the Miss Katie,” said Woodard, who is constrained by Grand Jury rules to say anything more.

Commissioners Ross, Couch and Bateman and Vice Chairman Wally Overman will be scheduled to testify sometime between Dec. 17 and 19, 2024, when the Grand Jury next convenes.

The Miss Katie is the dredge that was constructed for Dare County at the Conrad Shipyard in Morgan City, Louisiana. Dare’s commissioners approved the contract for the construction of the shallow-draft hopper dredge in May 2019. On Oct. 13, 2022, the Miss Katie was christened.

The 156-foot shallow draft, split-hulled hopper dredge works to keep Oregon Inlet and Hatteras Inlet open for marine traffic.

The vessel was funded from a public-private partnership with the State of North Carolina, which provided $15 million from the Shallow Draft Navigation Channel Dredging and Aquatic Weed Fund to fund the project.

The Miss Katie was built and is operated by EJE Dredging Service of Greenville, NC. Dare County’s contract with EJE Dredging is to pay by the cubic yard of sand dredged. The county pays 25% and the state’s Shallow Draft Navigation Channel fund pays 75%.

These subpoenas are in addition to ones dated Oct. 2, 2024 addressed to Dare County Board of Commissioners and Oregon Inlet Task Force. Those subpoenas requested documents, which Dare County provided, for a Grand Jury for the United States District County for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The deadline to provide those documents was Oct. 16 through 18, 2024, in the Terry Sanford Federal Building in Raleigh.

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