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A Meet Me in Manteo video is now playing on the town’s YouTube channel and can be seen below. The video introduces projects completed and underway and the town’s commissioners and mayor.

Underway is planning in two parts: North Carolina State University student studies and a strategic plan. The students arrived in Manteo on Jan. 24, 2025 for some investigating and a meet and greet at College of The Albemarle campus.

Another plan is ready for review. An Outer Banks Hazard Mitigation Plan has been forwarded to governments in Dare and Currituck counties. Officials were set to gather Jan. 28 and follow that meeting with a public meeting. The new plan is available and comments solicited at obx-hmp.com.

The plan is required for governments to remain eligible for certain types of non-emergency disaster assistance, including funding for mitigation projects.

Town manager Melissa Dickerson announced at the town’s Board of Commissioners January meeting that 10,000 people attended the 2025 New Year’s Eve celebration in Manteo. The event started in 2021 with about 8,000 people attending and dipped the two intervening years.

A Steering Committee meeting to guide the restoration of Cartwright Park, which is dedicated to Andrews Cartwright, founder of AME Zion churches in the Albemarle region. The park, at 303 Bideford St., is on the grounds of Cartwright’s first AME Zion church, dating from 1865.

In the audit accepted by the Board of Commissioners in December, auditor Austin Eubanks of Thompson, Price, Scott, Adams & Company, P.A., noted that the capital assets condition formula, which calculates useful life of assets, was 0.39 for the Water and Sewer condition of assets in the 2024 audit, below the 0.50 ratio that signals time for replacement.

As required, all Manteo commissioners signed a letter to the secretary of the Local Government Commissioner Sharon Edmundson. The letter points to the improvement in the ratio from last year’s audit by 0.04 and the adoption of a Water and Sewer 10-Year Capital Improvement Plan on July 19, 2023.

Under that plan, the town’s first project upgraded the wastewater treatment plant UV disinfection system that includes a whole plant generator.

“This letter is to acknowledge the Town of Manteo is taking appropriate steps to address its aging infrastructure, now and in the future,” states the letter.

The board made the following appointments:

– Planning and Zoning Board: reappointed Hal Goodman and Bill Husted.

– Community Police Advisory Board: reappointed Therese Romagna, Philip Forslund, Karen Hoffer and Garret Cameron.

– Cemetery Board: reappointed Jamie Daniels.

The board saluted Police Officer Billy Deaton for his five years of service to the town.

The town’s Maritime History Task Force delivered its report, which is covered in a separate article.

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