Home Care In Chatham, LA

Taxpayers won't be bullied or fooled by Chatham Chairman Chester Ellis and his inclusion of pet program in TSPLOST project list, which voters will be asked to approve in November election.

This commentary was written by staff opinion columnist Adam Van Brimmer.

The One Chatham initiative is a program controlled by one man with ambiguous goals, an undefined scope of work and, to this point, no funding.

One Chatham’s creator, Chatham Commission Chairman Chester Ellis, labels it a “contingency” fund. To the taxpayers, One Chatham appears to be an initiative of another feather.

A slush fund.

Ellis’s decision to include One Chatham among the county’s proposed uses for Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds, better known as TSPLOST, could doom the referendum. Voters will be asked approve the additional 1% sales tax when they go to the polls in November, and while One Chatham is just one of 64 items on the TSPLOST project list, the initiative is to receive $10.2 million in revenues from the tax.

One Chatham targets 'inefficiencies':Here's Chairman Ellis' vision for the initiative

TSPLOST referendum:Project list includes $10.2 million for ambiguous 'contingency fund' One Chatham

The amount is not insignificant, despite what the leader of the organization charged with promoting TSPLOST’s passage, the Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce, would have us believe. Chamber President and CEO Bill Hubbard said One Chatham is “only” $10 million out of $430 million, an amount that could swell.

Maybe Hubbard blindly gives away approximately 2.5% of the money in his wallet on a routine basis, but most of his fellow Chatham County residents do not. Even if TSPLOST revenues attract matching-fund transportation grants from the state and federal governments, writing off $10.2 million for a pet project is an unnecessary waste.

We’re hoarding pennies right now, not tossing them into county-owned fountains for good luck. Telling voters to impose a new tax on themselves and trust the government to use those revenues wisely is an errant pitch.

Why is Chairman Ellis pushing One Chatham?

Another reason One Chatham seems a boondoggle is Ellis’ position as its champion.

The initiative is ostensibly meant to foster cooperation between local governments, specifically the county and Chatham’s many municipalities. If officials can come together on projects that cross city lines, they can pool resources and lower costs.

Ellis' vision for One Chatham is ambitious and not limited to transportation projects. He sees One Chatham dollars being spent on stormwater drainage, environmental initiatives, homelessness and more. The $10.2 million coming from TSPLOST could only be spent on transportation project, but Ellis' ambitions for the initiative are much larger.

But since taking office in January 2021, Ellis has been more autocrat than diplomat. He’s overtly tried to use the power of his post to bully and manipulate his colleagues, a technique that has fostered distrust, not a willingness to collaborate.

His style nearly tanked TSLPOST earlier this year. The referendum was originally planned for the May primary ballot until Ellis had a temper tantrum during a January TSPLOST meeting and municipal leaders walked away.

Then there’s Ellis’ strategy in the ongoing negotiations over another 1% sales tax, the Local Option Sales Tax or LOST. This tax is already on the books but expires every 10 years and is up for renewal in 2022. The county and municipalities must agree on how to share LOST revenue, funds that the governments can use for general operations and which thereby lower property taxes.

Revenue from LOST is unlike that of Chatham County's other two 1% sales taxes, SPLOST and ESPLOST, which are designated for specific capital improvement projects.

Ellis is lobbying for a significantly larger LOST share for the county. To strengthen his negotiating position, Ellis kept initial LOST sessions out of the public eye by skirting the Georgia Open Meetings Act. He used the privacy to threaten and cajole, with one attendee describing the experience as being “barked at.”

The media eventually learned of the closed meetings and crashed a session. With cameras and reporters in the room, Ellis showed restraint but not a compromising spirit. He called for the process to enter a mediation phase, which is scheduled to begin Friday.

Now TSPLOST is back on, with One Chatham on the list, and LOST remains in doubt. You needn’t be a conspiracy theorist to suspect that Ellis is leveraging LOST concessions to get support — or at least to suppress opposition — for TSPLOST.

He’ll eventually give on the county’s LOST share so long as municipal leaders endorse TSPLOST and don’t balk at the millions destined for One Chatham, a la the Savannah Chamber’s Hubbard.

But Ellis can’t bully the taxpayers. And he can’t fool them either. One Chatham is a slush fund, not a contingency fund.

Contact Van Brimmer at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @SavannahOpinion.

When Chuck Konner was 22 and living briefly on St. Thomas, he saw La Bella Vita, a 44-foot two-masted sailboat, glide majestically past the island.

“It means the good life, the wonderful life,” Konner says of the boat’s Italian name. “And ever since then, I’ve always wanted an Italian restaurant named La Bella Vita.”

Now, Konner and his partners — Mike DiSabato and Dana Heilman — have just that with La Bella Vita Kitchen and Bar in Orleans, which opened in June.

“It’s a blend of Italian from the north and south of the country,” DiSabato says of the cuisine. “We do the tomato sauces and the olive oil and cheese sauces. We call it Cape Cod Italian because we try to integrate local ingredients with dishes like clams linguine and cioppino (seafood stew).”

DiSabato handles La Bella Vita’s spirits and social media (labellavitaorleans.com, la_bella_vita_orleans on Instagram and https://www.facebook.com/labellavitaorleans). He creates specialty cocktails daily, including a recent Maple Pecan Old Fashioned; sells $20 bottles of limoncello homemade with organic lemons; and purchases a wide range of wines that are offered for $20 each on both La Bella Vita's dine-in and takeout menus.

The menu also has a $60 dinner-for-two menu, as well as theme nights and pizza. Most entrees on the regular menu run in the low to mid-$20 range.

The La Bella Vita crew shared a vision but could not have known it would arrive on the troubled sea of a pandemic that has swamped many longtime eateries.

In 2019, the partners started renovating the empty building that once housed The Academy Grille. Konner says between $600,000 and $700,000 went into the project that involved gutting the space and adding windows to create a more open, airier main dining room, along with a smaller, more intimate dining area in the back.

“We call it the mafia dining room 'cause it’s tucked away out of sight,” Konner says with a laugh.

Connecting the two dining rooms is a bar with a door leading out to a front patio/deck.

“It (the patio) was supposed to be a lounge where people could visit and enjoy a cocktail while waiting for their table. Obviously, that didn’t happen,” DiSabato says, referring to state COVID-19 regulations that closed bars and restricted gatherings.

That outside space proved a saving grace because it could be used instead for outside dining -- which, with takeout, was all the state allowed in mid-June and which continues to be popular now.

The partners had the deck outfitted with roll-up plastic windows to provide better air circulation.

“We have enough room for all the tables, seven tables, to be 10 feet apart. We have a propane heater on every table plus three bigger (heaters) and it’s a good thing because 70 to 80 percent of people still want to eat outside,” DiSabato says.

The only drawback, DiSabato says, is that La Bella Vita’s propane bill runs $2,000 or so per month.

With the state’s new regulations limiting occupancy to 25 percent of capacity, Konner says La Bella Vita has 15 seats inside and 15 outside. But the restaurateurs say they support how Gov. Charlie Baker and his team are handling the pandemic.

“The local health department has done an incredible job,” Konner says. “I would have to applaud them.”

Restrictions have been the mother of invention at La Bella Vita. On the eve of the original launch in March, Baker limited restaurants to take-out only.

“We didn’t want to open a brand new classic Italian restaurant with take-out only so we decided to wait as long as we could afford to,” Konner says.

La Bella Vita opened June 8, the first day that the state allowed outside dining. It remains open daily for indoor dining and takeout.

The three partners have worked in Cape restaurants for many years. DiSabato took a path many do, starting as a dishwasher and working his way up through the ranks at several places before becoming a bartender. Konner owns Rock Harbor Grill in Orleans and co-owns Grill 43 in Yarmouth Port. Heilman, who was not at the interview, owned several locations of Roo Bar restaurants a decade ago, as well as being a co-owner at the former Harry’s Blues Bar in Hyannis.

Konner and DiSabato expressed gratitude for the customers who support them, including one family that came back three nights in a row.

The restaurant’s social media reminds customers that La Bella Vita complies with all state guidelines, including requiring masks and sanitizing tables between customers.

As La Bella Vita sails into the second half of its first year, Konner advises guests: “Don’t be scared of us or any restaurant. We are doing everything we know of to keep our customers safe.”

La Bella Vita Kitchen and Bar

2 Academy Drive, Orleans

774-316-4454; labellavitaorleans.com

Hours: 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. daily

JMArts photo courtesy of Chip Pa

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Posted Wednesday, February 2, 2022 12:39 pm

Updated: Thursday, February 3, 2022 12:33 pm

News + Record Staff

En español

SILER CITY — Gregg Gelb and La Fiesta Latin Jazz Sextet will now perform a free concert at Jordan-Matthews High School on Friday, March 11, JMArts announced Tuesday.

The concert, to be held at 7 p.m. in J-M’s auditorium, had originally been scheduled to top off an afternoon student jazz clinic last Friday night until a third wintry weather forecast last week forced JMArts to postpone it.

Friday’s Latin jazz clinic for student musicians still took place as planned, save for an earlier afternoon start time. From 1 to 3 p.m., the JM Jazz Ensemble, plus several 8th grade musicians from Chatham Middle and Silk Hope, explored and learned to play Latin jazz under the aegis of six acclaimed jazz musicians.

For both participants and observers, the experience was “absolutely outstanding,” according to JMArts President Rose Pate.

“Most of our students have probably never seen musicians at that level in person and up close,” Pate told the News + Record. “And the sectional clinics were well-planned and engaging, showing students the basics of how jazz works, giving them a chance to try improvisation, and demonstrating how to get optimal tone from their instruments. I can’t wait for our whole community to hear this incredible group!”

Gregg Gelb and La Fiesta Latin Jazz Sextet divided students into sessions by instrument — trumpet, trombone, woodwind and percussion. J-M 9th grader and percussionist Kaleb Moffitt worked with other drummers during the clinic, where he played conga drums for the first time.

“When they [the band] came on stage and played Latin jazz, I’d never heard of that,” he said. “When they played their pieces, it all flowed together and when they had their solos, they came out and floated right back in. I thought it was beautiful. I got a little teary watching them; it was amazing.”

During their 75-minute concert in March, Gregg Gelb and La Fiesta Latin Jazz Sextet will also lead about two dozen student musicians in one number. The group’s featured tunes include “Oye Como Va,” “Cape Verdean Blues,” “Mambo Inn” and “Son de la Loma.” Scheduled to play are the band’s regular five members, plus trumpet player Al Strong.

First formed around 10 years ago, Gregg Gelb and La Fiesta Latin Jazz Quintet plays regular gigs at festivals, schools and clubs across the state. They’re a registered five-member band with the United Arts Council and regularly participate in Wake County’s Artists-In-Schools program.

A Sanford native, Gelb is a professional saxophonist and jazz composer who also leads other North Carolina-based jazz bands like The Heart of Carolina Jazz Orchestra and the award-winning Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble. The band’s other four regular members include cross-cultural percussionist Beverly Botsford, jazz pianist Steve Anderson, trombonist and bassist Andy Kleindienst as well as drummer Ramon Ortiz, who’s originally from the Dominican Republic.

Because of Chatham’s ongoing COVID-19 case surge and school policy, attendees will be required to wear masks while they enjoy the indoor concert, as of Feb. 1. For any updated information, visit JMArts.org or JMArts’ social media.

“Watching and listening reminded me of the work you have to put in, but there’s this great outcome,” Moffitt said. “You work hard day in and out, and you see everything come together from all the musicians, and it’s amazing. ... Anybody who likes music should come to this concert.”

Reporter Victoria Johnson can be reached at [email protected].

CHATHAM, England — Rope making? Eye rolling. But I was so wrong.

I didn’t come to Chatham, about 30 miles southeast of London, to find out how to make rope. I came in search of Trixie, Jenny and Chummy — or at least the hangouts of these characters and others in “Call the Midwife,” another PBS series that, like “Downton Abbey,” has garnered a following for the poetry in its soul.

“Midwife” is set in downscale 1950s East London, and parts of the Historic Dockyard, Chatham, once an economic powerhouse from which the British Royal Navy’s ships issued, stand in for some of the series’ less-than-opulent locations.

Tours led by a costumed midwife take place on Sundays; I was here on a Monday, and no one seemed able to tell me how I could re-create that walk.

But they did tell me to get a timed ticket for the Ropery and the Ocelot, a 1962 submarine, and to make sure I viewed “Hearts of Oak,” which explains the shipbuilding process.

This wasn’t what I was here for. On the other hand, if it was good enough for King George III, it was good enough for me.

King George visited the dockyard in the 1780s and was so impressed, he invested heavily in making it the shipbuilder for the Royal Navy. He was especially impressed by the Ropery — and so was I.

Fast forward to 1875. That’s the date from which a costumed guide spins the story of this rope-making wonder, although its production dates to the early 1600s. But in these buildings, miles and miles of ropes were made for British ships. One ship alone could use as much as 31 miles of rope.

They weren’t all called ropes, either. Each had a name to be learned — hence the expression “learning the ropes.”

The production process was as complex. The rope of 1875 was made of Russian hemp — from the stems, the guide said, because the leaves are useless, drawing a snicker from the crowd. The fibers had to be straightened and then spun into yarn — a good spinner could produce five miles a day — and then into strands and then into rope. Some samples were so enormous and heavy that you could knock on them as though you were rapping on a door. The heaviest ropes were used for the anchors.

As you might expect, smoking wasn’t allowed where rope was made. Someone who had an open flame wasn’t just in trouble for arson; he or she could be charged with treason.

Rope is still made here today, using the same methods and machinery. That’s one of the few things that hasn’t changed at the Dockyard, which closed in 1984. In its prime, it employed 10,000 people on its 400 acres; now its 80 acres contain more than 100 buildings, some of which date to the early 1700s, that are used for commercial ventures and living spaces.

It’s also home to the Ocelot, a 1962 submarine that was used by the British Navy. (The 1878 sloop Gannet and the World War II destroyer Cavalier are part of the historic warships exhibits.) The Ocelot (it and the ropery are included in the timed-ticket admission) is fascinating — but only if you’re not claustrophobic. The O class sub carried 24 torpedoes and a crew of 69 who spent as much as three months at sea.

How did these men not go mad? The quarters are tight — if you want to move through the sub, you must swing through openings with your legs in front of you — and the accommodations compact. (The last commander was 6 feet 4 inches; I’m about 14 inches shorter and felt constrained.) Water was rationed; there was enough for teeth, face and a sponge bath, but there were no showers. It was, the guide said, aromatic by the end of a long tour.

Perhaps it was the mission and patrolling the waters that kept them sane. The two periscopes — one with a wider view than the other — made me shiver, perhaps because every TV show or movie that involves a submarine has been a spine tingler. When the periscope goes up, the lights go down because it would shine out the scope. A red light does provide some illumination and some comic relief; it’s referred to as a “baby’s bum.”

That’s about as close to midwifery as I got, although after the sub, I did stumble across a couple of cutouts of the midwives on their bicycles that you can you poke your head through for a photo. The area nearby did look amazingly like some of the “Midwife” locations, but there was no explanation for that — nor mention of other filming done there, including “Les Misérables.”

That’s the puzzle of the dockyard, where the $29 admission seems pricey. I know the broad outlines of Britain’s glorious seafaring history, but it wouldn’t have been enough to lure me here on its own. It was only by luck that I had found the “Midwife” connection. In the end, I was happy to have been here, to have learned more about ship construction (especially from the fascinating multimedia “Hearts of Oak”) and to understand a bit more about what makes Britain, well, Britain.

Historic Dockyard, Chatham, will reopen in February for the season. Info: https://www.thedockyard.co.uk.

Reporting from Chatham, Mass. —

There aren’t enough cod left on Cape Cod.

That soon becomes evident to the tourists crowding an observation deck to watch fishermen unload their boats in this picturesque harbor sheltered from the ocean by sandy dunes.

Today’s catch: pounds of skate, a fish that looks like a sting ray until fishermen catch it, when they cut off its wings and throw the body back into the water. The skate wings, white triangular pieces of flesh trailed by streams of blood, slide down ramps onto the loading dock.

“Eeeewww,” says 5-year-old Felix Haight. “It looks like raspberry jelly,” he adds, as his mother wrinkles her nose.

The next boat brings in dogfish, which looks like a mix between a shark and a lizard, and is no more appealing to the tourists.

For generations, the fish sliding down this ramp would have been cod, a ground fish that has been caught in these parts since the Pilgrims landed on Cape Cod, and before. But for reasons that scientists are still trying to determine, the cod population, shrinking for decades, dropped off precipitously in the last few years.

Last year, commercial fishermen caught just 2 million pounds of cod in the Gulf of Maine, which stretches from Nova Scotia to Cape Cod, down from 13.1 million pounds in 2009. Two decades ago, fishermen hauled in 30.5 million pounds.

Some fishing regulations have been put in place over the decades to prevent overfishing, but recently, fishermen couldn’t even reach the annual limit of 14 million pounds.

“It really fell apart in the last two years,” said Greg Walinski, who has made a living fishing in Cape Cod for 35 years. “We’re at the point now where it’s become economically impossible to do it.”

While other once-overfished populations such as haddock are rebounding, the news about cod has gone from bad to worse.

This month scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote that their new analysis “presents a grim picture for the potential recovery of the iconic fish stock.” The amount of fish big enough to spawn off the Gulf of Maine is at 3% to 4% of normal levels, the scientists said.

Experts are planning to meet Thursday and Friday to review the analysis and try to figure out what to do next.

The decline of the fish has dealt an economic blow to the hundreds of Cape Cod fishermen who used to spend their whole year catching cod. Most have switched to skate and dogfish, which are often canned and shipped to Europe. Some have given up fishing in the winter to work construction; others have left the industry entirely.

Walinski is one of the lucky ones who still fishes year-round, bringing in bluefin in the summer and dogfish the rest of the year. But the dogfish market is so saturated that fishermen only get around 20 cents a pound. By contrast, when Walinski can find cod, he can get $4.50 a pound.

Many of the fishermen blame the National Marine Fisheries Service. They say that big trawlers were allowed to decimate the cod population and that the cod fishery was badly managed.

Some also blame the seals that have become ubiquitous around Cape Cod. Seals pilfer from fishing nets, eating the bellies out of the cod and ruining catches, said John Tuttle, who has fished out of Chatham for 37 years.

“When I started fishing, you’d never see a seal,” Tuttle said. “It was cod everywhere, beautiful cod and haddock everywhere.”

He and others advocate for changes to the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which prohibited the killing of marine mammals. Over the decades the seals have made a comeback.

But scientists say there’s no evidence tying the increased seal population to the decline in cod stocks. Centuries ago, seals and cod used to coexist in abundance, until the seals were hunted down. Besides, there aren’t enough cod in the bellies of seals that scientists study to indicate they’re solely feasting on cod, said Russell Brown, the deputy science and research director of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Center.

There’s no easy explanation for what is happening to the cod, Brown said. Adult cod are barely reproducing in Gulf of Maine waters, though scientists aren’t sure why. They are looking into what role warmer water temperatures of recent years might have on fish and their food sources.

There’s one reason to be optimistic: the haddock revival of the last decade, which followed a decade in which the fish nearly disappeared.

The population’s rise was driven by new daily catch limits and regulations requiring nets that allowed smaller fish to swim free and eventually breed. Some of the haddock’s resurgence can be attributed to luck, too; in 2003, for reasons scientists are still trying to puzzle out, there was a haddock baby boom.

“We’ve rebuilt a lot of stocks, including haddock,” Brown said. “It takes a lot of sacrifice and a lot of diligence.”

Meanwhile, fishermen off Cape Cod are trying to adjust to a life without cod. It’s a strange transition.

After all, New England was built on cod. Rosy reports of the amount of fish in the water were one of the reasons the pilgrims set out for North America. Once they learned how to fish, the industry boomed, allowing early Cape Cod residents to trade cod for goods overseas and build big houses, which they sometimes decorated with images of the fish, according to Mark Kurlansky, author of “Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World.”

The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance is launching a campaign to encourage Americans to eat more dogfish and skate, because most of the New England catch is now exported and used for dishes such as fish and chips in England. They’ve hosted tastings to show consumers that dogfish can be delicious, finding chefs to cook up recipes including pancetta-wrapped dogfish with Brussels-sprout slaw.

The next step may be rebranding the dogfish, said John Pappalardo, executive director of the alliance. After all, Chilean sea bass used to be known as Patagonian toothfish; dogfish could be rebranded New England white fish or a name that might make it more appealing to consumers.

With a new name, consumers might be able to look past the fish’s appearance.

“It’s not the most attractive fish to look at,” Pappalardo said. “But neither is a lobster.”

Consumers may have to skip the fish pier in Chatham, if they’re going to be persuaded to eat dogfish and skate, however. Between the recent caws of the sea gulls and the wind rocking the boats moored in the harbor, there was another consistent sound off the Chatham docks: that of tourists groaning with disgust again and again as slippery dogfish and bloody skate wings slid on by.