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OLF hearing to be held in Charlotte
Dole requested additional, ‘accessible’ spot in state
By NIKIE MAYO
News Editor
Residents will get at least one more opportunity than they had planned to voice their opinions about the Navy-proposed outlying landing field in eastern North Carolina.
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole announced late Tuesday that the Navy has agreed to schedule another public hearing on the latest OLF impact study. The hearing is scheduled for April 17 in Charlotte.
“I welcome this chance for more North Carolinians to personally voice their concerns about the Navy’s proposed OLF,” Dole said in a news release. “This issue has attracted the attention of residents from all corners of our state. The hearings held in eastern North Carolina are critical, but it is also important that other concerned residents in the central and western parts of our state have the opportunity to attend and participate in a public hearing on this issue.”
Dole, a North Carolina Republican, wrote to Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter last week to request a seventh public hearing.
“For a number of years now, I have closely followed the Navy’s site-selection process for an outlying landing field in eastern North Carolina,” Dole wrote in a March 19 letter, sent the same day as Hyde County’s public hearing on the matter.
“I have been very engaged with my constituents who are concerned about an OLF, and it has been a priority of mine to ensure that North Carolinians’ voices are heard at the highest levels of the Navy,” Dole wrote.
Six other public hearings were scheduled in eastern North Carolina, in each of the counties that could be home to the potential pilot-training OLF. Four of those have already taken place, but the other two, scheduled for Beaufort and Washington counties next week, are nearest the Navy’s preferred site.
“Senator Dole is pleased that the Navy is allowing more North Carolinians a chance to voice their opinions on the OLF,” said Katie Norman, her spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
The hearing will be held in Ballroom A at the Charlotte Convention Center on South College Street, with its time format being the same as those followed during the previous hearings.
An information session lasts from 4:30-6:30 p.m. and the hearing runs from 7-10 p.m.
Norman said Dole’s staff will attend the meeting in Charlotte, just as staff members have attended those in the eastern part of the state.
“It looks like a day that the Senate is in session, so we don’t know yet whether Senator Dole will be speaking,” Norman said.
Norman said Dole would be “asking questions of the Navy” during the public-comment period, which runs through April 24.
By NIKIE MAYO
News Editor
Residents will get at least one more opportunity than they had planned to voice their opinions about the Navy-proposed outlying landing field in eastern North Carolina.
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole announced late Tuesday that the Navy has agreed to schedule another public hearing on the latest OLF impact study. The hearing is scheduled for April 17 in Charlotte.
“I welcome this chance for more North Carolinians to personally voice their concerns about the Navy’s proposed OLF,” Dole said in a news release. “This issue has attracted the attention of residents from all corners of our state. The hearings held in eastern North Carolina are critical, but it is also important that other concerned residents in the central and western parts of our state have the opportunity to attend and participate in a public hearing on this issue.”
Dole, a North Carolina Republican, wrote to Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter last week to request a seventh public hearing.
“For a number of years now, I have closely followed the Navy’s site-selection process for an outlying landing field in eastern North Carolina,” Dole wrote in a March 19 letter, sent the same day as Hyde County’s public hearing on the matter.
“I have been very engaged with my constituents who are concerned about an OLF, and it has been a priority of mine to ensure that North Carolinians’ voices are heard at the highest levels of the Navy,” Dole wrote.
Six other public hearings were scheduled in eastern North Carolina, in each of the counties that could be home to the potential pilot-training OLF. Four of those have already taken place, but the other two, scheduled for Beaufort and Washington counties next week, are nearest the Navy’s preferred site.
“Senator Dole is pleased that the Navy is allowing more North Carolinians a chance to voice their opinions on the OLF,” said Katie Norman, her spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
The hearing will be held in Ballroom A at the Charlotte Convention Center on South College Street, with its time format being the same as those followed during the previous hearings.
An information session lasts from 4:30-6:30 p.m. and the hearing runs from 7-10 p.m.
Norman said Dole’s staff will attend the meeting in Charlotte, just as staff members have attended those in the eastern part of the state.
“It looks like a day that the Senate is in session, so we don’t know yet whether Senator Dole will be speaking,” Norman said.
Norman said Dole would be “asking questions of the Navy” during the public-comment period, which runs through April 24.
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