A Carteret County town known for its waterfront is looking for help from the state to repair its town docks and replace the bulkhead and the boardwalk.
Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, who also represents Carteret, Chowan, Dare, Hyde, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Washington counties, is the primary sponsor of the bill filed March 25 titled “An act to appropriate funds to the Town of Beaufort for upgrades and repairs to the town’s Boat Docks.” If passed, the bill would appropriate $12 million from the general fund “to provide a directed grant to the Town of Beaufort as title indicates. Effective July 1, 2025.”
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The next day the bill was sent to the appropriations/base budget committee, where it remained as of Thursday, when he bill was still not listed on the legislative calendar.
There was no mention of funding for the town in the most recent edition of the Senate’s proposed budget passed April 17. The House is currently working on its draft. The North Carolina General Assembly has until June 30 to finalize the budget.
Beaufort Public Information Officer Rachel Johnson said the funds would be used for the needed infrastructure upgrades to include, but not limited to, the town’s bulkhead, boardwalk, and docks work, according to an April 20 article in the Carteret County News-Times, which first reported the proposed bill.
Beaufort, which “has a residential population of about 4,000 with a high influx of visitor traffic during the warmer months,” has had a “Waterfront Improvement Project” in the works for the past handful of years, according to the town website, to prepare for when Beaufort Waterfront Enterprises no longer manages or maintains the docks, which it has done for several decades. Their lease originally set to expire Dec. 31, 2024, was extended in August 2024 to Dec. 31, 2025.
