Heavy sarcasm below:
Since the proposal to lift the ban is moving through the legislature, the groups say taxpayers should at least be able to vote on whether the walls meant to protect coastal inlets from erosion should be built.
Todd Miller of the coastal federation and John Hood of the John Locke Foundation say the state should require local governments to hold referendums before they build terminal groins, as they're called.
The walls can cost as much as $10.8 million to build, and as much as $2.2 million a year to maintain.
"The best way to protect local taxpayers is to maintain the current ban on terminal groins," Hood said in a statement. "Short of that, local taxpayers should be allowed to vote on the issue before their community builds a terminal groin. Without a vote, taxpayers will have no voice and no choice but to pay a bill they don't want and can't afford for years to come."
The problem with referenda is that they give too much weight to the individually small, but disperse losers of a beach hardening policy. The individually large and concentrated winners of a hardening policy, the mostly rich owners of threatened beach houses would be devastated if we grant each voter a say in what should happen on the North Carolina coast.
