Why I am running for Mayor …
After 8 years as an alderman, I feel I have gained experience in all aspects of municipal government to now serve as your mayor. Over these years I have made many connections to other elected officials, state and federal representatives in Raleigh and Washington, state agency directors, and leaders of several coastal non-profits. Thus, there will be no gap in leadership as we ‘Continue The Progress’ from the last few years.
With my background as a university professor, I offer voters a candidate who will work at all levels of our community to develop a consensus for each topic or issue that is the best way forward for our town. Consensus building is challenging because initially, everyone has their own view/position, so working toward consensus requires good listening skills and patience. Since your candidates offer two different leadership styles, it is up to you as a voter to decide which kind of leadership style you support.
I like helping people whether it be mowing my neighbor’s grass while they’re out of town or helping a neighbor put up a new fence. At the community level, I volunteered to create the Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission website and for the last few years compiled the minutes after each meeting.
Our town priorities …
As a beach vacation/retirement destination the ‘Community of North Topsail Beach’ affords excellent public safety in our fire and police departments, an administration that works for the town stakeholders, and a strong beach nourishment program to ensure the continued attraction of our beaches for residents and vacationers alike.
A top priority is completing the DA143-based beach nourishment plan to place sand on the beach from Phase 3 north to Phase 1, thus completing the last 5 miles of beach nourishment in town. While still in the permitting stage this project is expected to start in November 2026 with completion before the start of turtle season in spring 2027. Project details and status are explained by our Beach, Inlet, Sound Advisory Committee coastal engineer, Chris Gibson at the October Board of Aldermen Meeting.
At the ‘center’ of these priorities is ‘Community’ i.e. the people we serve as elected officials. As a primarily residential town with few commercial areas for residents to congregate, we only seem to know our close neighbors and those who relax at the same stretch of beach as us. I am committed to improving our community environment among all in town, perhaps through additional community events that bring people together like town hall meetings, Community Spring and Fall Picnics at Richard Peters Town Park, and perhaps a new “Mayor’s Corner” to listen to citizens’ concerns.
My Qualifications
Community Service …
Since retiring to North Topsail Beach over 10 years ago, I have been active in the Kiwanis Club of Topsail Island Area building and maintaining the club website and serving as an advisor to the Dixon Middle School Builder’s Club.
I soon volunteered for appointment to the Topsail Island Shoreline Commission as our citizen representative. I continue to the present now as an alderman to serve on this committee having served as Co-chair for several years. This commission is the island’s voice in Raleigh and Washington. Notable accomplishments include promoting and securing a Federal Project for Surf City beaches and facilitating federal legislation to get all of the developed area of town out of CBRA.
Alderman Accomplishments …
Over the past 8 years our Board of Aldermen have worked together to move our town forward on many fronts. Although aldermen work as a board to move the town forward, we do so as individuals to bring new initiatives to the board for consideration and possible adoption. Before my term, the budget did not include a ‘Capital Improvements Fund’ line item. Without dedicating a portion of revenues for capital improvement, it had put the town in the position of borrowing money for every improvement from beach nourishment to buying a several hundred thousand dollar fire engine. Adoption of my capital improvement line item in the budget allows us to save for future capital projects. We are now using the capital improvements fund to pay for construction of the new south end fire station.
Perhaps my biggest accomplishment, however, was bringing to the board a proposal along with a charter for a ‘Beach, Inlet, Sound, Advisory Committee’ or BISAC. Prior to BISAC, aldermen on the board had to become proficient in all aspects of beach nourishment from planning and permitting to actual construction. This responsibility was taking too much time away from the board’s other work. It also allows for ‘institutional memory’ as past work of the committee is passed on to future committee members through staggered terms. As the committee’s first chairman, we were able within a year to bring before the board a plan to nourish all of the Phase 4 beach reach along with a grant for $10.5 million dollars from the state ‘Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund’ to pay for the project! That project was completed this spring.
The Future for North Topsail Beach …
A top priority is completing the DA143-based beach nourishment plan to place sand on the beach and build up the dune from Phase 3 north to Phase 1, thus completing the last 5 miles of beach nourishment in town. While still in the permitting stage this project is expected to start in November 2026 with completion before start of turtle season in 2027. Details on permitting and the construction phase was presented by Chris Gibson, TI Coastal engineer, at the October meeting of the Board of Aldermen. Chris is advisor to the Beach, Inlet, Sound, Advisory Committee which initially developed the plan with his input and presented it to the board in 2024 to start the permitting process.
In the long term, we need to revise our 30-year Beach and Inlet Management Plan or BIMP for the DEQ Division of Coastal Management’s approval. The BIMP plan demonstrates how we will be able to re-nourish all 11 miles of town beach along with our financial plan to pay for it over the next 30 yrs. With a predicted sea-level rise of one foot over the next 25 years, the challenge is daunting! On the beach side of the island, we will have to build the beach higher, wider, and stronger. On the sound side the challenge is even greater as sound side flooding becomes more common year by year. Do we end up with man-made sea walls, like already exists in the low country of the Netherlands? I hope not, but only planning now will get us a resilient solution as this crisis continues. We need to get the Planning Board and Beach Inlet Sound Advisory Committee working on this issue now.
For the town as a whole, we need to follow up on our accomplishments of the past 4 years that have included renovation of Town Hall, purchase of a new fire engine, renovation of Richard Peters Town Park, renovation of the north fire station, started construction of a new south fire station, and the various beach projects mentioned above. What will be the priorities for the next 4 years? With your input, your elected officials will have to prioritize these needs.
As long as we continue to maintain our beaches and our country’s economy remains strong, housing development will continue until we reach 100% build out. Since COVID, there has been intense new housing starts as families and investors, alike, realize that North Topsail Beach offers 11 miles of relative uncrowded, sandy beaches for residents and guests to enjoy.
Where I stand …
Will there be a ‘terminal groin’ at the New River Inlet?
A terminal groin is part of the New River Inlet Management Master Plan first introduced to the town and county leaders in 2018. The plan proposed to evaluate five different strategies to reduce the erosion rate near the inlet, one of those strategies is a ‘terminal groin.’ The ‘Environmental Impact Statement’ or EIS is the critical piece of the plan. The EIS under development by a third party contractor i.e. a consulting firm is now 5 years passed the expected timeline initially proposed to the town for EIS approval by the US Army Corps of Engineers and has yet to reach even the ‘draft EIS ‘ stage where state and federal environmental agencies and the public can comment on the plan followed by development of the ‘final EIS’ stage and a record of statement by the Commanding General of the Corps. This process is going to take at least 3-5 more years!
Should the general’s recommendation support a ‘terminal groin’ as the best solution for the erosion problem, I fully support it’s construction.
Recently, the Town of Ocean Isle Beach went through a similar process for their eroding inlet and were successful in construction of a terminal groin. To date the Ocean Isle Beach terminal groin has been functioning as intended.
[In the photo above, notice in the Pre-Construction panel, the sandbags fronting the houses in the foreground and one house in the ocean at high tide (red circle); in the Post-Construction panel, the terminal groin appears as a dark line perpendicular to the ocean (foreground) with the sand backfill dredged from the Shallotte Inlet Crossing that created the wide protective beach. photo courtesy of the Town of Ocean Isle Beach and Coastal Protection Engineering]
What type of business dominates in NTB and why?
We probably don’t think of ‘business’ here in North Topsail Beach except for a couple of campgrounds, a pier, and restaurants associated with condo complexes. However, we have a huge ‘business industry’ in town and that is vacation rentals! With over 3,700 residential units and only 1,000 full-time residents, those other approx. 3,000 units are mostly vacation rentals generating over $1.5 million dollars in ‘accommodation tax’ to the town and a like value to the county. Of course, property tax revenue from rental properties also fuels our economy. We need to be a welcoming beach town to those 30,000 guests that visit each week in the summer season.
How does our town budget stack up?
Our budget has grown yearly over the last 8 years. We rely on town department heads to detail their department needs for the coming fiscal year with oversight from the town manager. With inflation, costs of doing business continues to rise each year, but fortunately for us our revenue has grown also to where we have not had to increases taxes for the last 2 years unlike the other towns on the island. The role of the board is to understand why department heads are requesting their proposed budgets, modify as needed, and finally based on town manager guidance, approve the budget. The mayor and alderman must insure that tax payers’ dollars are spent in an accountable way as part of our oath of office.
What about CBRA and National Federal Flood Insurance?
Our property owners know that if you have a mortgage, most lenders require ‘flood insurance’ for properties in flood prone areas like the ‘beach.’ Unfortunately, properties affected by this law are ineligible for the federal coverage and must obtain private flood insurance at costs sometimes as high as 10 times that for properties covered by National Federal Flood Insurance!
As a town we have working for a number of years to amend the Coastal Barrier Resources System Map Unit L06. In 2023, Mayor Pro Tem Leonard was been invited on two occasions to testify before the House Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries to provide testimony at the legislative hearing in Washington DC on H.R. 1885 sponsored by Rep. Murphy. Unfortunately, that bill expired before it could make it’s way to the house floor. However, Mayor Pro Tem Leonard was invited back in 2025 to again testify to the U.S. House of Representatives Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee on May 20th in support of Congressman Greg Murphy’s bill HR 2437. We are hopeful this bill and a Senate version will get through the necessary congressional committees and become attached to major legislation that Congress will adopt. Amendment of our CBRA map has to be a priority until we are successful.
My Back Story at NC State University …
Education …
After earning a B.A. in biology at Earlham College, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in plant pathology at Colorado State University, I did post-doctoral work at a Central Valley Field Station run by the University of California, Berkeley. Following post-doc work, I accepted an assistant professor position in the Department of Plant Pathology at N. C. State University where I taught undergrad and grad courses in my discipline and developed a research program on diseases of ornamental crops and Christmas trees. During my tenure, I was promoted to associate and then full professor.
My leadership roles …
Over my career I was invited to serve on a number of advisory groups in support of federal, state, or regional agencies as either a member or chair of the group. Some of these include: IR4 Ornamental Horticulture Program, ESCOP/PMSS Biological Control Working Group, ESCOP Pest Management Strategies Subcommittee, and the National Ornamentals Research Site- Dominican University of California. The goals of these groups was to develop disease management strategies for plant pathogens that threaten commercial production of ornamentals and trees in the U.S. as well as the health of key forest tree species across the U.S. These groups brought together the recognized experts on specific plant pathogens who working together developed recommendations and management strategies to improve crop and forest health.
Professional Service …
Another aspect of a professor’s position is peer-review of scientific research papers prior to publication. With a knack for evaluating the research presented in a journal paper, I was invited to serve as an editor for several national and international scientific journals over the years. These journals included Acquisition Editor, APS Press, Editor-in-Chief, Plant Health Progress, Senior Editor, APS Press, Principal Editor, Crop Protection, Section Editor, Canadian J Microbiology, Editor-in-Chief, Phytopathology, Senior Editor, Phytopathology, and Associate Editor, Plant Disease. Improving the clarity of a research paper was my goal in helping the authors better explain their work.
Professional Society Memberships …
Gamma Sigma Delta, the Honor Society for Agriculture, American Phytopathological Society, Sigma Xi, and the Plant Pathology Society of North Carolina. In addition, I received the following honors in recognition of my research program: Sigma Xi, Young Researcher Award; American Phytopathological Society, Fellow; Research Friend of Extension Award 2013; NC State Cooperative Extension; and IR4 Soar Award 2013, Ornamental Horticulture Program.
Voters are encouraged to contact me at bensonformayor@gmail.com
- To asked your questions,
- To discuss your concerns, and/or
- To offer suggestions for improvements in town