The Peninsula News

It’s often amazing how many times we either introduce our neighbors to places just around the corner or are introduced to these places by others.  One of these places, Just Baked Cupcake and Coffee Shop, deserves mention.  Just Baked recently moved from a small location within the Cornelius Art Project to a large, comfortable “house” right on South Main Street in Cornelius.  You literally head down Catawba towards Davidson till you hit the end, turn right and Just Baked is right there.

The wonderful thing about Just Baked is that it’s what is called a “third place.”  Like Starbucks, Just Baked is a comfortable spot with warm chairs and tables to simply go and relax, talk or work.  The cupcakes are great and the coffee and and teas are even better.  If you are tired of the crowds at Starbucks or just looking for a nice new spot to check out, go stop in and say hi to Chris and Missy Wallace, who own the place.  Tell them we sent you.

Just Baked Cupcakes & Coffee House

19901 South Main St                                              

Cornelius NC 28031                                               

Phone: 704.892.3350            

One of our neighbors wrote in asking:

“Are you saying there won’t be any notification in an emergency other than on website?  That won’t work. An email needs to be sent in the case of an emergency.”

The answer is simply no.  There are two reasons for this:

1. ThePeninsulaNews.com is NOT run by the PPOA board.  It’s run by a group of Peninsula residents who wanted to give back.  As such, we don’t represent the board or usurp anything they might also be doing.
2. We don’t have an email list :)  The email some of you might have received from Jim was sent by Jim Duke as the head of the Communications Committee because he is behind what we are trying to do.  We don’t have access to that.

It is possible, however, that over time this site works with the PPOA Board in a joint effort to keep everyone informed.  If that happens and we do have access to your emails, rest assured that any immediate, need-to-know bulletins will be sent out by every means possible from us - web, email, twitter and carrier pigeons if they would sit still!

Hope this answers your questions.  Please keep asking them!

Some of you may have noticed that the lake levels have been dropping over the last ten days.  About a week ago the lake was over 97% full and is not hovering around 96%, well above the 93% minimum imposed by Duke but obviously not as full as many of us would like.  

According to Jim Duke, President of the PPOA, “Lake levels are controlled by a board that sets levels based on seasonal factors. Sometimes they will accelerate the withdrawal for a pending spate of rain, but not normally.  They will drop it down as spring approaches in anticipation of snow melt and spring rains.  I don’t think the current draw down is related to anything other that standard practice.”

Let’s hope for some rain (or snow!) soon!

Jody Turek, who lives in Sailpoint, asks:

“Hello. Have the cell phone towers been turned on in the Peninsula? So far, myself (Verizon) and my husband (AT&T) have not had any upgrade to our service in the area where we live. We have zero to one bar in our house and most times, we have to go outside to take a phone call. Do you have any news on this?”

The answer comes from Jim Duke, our PPOA President:

“All of the cell nodes are operational.  They are AT&T units.  There is room on the poles f or an additional carrier.”

Sorry :(  I know we have trouble with our calls on Verizon from time to time as well.  

What do y’all think, should we focus on getting more towers and better reception or deal with poor reception but fewer towers?  Click Ask above and let us know!

With the January 20th deadline behind us, the applications are in!  One of our founding editors and contributors, Joshua Lippiner, is running for a position on the PPOA Board.  Josh has lived in the Peninsula for the last five years with his wife Lisa and his two little girls, Emma (4) and Ellie (2).  He currently runs Noctivity, an Internet business consultancy that helps businesses bring impossible business initiatives online.  He’s currently working with Lowes on their new MyLowes initiative.  Before that Josh lived in LA where he ran Lowfares.com, a large online travel marketing company and NY where he ran an online market research firm for Gartner.

If elected, Josh wants to focus on enhancing our sense of community, transparency with decisions that are made and initiatives that will enhance our life and home values.

Most of you know Jim Duke, our PPOA President and Communications Chairman for the last number of years who has done an OUTSTANDING job for this community.  Jim sent out a very nice email tonight letting everyone know about ThePeninsulaNews.com.  We’ve already had some solid traffic and, more importantly, very interesting questions and feedback from our neighbors.

So thank you Jim and thank you to everyone who is already asking questions about everything from cell phone towers to mailbox colors.  We will try to cover it all.

Please click on the “Ask” button at the top of the page if you have any questions, thoughts or issues you want to discuss.

Great news!  The Cornelius PD has graciously agreed to alert us via email and telephone the moment and breaking or important town news happens.  We will do our best to post those alerts ASAP so all of our neighbors know what is going on.