Greenway is good ride
I want to thank the Town of Cary for completing part of the White Oak Greenway up to Green Level Church Road. I am really glad they decided to do this. I ride my bike on this trail almost every weekend. I can’t wait until the White Oak Greenway meets up with the American Tobacco Trail.

Max Clinton
Cary

Explain water rates
Can someone on our council please explain to me and my neighbors why we are charged on a sliding scale $3.28 to $10.83 per 1,000 gallons per month and then we turn around and charge the city of Durham $3.02 per 1,000 gallons? In addition there is a base rate charge for Cary customers, which in my case represents an additional 20 percent, resulting in an actual charge of $4.10 per 1,000 gallons used. Has the city of Durham taken on some responsibility for the bonds which the Town of Cary issued to pay for the facilities’ improvements that allows Cary to have excess water? It’s one thing to be a good neighbor, but the primary responsibility of the council should be towards the citizens of Cary. I think the charges at least ought to be commensurate with the scale of what we charge our other neighbors, namely Morrisville. Morrisville’s charges range from $3.83 to $11.06 with a monthly base charge of $5.

Walt Silva
Cary

Land banking good, but…
In principle, land-banking for future growth is good, assuming we can afford the cost and we don’t pay too much. With real estate prices sagging, why not wait a year until things have bottomed (buy low, sell high)? Hopefully the town will follow the Wake County Commissioners’ good practice of hiring neutral appraisers to determine the fair market value of land first. Regarding land for school, isn’t it the responsibility of County Commissioners to purchase land for government schools? Will we be taxed twice, once by the Town of Cary and once by Wake County, for the same piece of land? Would the Cary Town Council please describe their plans in the next issue of The Cary News?

Cary government: Please take a fresh look at the cost of community schools before purchasing land for future schools. In Apex a group I lead is building a 400-student, K-8 community school, the Thales Academy of Apex, on only four acres of land, donated by the Apex First Development Company. The school will cost under $700,000 to finance. From ground breaking to the first day of classes requires only eight months. By comparison, a typical WCPSS elementary school costs $23 million to build, uses 20 acres of land and requires about two years to construct.

For the price Cary taxpayers might have to pay for the land for just one WCPSS school, $2 million (20 acres at $100,000/acre), we could finance three new community schools, assuming local developers would donate three small four-acre sites. Imagine what could be done with the $23 million Wake County now spends for just one school! Thales Academy of Apex will open in September on a traditional calendar. For details, see thalesacademy.org.

Kent Misegades
Cary

Park West vote disappointing
Morrisville’s Board of Commissioners approved Park West Village by a 5-2 vote. After months of research, questions, town hall meetings, public hearings and more studies, Park West will become a reality.

It has been said there are no “winners” or “losers,” and that the democratic process served us well. All were allowed to speak in favor or against the project. Petitions were circulated by both camps. The board vote was even postponed one month when a feeling of impropriety was questioned, that P & Z had not had their chance to vote first, before passing the project through to the board.

But were those voices heard? Were the citizens’ questions and concerns adequately considered before a shopping center of this magnitude was approved? Did the developer truly make any concessions to our concerns?

I have viewed the plans since April and other than the addition of 13 acres on Morrisville Parkway and the new “pocket parks” have seen no changes.

In the end, those that were going to vote yes did so, and those that were going to vote no, stayed the course.

Linda Lyons and Pete Martin continued to think of their suburban community and its residents. Their vote will be viewed as unpopular by many. But for those that opposed the project, these commissioners’ votes symbolize a growing feeling in our area. We are being over developed.

DavisandHighHouse.org are supporting regional partners who stand for a slower approach to growth. We were heard loud and clear in 2007. We are now planning for 2009. Join us at www.davisandhighhouse.org.

Lindsey Chester
Cary

Morrisville sells out
Recently I was in my daughter’s classroom volunteering and spent some time looking at a classroom book with some of the third grade children.

The book showed photos of homes all across the world and what kinds of things that each family used in their homes and found to be an important part of daily lives. The photos were striking — and I felt a little ill when they showed families in the U.S. Our focus on the material things and the “must haves” did not make me feel lucky but saddened. I am saddened that we have all lost focus on what is really important in our lives. The basics like food, water, shelter, clothing. Then there is education, family, faith and the environment and neighbors that surrounds us. Those are the important things in life. The things that we should protect at all costs.

Morrisville’s vote in favor of Park West seemed to be about one thing.

It was not about protecting our way of life, or our children as they attend school. It was not about our neighbor who has flooding problems or the single mom who could not get an ambulance to her home during rush hour. It was not about the hundreds of citizens that wanted to protect their quality of life and keep their families and roadways safe. It was not about logic or about asking common sense questions about inaccurate numbers. It was not about making an outside developer change its plans to fit our community.

Instead the vote reflected the one thing that makes America different from all those other countries represented in that book. The one thing is greed.

I am disappointed in the process. Unfortunately the vote seemed to be a “done deal” months ago. The arrogance of the developer proves that. The developer has been tearing down the pharmaceutical plant for weeks prior to the vote.

That sent a message that they were sure it was going to pass. Morrisville has sold out and sold its soul.

Leslie Huffman
Cary

Residents disenfranchised
Congratulations to the super majority of Morrisville commissioners who voted for the Regional Activity Center Park West Village and successfully disenfranchised even more residents.

Our town’s Planning and Zoning Board recommended denial of the project.

More residents, 841, signed the petition against Park West Village than voted in the town’s last election.

The pros and cons of subsidizing retail and commercial special interests have long won the argument in Morrisville as this vote for 4,200 additional parking spaces, another apartment complex and increasing traffic congestion throughout town are added up. The commissioners never seriously took into account the bigger picture, water/sewer capacity and how this second RAC is also a huge taxpayer drain on infrastructure investment. At the other end of Morrisville, three miles away also along N.C. 54, is another approved RAC with a Super Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club as anchors. The Commissioners’ spin to citizens’ traffic and sewer concerns is to give us more mega shopping (similar to “let them eat cake”), attracting tens of thousands of more pass-through commuters into our town’s already cogged, over-capacity and underfunded road network.

Why is it the majority of commissioners plan on increasing our property taxes and user fees this year? Town leadership continually pushes for more higher density, claiming it is economically superior for our tax base and infrastructure needs as they butt heads with citizens over a “sense of community.” All our middle and high school students are bussed out of town and where is the funding for neighborhood parks? Yet, officials advocate for more office parks, apartments and town homes even though we are the smallest sized Wake County town at 9.8 square miles.

Memo to town leadership: Try another approach that has worked across Wake County. Let new growth pay for itself and quit wasting tax dollars in subsidizing it. Those same wasteful subsidizes to special interests forced our town to merge water and sewer services into Cary’s at a cost of over $64 million.

Michael Schlink
Morrisville

Park West — the wrong decision
On Jan. 28 the Morrisville Board of Commissioners approved Park West by a 5 to 2 vote. We think the five who approved Park West demonstrated a strong commitment to development and turned a deaf ear to the citizenry.

Mayor Jan Faulkner stated that “listening doesn’t mean agreeing” — but was she really listening? Commissioner Mike Snyder offered his comments.

“Perhaps it just comes down to the argument I’ve heard, and that is, do you want to live in a bedroom community or do you want Morrisville to be a destination? If you don’t like the outcome of this evening’s vote, the ball is now in your court.” It is in our court and we’d like Morrisville to be more of a bedroom community than one extended shopping destination bookended by big box retailers. We’d also like the board to start representing the welfare of the citizenry rather than the welfare of the developers. We urge citizens of Morrisville to get involved and make your opinions known.

Morrisville currently has an online survey and information on upcoming meetings on Land Use and Transportation (morrisville lutp.org). At the Jan. 31 Land Use meeting the Park West developers were in attendance — they’re paying attention because it’s in their interest — but the townspeople are the ones who will have to live with Morrisville’s land use decisions.

The minutes from the Board of Commissioners meeting are online and you can review the records of the commissioners (ci.morrisville.nc.us/board/agen das.asp). In 2009 four of the seven positions will be up for election, including the mayoral position. If you’re not satisfied with representation currently provided, as we are not, you’ll have the opportunity to make that known through the power of your votes.

Pamela St. Jean
Carol St. Jean
Morrisville