Column for Oct. 8, 2009

Hidden in the classified section of "The Selma News" and other periodical publications are announcements of public hearings on various topics. Whether they are budgets, zoning changes, ordinance changes, etc., towns must advertise these things. There were two in last week's paper that intrigued me. One of which I knew about, the other I did not until I read the announcement.

There is a public hearing on October 13th about a proposed change of the name of the south side of Railroad Street to Martin Luther King Avenue. The funny thing is that this announcement was in the newspaper edition reporting all of the upcoming (now past) Railroad Days activities. That irony did not escape me.

I first want to state that I believe that the Civil Rights Era of the 1960's was necessary. I believe that the work of Dr. King included a lot of good. I have read and heard many of his speeches and biographical material on the man. I spent a few days discussing race relations with one of his disciples many years ago. Though in my reading and discovery, I found many things about Martin Luther King, Jr. that I will not laud, I will not diminish his good work. I certainly do not advocate his execution nor that of any other man who works for the betterment of his fellow man, whether I agree with him or not. I am the sort of man who, had I been alive at the time, may very well have joined his marches in support of what was right.

That having been said, I do grow tired of the political correctness, capitulation, and appeasement of elevating this man's life to near deity or martyr status. It is a fad of apology and it is getting old. My personal opinion is that I would not mind naming a street after MLK if Selma already had James Madison Boulevard, George Washington Avenue, Thomas Jefferson Street, Ronald Reagan Circle, and the like. How about William Hooper or John Penn, North Carolina's signers of the Declaration of Independence? Or our representatives to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 like Richard Spaight or William Blount? Of course most have never heard of these men, as I doubt that their work is as valued today in history class.

This has zero to do with skin color and everything to do with political correctness or lack thereof. As I said, I would not mind renaming a street in honor of King, but to follow a fad and ignore the rich heritage that came before him is, in my opinion, a travesty.

I did not plan on spending so much time on that topic, since I wanted to bring up the Land Use Plan draft that was presented to the Planning Board and Town Council. There will be a public hearing on this "plan" on the same evening.

It was reported in this paper that the Selma Planning Board and Town Council had a joint meeting last week to hear about the plan. What is generally not public knowledge is that this same meeting was also supposed to be for "…the Council, Planning Board, and Land Use Plan Steering Committee [to] be able to offer commentary on the plan."

I had a copy of the plan for several weeks and had made numerous notes thereon. I came prepared for a discussion of the plan, yet no such opportunity was afforded by the Town Council, whose meeting this was, in all actuality. We were basically expected to be spectators while the town's contractors explained the philosophy behind their work. This is typical of the paradigm of some in our town government, unfortunately. We are going to have their vision of Selma regardless of what anyone else wants or says. For this reason, many on the Planning Board are disillusioned and frustrated. Many people in our town and extra-territorial jurisdiction are the same.

It is ironic that in my notes, I wrote that "we aren't Cary", since I had no idea at the time that one of our contractor's employees was the planner for the Town of Cary at one time. We were told that many things go into a plan, including philosophical values. This is what most of my commentary encompassed and was not necessarily technical in nature. For this reason, I was looking forward to the meeting for discussion.

One other thing we were told by The Wooten Company (the town's contractor) was that the State of North Carolina will be requiring towns to follow their "land use plan" when taking into account decisions relative to planning and zoning. The town's staff informed me that the plan is not regulatory in nature. However, if that shall indeed be a requirement by the state, and the town must abide by its plan for decision taking purposes, then the plan becomes defacto regulation. This plan affects the town and especially the ETJ.

Unfortunately, the Town of Selma rarely publishes any full documents online for review. Whether it is a full copy of the budget or a land use plan, you have to go by town hall for your own review. If you want your own copy, you will be charged for the photocopies. This is a control technique. I know this from experience. No big deal, though, since the public hearing is really only a formality and your input is not really welcome, anyway.

Column for Oct. 16, 2008

Johnston County's ETJ law scrutinized at public hearing

I wish that I was able to attend the recent public hearing on the two mile Extra Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) law in Smithfield. Unfortunately, I work the sort of job in which I am a technical support type guy. When there is a problem with the equipment I maintain, I have to go take care of business. Even if I only sit in front of my laptop at home and monitor the progress of rectification, I have to do it. As life would have it, I worked late the night of that public hearing. I had it on my calendar and was ready to go. Then a problem with an upgrade to my company's software caused a major problem with our server, and instantly I was transformed from someone free for the evening to an employee chained to a laptop.

That sort of problem will not be happening to me all this week, however. As you are reading this, I am securely locked away in an undisclosed location with my new bride in our love nest for our honeymoon. God has truly blessed me this year. I wish I could tell more, but that is not what this week's column is about. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I find it disturbing that for a public hearing on something that profoundly effects Johnston County that only one county commissioner took the time to attend. Alan Mims, according to reports, was the only one who thought it worthy of his time. I understand scheduling conflicts and getting bogged down with the day job, as I just described. However, one would think that more than just one commissioner would be there. Our state representative, Leo Daughtry, was there, though. So was J.H. Langdon. Thank you, gentlemen, for your interest and your courtesy.

I have written previously about the ETJ issue. I had given some thought and even made notes about what I would have said at that hearing. Since I was not able to attend in person, I am publishing my public comments for further consideration by our elected representatives.

Most every Monday night, I teach about U.S. history and the Constitution. During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, there were many debates about suffrage for the states. Great concern was expressed about being able to be properly represented in both houses of the legislative branch of government. These concerns were well founded, considering the history of the colonial response to England in which the cry of the day was "no taxation without representation".

In our case, citizens outside of the town of Selma are crying "regulation without representation". Taxation is a form of power, so is regulation. At least people in the Selma Fire District, yet outside the town limits get a service for the taxes they pay. Those who happen to live within the ETJ get regulation with no real benefit. They by default would already be within the county's jurisdiction. The county's plan was sufficiently similar to the town's that the town was going to merely adopt the county zoning and redefine it in accordance with corresponding town zoning requirements.

For a town of only 3.5 square miles, as is the case of Selma, to reach its tentacles of control out two full miles beyond its borders is unethical. Why should a town control more than its own square mileage outside of its political borders?

The argument in favor of the ETJ that the ETJ population is entitled to having representation on the town's planning board is fallacious for two reasons. First, the individual(s) chosen to serve on the board are selected by officials that ETJ residents are not able to elect. Second, the planning board has zero authority. None of the decisions taken by the board are binding in Selma and the town council that ETJ representatives can not vote for still has the final say in all matters.

When people are subject to a government that can regulate their lives and subjugate their private property rights with no recourse or choice, it violates the spirit of Article IV section 4 of the United States Constitution, which guarantees a "Republican Form of Government" for each state. In a republic, those who have the rule over the people are chosen by the people. This is not the case if you live in the extra-territorial jurisdiction of a town in North Carolina.

When Johnston County towns are allowed a two mile ETJ because of a 1985 bill written specifically for the county and sneaked in by local legislators while the rest of the state's municipalities have no such authority, it is patently unfair to the rest of the state. A two mile ETJ law, and all ETJ laws for that matter, should be repealed.

Column for Jan. 24, 2008

Analysis of rezoning public hearing

On January 8th, as readers of this newspaper know, there was as part of a town council meeting, a public hearing on the rezoning request of a tract of land to change to industrial from agricultural and residential use in Selma's extra-territorial jurisdiction.

During that hearing, there were many impassioned pleas to vote against the rezoning. There were many concerned area residents from Selma and Pine Level, as well as the outlying areas thereof. There were calls for a recall of any town council member who voted for the rezoning request. There were people giving allegedly expert testimony. There were demands for the education level and the identity of the issuing institution of higher learning of said degrees of education. There was a lecture on the four types of loam on the proposed site. There were accusations of "spot zoning" and illegal configurations of zoning in that area.

The problem that I had with most of the well meaning public commentary is that most of it was emotionally based, including the so called expert testimony. I saw little reasoned and informed public commentary. I understand that this is an issue that will bring many passionate views. Industry wants to encroach upon the quiet, countryside way of life. I get it wholeheartedly.

Here are some of the problems with the public hearing, as I saw it, inappropriate opening commentary by the mayor aside. I am just calling it as I see it. Keep in mind, too, that what I am about to write may not necessarily reflect my personal desire in this entire situation. First, there were automatic assumptions of chemical pollution, "light pollution" (not that I believe there is any such thing), noise pollution, and foul odors that would come as a result of the proposed plant. My simple commentary is that only one person in the room aside from the men representing the interests of East Coast Ethanol seems to have been anywhere near an ethanol plant. Certainly, nobody amongst the public has been anywhere near a modern day plant.

Next was the absolute ridicule of the government standards by which the plant would have to abide. There were people claiming that the EPA does not know their business and there was a great degree of distrust in government regulations expressed. At the same time, there was an extolling of the virtues of the USDA and their standards and reports. What in the world is supposed to make anyone think that one bureaucracy is any better than another? They are just two suckers on the same tentacle of government regulation and thievery. That was, in my opinion, a serious double standard and only detracted from the validity of the public commentary.

I was dismayed with the sheer arrogance of claims of lack of "due diligence" upon the part of the plant investors and contracted agency. What people just may not understand is that the project is nowhere near the stage of the investment in soil sampling, scientific investigation, and site planning to the extent expected by some in the crowd. A company is not going to invest literally tens of thousands of dollars into expensive surveys and testing until they are confident that they can advance with the project. The rezoning is an essential first step in the process. This is not the first plant ever built by the contracted company, so they do know what they are doing in site selection and process. In fact, they have built the vast majority of such plants in the country.

I found it ironic and hypocritical of one man to denounce the credentials of the men representing East Coast Ethanol and their contracted agency while he himself did not have the credentials of a soil scientist. Yet, he lectured people on the soil of the proposed site, cited the USDA studies of the area, and at the same time decried and debased other authorities. First of all, since when is a company obligated to fly in every chemical engineer or member of its engineering and scientific crew for a simple rezoning public hearing? Yet they were derided for not having these experts present. Furthermore, I have personally worked on huge construction projects where the soils present became a non-issue. Entire industrial and educational facilities under my jurisdiction have long ago emerged from fallow kudzu fields. Innovation and money is all it takes to mitigate those problems.

The public hearing was for rezoning. It was not a debate over the merits of an ethanol plant. The process of an ethanol plant takes a lot more steps of regulation than simply getting a piece of land rezoned to industrial use. Even if the land was rezoned, this facility would still have to obtain a special use permit from Selma to even think about operating. Furthermore, there are mountains of county, state, and federal regulations with which they would have to comply before even thinking about building. I found the assumption that there is going to be a plant built after this public hearing absurd, emotional, illogical, and borderline stupidity. For this reason, I also found it absurd that anyone would even consider calling for a recall of any town council member for voting for a rezoning of the property in question.

Another concern expressed by one citizen was the safety of the plant. Again, we are dealing with heavy government regulation. It is also just plain good business sense to have fire mitigation planning on site. My background is in this very field, I am the vice chair of the Johnston County Local Emergency Management Planning Committee, and this year will be the chairman of the county committee. The expressed concern of cooperation and training with local fire departments will be a non-issue, I assure you. I will personally be responsible for working closely with county Emergency Management and will be in regular contact with most every fire department leader in the county. With any such facility in the county, I can safely assure that this will be a non-issue.

The claims of emissions from the facility may or may not be a moot point. There have been great advances in pollution control. Just as there are catalytic converters and other emission controls on automobiles, there are going to be some new innovations in industry. I am not defending the industry position, I am just being realistic and honest.

Let us assume for a moment that the zoning of the tract of land in question will stay as it is, i.e., agricultural. Let us also assume that the land will be used as such. A hog, cow, or poultry farm would also have a great degree of emissions. Cow flatulence is never fun. Hog waste can be smelled for miles, as I have found out from my extensive travel throughout North Carolina. Poultry, whether turkey or chicken, can also give a "fowl" odor (I could not resist that pun, sorry). There is always a degree of noise associated with farming. Livestock makes noise 24/7 when there is a concentrated population. That pretty much destroys the noise argument against the ethanol plant.

Irrigation and/or watering of farm animals also takes a certain degree of water to do so, as will an ethanol plant. They may not be equal amounts, but the increased demand is still a certainty.

I say this to show that regardless of the use of the land, even under its existing zoning, there would be issues, complaints, and problems. What I do know is that one way or another, that tract of land and its surrounding area will eventually be developed.

With all this having been said, do I want an ethanol plant on the outskirts of Selma? I personally have relayed my opinion to some of my elected representatives on the town council. That is the best way of getting my desired result. Being emotionally driven, staying uninformed or subjective, and railing against the unknown are not the effective nor desired methods of accomplishing my desired end.

Regardless of my personal opinion, I have had plenty of opportunities to think about this topic and look at things from both sides. I do believe that I have the ability to be objective rather than subjective. For this reason, I have offered to the town leaders to be one of the town citizens to travel to take up East Coast Ethanol's offer to visit an ethanol plant. Unlike the comments from one of the citizens at the meeting, I do not want to visit one of the worst plants in the country in order to explore one. I want to see one exactly like what is proposed for Selma. To see anything else would be illogical. Will the town actually take up East Coast Ethanol on their offer? Will I get the opportunity to go? I have no idea, but I would certainly be fair either way.

That is the whole point of this column today. I want to be fair, not emotional. I am not an ethanol apologist. As a matter of fact, I am not a fan of ethanol as a fuel source, nor of the government boondoggle that has given us ethanol as such. However, I can still be open minded enough to at least be objective. I hope others can be as well.