Legislation introduced in the N.C. House would take Highlands neighborhood out of Carrboro
By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer
Residents of the Highlands neighborhood took their complaints about their recent contentious annexation into Carrboro to the legislature and the result, House Bill 1061, would reverse the inclusion of the neighborhood in the town limits.
And though the bill, filed last week by Rep. Bill Faison, who represents Orange and Caswell counties, is not given much of a chance of passage, longtime opponents of Carrboro’s moves say it sends an important message.
Katrina Ryan, a Highlands resident who ran for the Board of Aldermen in the last election, said the fact that 70 out of 93 households in the neighborhood signed on to a petition asking for the de-annexation bill shows how widespread the discontent is.
Ryan, who did not sign the petition herself, said she thinks the General Assembly effort is a longshot, but even if it doesn’t pass she hopes the effort will put to rest the notion that only a few residents are stirring things up. In addition to lingering resentment about the way the annexation was handled, Ryan said the town’s decision not to annex roads in the area and hesitation to move forward on a new northern fire station are fueling concerns.
The law requires equal services, she said. “Some are less equal than others,†she added. “Not much is coming our way.â€
Sharon Cook, a newly appointed member of the town planning board and a Highlands resident, said the roads issue is a key part of the residents’ complaints.
“Obviously not annexing the streets was a shock,†she said.
Cook said resolution of the issue likely will take time and elections. Not having a chance to vote in the past election is still a sore spot with those who were annexed, she said. “It’s a basic principle—no taxation without representation.â€
Alderman Randee Haven-O’Donnell said she had hoped the New Horizons Task Force, which she championed, might have helped work through the concerns. But the Highlands neighborhood, she said, chose not to have a representative on the task force. And while town leaders have learned some valuable lessons about how not to annex, she said some resentment when a neighborhood is annexed is unavoidable.
Alderman Dan Coleman said the poorly handled annexation intensified feelings of unfairness that come up in almost any involuntary annexation. He does not see an immediate remedy to the hard feelings.
“This is the kind of thing that takes time to heal,†he said. “It may be a few years before this plays out.â€
O’Donnell said the General Assembly is not likely to pass de-annexation legislation in part because it may cause neighborhoods in other parts of the state to try the same move, creating a domino effect.
House Speaker Joe Hackney, whose district represents parts of Orange County—including the southern tip of Carrboro—and all of Chatham County said this week he does not think the legislation will pass. The bill currently rests in the House rules committee.
Rep. Faison could not be reached for comment.
The Town has annexed the streets in the Highlands per the same procedure that municipalities use all over North Carolina, which is a phased transition from NCDOT to Town maintenance. The Town is also moving ahead full speed with the design of the station and construction will begin as soon as is feasible.
While some folks are seeking to make the facts fit their opinion, the truth is that Carrboro has been working hard to bring as-good (or better) municipal services to northeast Carrboro as we have anywhere else in town.
Shared ride feeder bus service began last year and we will soon have a regular bus route on Rogers Road. The town has dropped plans for numerous other sidewalks in favor of building sidewalks leading to the Highlands neighborhood.
The Citizen owes it to its readers to seek out more than one point of view on a topic of this kind. No one at the Town of Carrboro was given any opportunity to respond to the assertions contained in your article.
I appreciate the mayor’s commenting on the issues that are of concern to my neighbors. He and other BOA members have often stated that it is customary not to annex the roads….” I guess I’d like to point out that it is customary for Corporate executives to build in golden parachutes ( large cash compensation packages) for themselves as they bankrupt public companies. Does that make it right ?
When I spoke to Moses Carey about the issue of not annexing the roads, he laughed. He said he’d never heard of that. When I spoke to Chuck Edwards at the DOT as soon as we found out our roads would not be annexed, he said that they could not force the town to accept the roads, but in most cases roads were annexed in the same calendar year as the properties adjacent to those roads.
It is a loophole in the annexation law, one that Carrboro made very good use of, and for the ingenuity, I applaud the town manager and attorney for drafting such an annexation plan. It is still wrong.
And, make no mistake, the BOA had no intention of building sidewalks on Rogers Rd. before Sharon Cook and I went through the town’s selection criteria and found that Rogers Road she be at the very top of the list based on their own criteria. The other sidewalk being built in the area is a DOT project, not a Carrboro project.
And BTW, we still have no mention of progress toward the northern fire station, do we ?
I would offer that Mayor Chilton’s response is indeed fitting facts to his opinion – for which he indicates a dislike.
Nearly a year and a half have passed while annexees have done without the services noted above. Yet the town has reaped millions of dollars in tax revenue from citizens.
The annexation was also timed to prevent annexed citizens from voting in the most recent election cycle.
What Mayor Chilton has failed to reveal to readers is when the annexees will have their roads cared for by the town, or when the fire station will actually go into operation, or when the Highlands will have sidewalks for children to use to get to school. Readers may be quite shocked to find out just how much longer the annexees have to wait to see any real benefit of their tax dollars.
Mayor Chilton owes it to the citizens of Carrboro to provide the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.