
{"id":20656,"date":"2011-09-08T11:11:18","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T15:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=20656"},"modified":"2011-09-08T11:11:18","modified_gmt":"2011-09-08T15:11:18","slug":"family-tired-by-library-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/09\/08\/family-tired-by-library-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Family tired by library battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Rose Laudicina<br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Cray and Kathy Gunn feel as if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just emerged from battle. The war they fought lasted four months and cost them their retirement savings and a summer spent with lawyers and county commissioners instead of family.<\/p>\n<p>The Gunns were up against two substantial opponents, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen and the Orange County Board of Commissioners, and their joint decision to purchase the vacant lot adjacent to the Gunn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s property at 212 Hillsborough Road and rezone it for use as a library. <\/p>\n<p>As the battle came to an end, it may appear that the Gunns emerged on top. The county commissioners came back from summer vacation and voted to decline the proposed Carrboro library site, restarting the search for a site. <\/p>\n<p>While the Gunns were relieved to hear the commissioners\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 decision, they were exhausted from the fight and felt no reason to celebrate. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Basically, every waking hour of our family\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s summer was spent dealing with this. Our children are tired of hearing about it now, and every resource we had spiritually and monetary was spent trying to defend this,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Cray Gunn said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There was just nothing left at the end.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>At the beginning, when the site beside the Gunns was first proposed, the Gunns were in support of the location. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were initially enthusiastic, and at that point we still assumed there would be some sort of symbiotic relationship between the library and the school,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Cray said. <\/p>\n<p>Soon though, the town began to discuss how the library\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s access point would be a driveway approximately 17 feet from the Gunns\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 house, which would produce a significant increase in traffic on Hillsborough Road.<\/p>\n<p>It was at this point that the Gunns and many of their neighbors started to oppose the site and the rezoning of the property. <\/p>\n<p>The property originally was zoned for residential use and also had a deed restriction on it. When Kathy Gunn emailed County Manager Frank Clifton to make him aware of the deed restrictions, Clifton replied that the restrictions did not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153apply to a governmental use of the property under North Carolina law.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>This reply, coupled with the board of aldermen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vote to rezone the property, prompted the Gunns to find a lawyer. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were furious,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kathy Gunn said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was shocked \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and out of all those aldermen only one voted against it \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 our representatives didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t represent us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Board member Jacquelyn Gist was the only board member to vote against the rezoning, and was also the only member who visited with the Gunns on their property. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I felt so bad for the Gunns; they went through so much,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gist said. <\/p>\n<p>Gist said she was aware the Gunns had spent a considerable amount of money fighting the county and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that is a lot [of money] to an individual family, maybe not to the town. But for one family to be treated so cavalierly, I found it very disappointing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Like the Gunns, Gist believes the county knew about the legal issues regarding the property while they continued to pursue the purchase before voting it down at the last minute. <\/p>\n<p>Gist said she believes that while BOA members didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel that the proposed site was the best place for the library, they decided to vote to rezone to prove to the county commissioners that they wanted a library in Carrboro. <\/p>\n<p>The Gunns believe that if they hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hired lawyers to represent their concerns and work with the county, the property would have been purchased. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we had done nothing, there would be a sold sign out there; it would have been a done deal,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kathy Gunn said. <\/p>\n<p>With the search for a new site now being launched, the Gunns say they are going to need a break from monitoring it, but they hope that efforts will be more collaborative between Orange County, Carrboro and residents. <\/p>\n<p>Gist echoed this sentiment, saying she believes communication between every party involved will improve and that talks should begin about what the proposed library is going to look like. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We need to consider what a library looks like now, and what the needs are now. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to build a 1950s library for 2020,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cray and Kathy Gunn feel as if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just emerged from battle. The war they fought lasted four months and cost them their retirement savings and a summer spent with lawyers and county commissioners instead of family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20657,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20656\/revisions\/20657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}