
{"id":3408,"date":"2008-09-11T07:46:05","date_gmt":"2008-09-11T15:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=3408"},"modified":"2008-09-11T07:47:36","modified_gmt":"2008-09-11T15:47:36","slug":"letter-to-the-editor-airport-threatens-farms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2008\/09\/11\/letter-to-the-editor-airport-threatens-farms\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to the editor: Airport threatens farms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As airport plans pit the university against rural Orange County, another issue is affecting about 100 largely rural Orange and Alamance County families: the decision by the county boards to consider altering the county line. In 1849, Alamance County was split off of Orange when surveyors drew a line from a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gum saplin\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on the Person County line to a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153birch shrub\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on the Haw River. However, more than 100 years of practice mean that this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153line\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has been superceded for years by a tax line that is not straight. Our own property has been part of Orange County for at least 50 years, and probably much longer.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nIt is hard for us to see why a vague line drawn in 1849 should trump years of settled fact.<\/p>\n<p>Landowners and residents have lived with the current county line for generations, and shaped their lives around it. It has built community in many important ways. Our own lives reflect that. Orange County is our home! We work at UNC, shop Carrboro, attend church in Chapel Hill, vote in Orange County elections and work as volunteers in Orange County schools, where our daughters attend. In a parallel way, people in Mebane have shaped their lives around Alamance County. These historical facts mean something very important to people, and that came out loud and clear at a recent public meeting.<\/p>\n<p>The two counties shaped their plans for decades around the current line. Schools were built, fire stations sited, police and EMS service planned, trash and recycling centers built \u00e2\u20ac\u201d all based on the current lines. All of our services (mail, fire, EMS) come from Orange County.<\/p>\n<p>Without a helicopter, we are isolated from any of these services in Alamance County. Most problematic is the school issue. The nearest middle and high schools in Alamance County are more than 30 miles away and, worse, are in a direction opposite that we take on the way to work.<\/p>\n<p>We face a 70-mile trip both morning and evening, impossible for two working parents.<\/p>\n<p>We hope that the commissioners consider these three issues very carefully in making decisions. At a recent public meeting, 70+ landowners were in attendance, likely most of those affected in the southern half of the county, and it was clear from the show of hands that more then 80 percent of us oppose making this change. Who will this benefit?<br \/>\nThis appears to be driven by a few developers in Mebane. They have resources to threaten legal action and the ability to hire the former assistant county manager as a lobbyist, but shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have more sway in this matter than ordinary folks seeing their communities radically altered.<br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\nMark Peifer and Carol Ann McCormick<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Chapel Hill<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As airport plans pit the university against rural Orange County, another issue is affecting about 100 largely rural Orange and Alamance County families: the decision by the county boards to consider altering the county line. In 1849, Alamance County was split off of Orange when surveyors drew a line from a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gum saplin\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3408","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=3408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}