We're hearing that Sen. Soucek is now amending his Senate Bill 949, the notorious attempt to strip Boone of its extra-territorial jurisdiction, to send the issue to a study committee for a year.
This is unconfirmed.
It's also very likely that the senator is trying to back out of his uninformed meddling in municipal government, given the seismic shudders that his coddling of the big-developer special interests caused in the existing ETJ, and elsewhere.
9 comments:
Mr Soucek seems to lack the most basic skills of logic, fairness, reasoning or what is in the long range interest of the people of Western NC.
Mr Soueck seems to take his role as agent for the special interest, Christian Mullahs, Art Pope, and the Tempeltons very serious.
This is the corruption allowed by a broken political system that allowed the North Carolina Legislature to be bought.
The bill is still on the agenda for tomorrow's State & Local Committee meeting at 11:00. If anyone can go down to Raleigh to be there in person, that will make a difference. If not, keep calling all morning to voice opposition. Jim Davis and Michael Walters have definitely heard from a lot of us but we need to keep the pressure up. Call Soucek, too! We can't count on any promises he has made regarding this bill and have to be proactive.
I'm going to paste the list of contact information for all members of the State & Local Govt. Committee again so that it gets distributed as widely as possible:
Jim Davis, Co-Chair 919-733-5875
Michael P. Walters, Co-Chair 919-733-5651
Tommy Tucker, Vice Chair 919-733-7659
Stan Bingham 919-733-5665
Harris Blake 919-733-4809
Chris Carney 919-715-3050
Don East 919-733-5743
Thom Goolsby 919-715-2525
Fletcher L. Hartsell 919-733-7223
Kathryn Harrington 919-733-5734
Brent Jackson 919-733-5705
Ed Jones 919-715-3032
Eleanor Kinnaird 919-733-5804
Martin L. Nesbitt 919-715-3001
Louis Pate 919-733-5621
Gladys Robinson 919-715-3042
Richard Stevens 919-733-5653
Stan White 919-715-8293
Call, call call tomorrow!
It looks as if he was talked into this bill by Nathan Miller who is representing the concrete company the neighbors on Roby Greene are complaining about. If there's no ETJ, Miller's client gets off scott free and the neighbors are screwed.
Someone should look into all of the zoning rules Maymead breaks every day that they operate at the corner of the fairgrounds off Roby Greene.
The space is zoned as a B3 or General Business.
Since they dump and reprocess materials for salvage, they should not be allowed to operate in a B3. "SCRAP MATERIALS SALVAGE
YARDS, JUNKYARDS, AUTOMOBILE GRAVEYARDS" has to operate in a LI or Light Industrial zone according to Article 10 of the Town of Boone Development Services Unified Development Ordinance (UDO).
Since they are processing stone and asphalt, they could be considered to be a quarrying operation. That would require them to pave the road and control their dust - which they do not do.
The biggest reason our whole neighborhood hates having Maymead off of Roby Green is that they CONSTANTLY violate Section 193 or Article 11. Here is section e - "[e] Noise. The sound level for all light industrial uses, measured beyond the lot line of the property on which the use is located, may not exceed 65 dbA
between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., or 45 dbA between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Measurements shall be a time-weighted average over any one-hour period. No one-hour time-weighted average may exceed the 65 or 45 dbA thresholds described in this paragraph.
[1] For the purpose of this section, noise shall be defined as sound
produced directly in connection with light industrial operations,
including associated vehicular noise, and audible to the human
ear."
From 7AM to 5PM every day you don't hear birds in the neighborhood, you hear the roar of a gravel crusher and the beeps from 112db reverse alarms. They constantly exceed 65db of noise not just at their property line - but 1/4 mile away!
We have called Planning Board several times and on at least 3 occasions in the last 4 years, Maymead was issued citations.
What would happen if there were no ETJ in Boone? It is the only way we can fight for our neighborhoods. Maymead does not care about Boone, they just go home to Mountain City every night. I however DO care.
Some escape hatch. Bill passed committee!
I really feel sorry for homeowners in the ETJ. Well, I feel sorry for the homeowners in the ETJ who voted for Steve Goss, a good man and a representative who actually cared about the public good. If you didn't vote, or voted for Soucek...well, you get the government you deserve. I know that virtually ALL of my net worth is tied up in my home. Fortunately, I'm just inside the town limit. With the Republican/Tea Party/Don't Tread on Me/All Regulation Is Evil majority in Raleigh, this certainly doesn't bode well for the ETJ when the vote comes to the floor. I worked very hard for Steve Goss in the last election and was very disappointed when he lost. Little did I know how deep that disappointment would be.
For what it's worth, I emailed the committee about S949, and I received the following reply from Rep. Jim Davis, the presiding chair of the committee: "Your concerns are shared by many who have contacted my office. Duly noted." If he was the deciding vote referenced in the Watauga Democrat article, I guess "Duly noted" translates to "Whatever."
You should feel sorry for the homeowners in the ETJ that were let down by the Town of Boone's abuses of its power to the point the power needs to be removed.
The whole "viewshed" issue is a problem. Why should my trees be 'owned' by the people who live in the lower elevations and might want to look at them? I live on the top of the hill and can't cut a tree because someone's "view" might be impacted. No other reason. Yet, I look down into the valley and have no rights to preserving that view.
I don't like to look at red roofs on houses. Should Boone pass an ordnance that you can't put a red roof on your house?
The quarry was there before the area was zoned? It is grandfathered.
It was probably there before you moved in.
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