Friday, June 27, 2014

Soucek & Jordan's Local Bill, and Newton's Third Law

Soucek
It's all about gravity, isn't it? At this moment in North Carolina history, all the gravitational pull is in Raleigh, and our Republican representatives down there, Sen. Dan Soucek and Rep. Jonathan Jordan, are learning the giddy pleasures of stomping all over smaller entities who have relatively less power.

Decentralized government? Naw, not on their watch. The town of Boone will be crushed by Bigger Government. Resistance is futile.

Watauga County Commission Chair, Republican Nathan Miller, and his 3-2 majority on that governing board had already explored the joys of crippling Boone's ability to survive by depriving the town of $2 million in sales tax revenue, and they did it out of pure spite. That action by Chairman Miller and the subsequent action by Soucek/Jordan were both prompted by the towering desires of one family, the Templetons, who are now running virtually everything, from the local Republican Party to the County Commission to the General Assembly.

Sir Isaac Newton propounded the universal law of gravitation, and he also mucked about with force, mass, and acceleration, but the Newtonian Law that is about to come into effect for Soucek/Jordan and the Templetons is his Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Reaction # 1: Homeowners in the ETJ Cry Out
Without the protections of Boone's Unified Development Ordinance, which governs what can be built, where, and how, the residents of Boone's Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) are now exposed to harm from their neighbors, if their neighbors are of a mind to harm them.

This new reality apparently prompted County Commission Chair Nathan Miller to issue a statement on behalf of the Commission majority (which includes a Templeton son-in-law) that the Commission will hold a public hearing for residents and for property-owners in the ETJ, to see what, "if any, restrictions the citizens and real property owners wish imposed upon them by their elected officials."

That's a direct quote from Mr. Miller's statement, with emphasis added where emphasis was obviously intended. In fact, the entire first paragraph of Mr. Miller's statement is nothing but full-throated crowing over the way the town of Boone has been treated. Mr. Miller is already abundantly on the record as being opposed on ideological grounds to most if not all land-use regulations, and his statement that a public hearing will be called to consider land-use regulations is also a signal that only one sort of testimony is going to be listened to.

We'll see how the homeowners in the ETJ get on with their new masters.

Reaction # 2: Boone Residents Cry Out
The question of the hour: Why should Boone taxpayers now pony up many millions of $$ to acquire, build, and develop new water resources to service the Templeton family's ETJ holdings?

It was always ultimately about the water.

Big developers want it. Big developers intend to get it. Hell, they have a power-hungry General Assembly in place to help them seize it.

But the taxpayers of the town of Boone do not have to build it for them. They would be fools to do so now.

The fact has consigliere Jeff Templeton is now calling for a county-wide watersystem might wake up a few more taxpayers: It was always about the water.

As always, Senator Dan Soucek gets the Out-to-Lunch Award: "Water? There's an issue with water? Why didn't someone tell me?"

Reaction # 3 (and beyond): Who the Hell Knows?

Eggers
The Soucek/Jordan bill to deprive Boone of its ETJ powers is a one-off. No other town in North Carolina history has ever been treated this way. The bill opens a legal can of worms. Let those worms of unintended consequences wiggle! We're sure that County Attorney Four Eggers can handle every one of them!

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:02 AM

    The biggest problem with gravity is that it pulls us down. We need policies that lift us up, but everything the legislature touches is being dragged down, down, down. . .

    We need to bring justice back to North Carolina and to Boone!

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  2. Anonymous2:21 PM

    Soucek's legacy; in future, when public education has been completely decimated and all NC children are taught his new standards that Jesus rode dinosaurs and climate change is god's will; and when gay people are incarcerated, we can look up from Boone's valley and pray to the commercial bullshit on our Mountain tops and ridge-lines, and praise the great state senator, Dan.

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  3. Anonymous3:17 PM

    I think a lot of people were pleased with what happened, so I suggest at looking at both sides of this issue.

    I agree, we need to bring justice back to Boone. Our Town Council is the one that got citizens into this against their wishes. Dan Soucek's was representing his constituents. Our new mayor, our council members continue to bring us down, down, down by refusing to cooperate with the county. For one, I am sick of it. Thanks to the town, the sale of the high school was lost.

    Wake up Boone citizens, we are being brought down, down, down.
    There is where we need justice.

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  4. Camelot9:08 PM

    Anonymous

    If this is the will of the people in the ETJ and Town that Soucek is upholding then why have these people not spoken up. Even the republican rag newspaper the Watauga Democrat couldn't find anyone to support what was happening with the ETJ. No in Raleigh could find anyone who supported this. In the town if this is what people want then why did all the hand chosen candidates on Soucek's side in the Town elections get humiliated by the progressive candidates. Come back when you find the one person in the ETJ and Town who supported this.

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  5. Anonymous6:43 AM

    Joe Furman seems to know everything. He must be smart enough to develop a county water intake, especially with those geniuses Miller, Blust and Yates as the brains of the operation. Can't Soucek and Jordan just pass a law that says Let there be water and it will happen? Maybe Lt. Dan should bring in Franklin to intercede with God.

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  6. Anonymous6:45 AM

    Anon 3:17

    If you are naive enough to believe the Templeton family was actually going to buy the hs property and that was not just political posturing, I have a bridge I'd like to show you. If the town's ordinances stopped development of the hs property, how is the Scottish Inn development going forward? Wake up.

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  7. Anonymous6:51 PM

    JW,
    you're just jealous because someone else is doing what you and your wife has done for years. Control. you just can't take being told that you can't have everything you want. You have had your little sheep (ASU) to control elections for years, now you don't know what to do. Bless your heart.....

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  8. Anonymous7:36 PM

    Well said anonymous. And I do not consider Soucek controlling me, it taking a stand for his constituents. It took a lot of courage to do what he did.

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