Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	3/3/2006

Heart of Triad Charade: Nights 2-5/Conclusion

The rest of the story...

Near the opening of night 3 on Wednesday a rather boisterous landowner gained the floor in what turned out to be one of the only two or three occasions a member of the public was able to address the three plenary sessions held during the week. The landowner was unhappy that he was not made aware of the special session for landowners the night before and had some pointed questions for steering committee Co-chair Ronald King at the podium. (The night before also included a separate invitation only special session with developers and real estate professionals.)

The exchange between King in his suit at the front of the room and the guy in the John Deere cap and overalls in the back of the room was an accurate summary of the basic battle lines in the discussions through the week. Mr. Deere in straightforward terms noted that he was upset that our money was being given to out-state consultants to set up a process that is going to run people off their land. Chair King parried that this is not about abusing property owners and again reiterated the mantra of the week: "Development is coming whether we like it our not. It is better that we plan for it." King also offered that because six highly competitive jurisdictions were involved in the HOT area a company with national expertise in such delicate matters was required. King then confidently added that $200,000 paid to the consultants had come from developers and corporate entities and not the local taxpayers.

Mr. Deere, who was not born yesterday, countered by asking where the other $200,000 of the earlier announced $400,000 consulting bill was coming from. Chair King, who himself was not born yesterday but had likely grown up in a more rigorous government school setting, in all apparent sincerity proudly responded that the other $200,000 was not costing us a dime because it was coming from Raleigh. The immediate and loud retort from Mr. Deere was, "Well, then its our money!" Apparently not accustomed to dealing with such bumpkin logic King was momentarily frozen. This gave Mr. Deere an opening to forcefully summarize his position on the whole devious process he saw unfolding. His conclusion was marked by a hearty round of applause from the 25 or so other landowners who made up approximately half of the evening's crowd.

Chairman King regained control of the floor and quickly turned things back over to the consultants. Having already been seated in small groups around tables with maps of the HOT area, facilitators got the green light and started handing out to charrette participants colorful slips of paper of various sizes. The mission: discuss where best to place the pieces of paper which represented the development options under consideration. Each table received two large purple squares representing manufacturing centers and one smaller blue square representing a sports complex. There were also squares for "town centers", "village centers", retail complexes, schools, and parks.

The "town center" concept occasioned on Monday night the only other question from the general floor I remember. A farmer with land in the area asked if this means we were talking about creating other city governments within HOT. The consultant was quick to assure him that these towns would not be new government centers. However, in his breezy reply he alluded to a multi-jurisdictional body that would be overseeing development in the HOT region. The farmer, just as quickly recognized the implications of this and pointed out that he would not be very happy to be living without representation under a new unaccountable layer of government. (More on this new governance concept later.)

All the tables were given the same predetermined mix of developments and were informed that not placing them in the HOT outline zone on the map was not an option. Again, "development is coming, there is no choice on this," was the standard justification for this limitation. I can only speak for my table, but it was the facilitator that helped move things along by scrawling in where new roads and a light rail line might make the most sense. In the twenty or so minutes allowed all tables got all our colored boxes within the prescribed lines. (During the process, I wandered between the planning tables and noted that several people recognized that the HOT region extended to, but did not include, the FedEx and Dell developments.)

In looking at the final results posted on the wall, there was some variation in the options "chosen" but I felt as many did that I was participating in a rather futile exercise of creative freedom. Each table had nominated or deferred to a spokesperson to stand at the wall and present their results. Not surprisingly, it was the two spokespersons from the tables populated by landowners who dissented from the generally enthusiastic presentations given by the other charrette tables. One dissenting spokesman noted that the submission from his table was being filed under protest as electing not to place all the squares within the HOT zone should have been an option. The other dissenter came from the table which had included the gentleman who had given Chair King his lesson on not underestimating men in overalls and tractor caps. (Mr. Deere had given some interviews to the two reporters who had zeroed in on him after his exchange with King but I was told then had to leave to get to his night shift job.)

The spokesperson from Mr. Deere's table was Jimmy Morgan. It would have been easy to confuse him with Jimmy Stewart in a Frank Capra movie - though perhaps a Capra movie character would not have been wearing a t-shirt that said, "Heart of the Triad has no Heart." Jimmy was the farmer who on Monday had inquired about the form of government he would be dealing with as a HOT resident. He opened his presentation with, "I'm just a dirt farmer. I'm from the bad table." He went on to make what I thought was the most astute point I heard all week. With all this talk of development in the area being inevitable, hasn't anyone considered that this area contains the headwaters to the main water reservoirs in both Greensboro and High Point? Jimmy knows enough about soil in the area to understand that a bike trail or so wide buffer is not going to protect the water quality flowing to the vast majority of Guilford County's residents.

I could have been jaded, but for all the consultants' big picture talk about HOT being "an ecosystem" and the need for "sustainable development" in the area, it sure seemed to me the powers that be didn't want to fully address this point of Mr. Morgan's that seemed to stand in the way of "inevitable development." It is here where a libertarian now enters a murky area. Rather than immediately launching into an apologia for the benefits of privatizing the water supply of our community, let's take a baby step first. If there really is all this "free money" out there for light rail lines, new roads and sports stadiums, wouldn't it be better to employ it first to buy up all the land necessary (at a fair an un-manipulated market price) to protect the quality of water in the Greensboro and High Point systems? Anyone wanting to arrest "unplanned" development in HOT might want to look at this drinking water issue first.

During the closing night discussions on Friday, Jimmy was approached by one of the steering committee members. He assured Jimmy that his input on Tuesday and Wednesday had been favorably considered and was reflected in the final four composite maps generated from the week's charrette process. (Editor's note: If you are on the steering committee, it means you are in the driver's seat.) Jimmy also got some down home eloquent talk time in with Fox 8, Sandy Carmany and Allen Johnson.

In my mind there appeared to be some intrigue to the map generation process. During his presentation, David Taylor let slip that the four composite maps were based on the compilation of data from 11 maps generated in the charrette process: ten maps from the public tables that everyone had seen posted on the wall and one map from the steering committee which was not displayed for public view. Taylor had showed slides with data from all eleven maps overlaid on each other so it was obvious that a completed 11th map done by the steering committee was in the system.

I approached co-chair Arnold King and suggested that in the interest of "transparency" (totalitarians love that term) the public should be shown the map generated by the steering committee before the charrette process was closed and everyone went home. My perception could have been wrong, but I found Mr. King to be evasive on what I thought was a legitimate and easily met request. He first offered that the steering committee really had little time to put together anything that was "professional" and so there would not be any value in seeing it. When I countered that the other 10 maps in the system were produced under the same constraints he continued to dodge the point on the grounds that what the steering committee produced was not important to the overall process.

As I can be persistent, I got Mr. King to concede that the person that could meet my request would be Mr. Taylor if he was willing to take the time to do it before heading out the door and heading back to Florida for the weekend. Mr. Taylor was friendly but suggested that things may have already been packed up and might be hard to quickly get at. I have no reason to doubt him though when he assured me that the only significant difference in the steering committee's map was that they had chosen to place the two manufacturing squares next to each other along I-40 separated by the sports complex. I can't recollect for sure but I believe it was Sandy Carmany who told me that the two manufacturing squares were placed on the map without discussion at the very beginning of their table's effort by Paul Norby a planner from Forsyth County. Maybe nothing to see here, so I moved along as directed.

While giving his final commentary in front of myself, Mr. Taylor, Allen Johnson and an unknown property owner, Robbie Perkins suggested that the four maps which were to be condensed down to three in the weeks ahead should be presented with one additional map that would represent a possible outcome if no planning was done for the area. Mr. Perkins thought was that when people saw how bad things could turn out when left to themselves (I might say to the relatively free market) they would quickly realize the importance of pursing one of the planning options being presented.

It was during this discussion that Mr. Perkins suggested that a light rail line could be 100% built with funding from outside the area. My guess is that he went to the same schools that taught Mr. King that state and federal monies are free. I thought I was on the high ground in pointing out that there just wasn't enough population density in the area under discussion to provide for a light rail line that would be economically feasible in a real world free of government subsidies. If it made sense a private company would already be working on it I claimed.

It was at this point that Allen Johnson stepped in and set me up for an epiphany of sorts. Noting that growth in the area was occurring and roads were becoming congested, he pointed out that the choice was really not yes or no on a light rail line but rather, what is better? A light rail line or a new road...which of course would also be built with state and federal funding. There of course is also the other libertarianesque option of building a new toll road which is definitely being considered in the master plan. I must now concede that without knowing the costs involved with other options, a smart growth light rail line cannot be summarily dismissed out of hand as being a ridiculous choice. There are other choices with a mathematical chance of being even worse.

In the final analysis here are my thoughts after having spent three nights with the Delphites:

The HOT initiative represents a good case study on a micro level as to what is happening on a macro level in the trade agreements our country has been entering into over the last decade. Large corporate entities are finding existing government structures insufficient for their needs, particularly with regards to the problem of elected representatives getting in the way of doing business efficiently. Would be tyrants are anxious to achieve systems where authority can be exercised without accountability to local residents. Justification for exercising this authority is based on having employed "best practices" that meet the claimed desires of all "stakeholders" in the process.

Americans are moving from a tradition of living as free citizens under representative government to a system of becoming residents and employees of the state and its approved privately run plantations.

Rules for future development of land are being further tipped in favor of large scale enterprises which have the capacity and influence to work within the newly created systems they themselves are being allowed to design. The HOT area is not going to be a place where Joe can sell Bill 10 acres to build a 40 unit trailer park on. However, an entire town center complex built by a single developer or group of investors will be the new model for growth.

Unlike the RTP model which was built on what was essentially uninhabited land, current HOT residents are in effect being forced to join a Manhattan Island sized historical zone or neighborhood association with a myriad of restrictive covenants.

Only because our state and federal governments can operate on accounting systems that would get other people thrown in jail for can money be "discovered" for developing projects such as HOT. Our state and federal governments by any private standard are unquestionably bankrupt. Yet using accounting and monetary gimmicks that even Enron executives would not attempt allows local politicians to claim all is well, state and federal money is there to help us on this.

How ironic that the vast majority of the landowners resisting this process hold their property and personal assets free and clear of any debt. And they are considered the bumpkins. Should justice and freedom prevail it will because they convinced enough people that it is time to stop using other people's money to get what you want.

8:50:54 PM

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