Of all of Oriental's ordinances, the most consequential by far is the Growth Management Ordinance (GMO). The GMO has the greatest effect on the look and feel of the town, the value of real estate, the possibilities of real estate development, and the opportunities for the town's growth.
North Carolina General Statutes rightly provide explicit rules for initial adoption of a zoning ordinance and its subsequent amendment. The goal of these rules is to foster an open process and provide members of the public meaningful opportunities to make their views and wishes known.
In discussions about zoning, we hear frequent admonitions that we must be friendly to business - after all, businessmen and real estate developers invest a lot of money in their projects.
It is worth remembering that, for most of our residents, their home represents the largest investment they will ever make. Maintaining the value of that investment as well as the look and feel of their neighborhoods is often of supreme importance to them.
The town's planning board, made up of volunteers, has significant responsibilities to advise the town's board of commissioners on zoning matters. They are, in effect, the substitute for what, in a larger municipality would be the town's planning department. But they are an advisory board. Both NCGS and our GMO make it clear that the board of commissioners is not bound by the planning board's recommendations.
The Town Board is, after all, the governing body.
Last Tuesday night's kerfuffle between the planning board and the town board shouldn't have happened. In one case, the town board rejected the request for a public hearing on a proposed new section 88. In another case, the town board tabled a motion to schedule a public hearing for a seven-page (single-spaced) complete rewrite of Article XV of the GMO, so that board members would have time to compare the proposed draft with what exists now.
There is a widespread misconception that "tabling" a motion is a back door means of killing it. Not so. Properly used, tabling a motion is appropriate whenever the proposal is seen as not quite ready for a vote (as in not being understood by the board members) or it may even provide an opportunity to build stronger support for the measure. In any event, I believe it is inappropriate (except in case of a quasi-judicial proceeding) to schedule a public hearing on a draft ordinance unless a majority of the board has reviewed the draft and is comfortable putting it before the public. Those conditions did not exist last Tuesday.
I have a number of problems with the draft amendments, including the form of the amendments as put before the town board. I will have more to say about that later.
In the meantime, anyone with an interest in Oriental's GMO, including anyone for whom an amendment might at some time in the future jeopardize any provision of the GMO of personal importance should read the proposed amendments here.
All interested citizens should be sure to attend the public hearing now scheduled June 7.
It isn't clear to me why the planning board is in such an all-fired hurry, or what the actual problems are to which these five drafts are the purported solution.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Redistricting
We attended a meeting last night on redistricting in North Carolina. This is required after every decennial US census, to insure that each legislative district (and some other districts) represent the same number of citizens.
The process is highly political (meaning partisan). It is also subject to complex legal constraints. The Research Division of the N.C. General Assembly has prepared a very helpful pamphlet: "Legislator's Guide to North Carolina Legislative and Congressional Redistricting." The pamphlet makes it very clear how difficult it is just to comply with the legal requirements. Once you overlay the legal requirements with the natural desire of each political party to maximize its vote and minimize that of the other parties, the challenge becomes mind-boggling.
The reasons we have so much difficulty with redistricting are:
1. Representation is by geography rather than by social, cultural or economic affinities;
2. We have single-member districts with representation decided on a winner-take-all vote;
3. By comparison with other countries, we have few legislators;
4. We have only two viable political parties.
The truth is, the reason we have only two parties is because of the first three characteristics of our system.
Is there a better way?
I think there is. For legislative elections, I favor multi-member districts and proportional representation. It is not as complicated as it sounds. Such an approach would almost certainly introduce new political parties into the system and require parties to cooperate. It would be less likely that a single party would control any house of a legislature, thus leading to coalition building. And redistricting would become much less complex.
Based on the past couple of decades of polling by Times Mirror and the Pew Trust, it seems that our population would shake out into perhaps nine or ten opinion groupings and perhaps that many parties.
Would such a change lead to better outcomes? Who knows? But such a system works pretty well elsewhere.
I predict we will adopt such a system as soon as we can persuade pigs to fly.
The process is highly political (meaning partisan). It is also subject to complex legal constraints. The Research Division of the N.C. General Assembly has prepared a very helpful pamphlet: "Legislator's Guide to North Carolina Legislative and Congressional Redistricting." The pamphlet makes it very clear how difficult it is just to comply with the legal requirements. Once you overlay the legal requirements with the natural desire of each political party to maximize its vote and minimize that of the other parties, the challenge becomes mind-boggling.
The reasons we have so much difficulty with redistricting are:
1. Representation is by geography rather than by social, cultural or economic affinities;
2. We have single-member districts with representation decided on a winner-take-all vote;
3. By comparison with other countries, we have few legislators;
4. We have only two viable political parties.
The truth is, the reason we have only two parties is because of the first three characteristics of our system.
Is there a better way?
I think there is. For legislative elections, I favor multi-member districts and proportional representation. It is not as complicated as it sounds. Such an approach would almost certainly introduce new political parties into the system and require parties to cooperate. It would be less likely that a single party would control any house of a legislature, thus leading to coalition building. And redistricting would become much less complex.
Based on the past couple of decades of polling by Times Mirror and the Pew Trust, it seems that our population would shake out into perhaps nine or ten opinion groupings and perhaps that many parties.
Would such a change lead to better outcomes? Who knows? But such a system works pretty well elsewhere.
I predict we will adopt such a system as soon as we can persuade pigs to fly.
Management that Works
I'm reading through The New Economics by W. Edwards Deming. That his methods get results is demonstrated by the postwar success of the Japanese automobile industry after he trained them in his system. More recently, his methods have contributed to the current success of the Ford motor company.
Every page of his book has one or more gems. Here's one:
"Reward for good performance may be the same as reward to the weather man for a pleasant day."
Every page of his book has one or more gems. Here's one:
"Reward for good performance may be the same as reward to the weather man for a pleasant day."
Friday, May 6, 2011
Oriental Zoning Controversy
There were fireworks at last Tuesday night's meeting of Oriental's Town Board even before the vote on a proposed town dock.
At the beginning of the meeting, the board considered whether to schedule public hearings on five separate amendments to the town's Growth Management Ordinance (GMO), the town's zoning ordinance. When the proposal to schedule a hearing on changes to Article VI of the ordinance failed due to lack of a motion and the motion to schedule a hearing on changes to Article XV was tabled because some commissioners wanted to read it before voting on it, one member of the planning board stormed out of the meeting and the other members present expressed displeasure in other ways.
In view of the board's actions on the two most controversial GMO amendments, the subsequent public comment period was devoted entirely to the town dock issue (previous post).
At least one member of the public, who had come to the meeting for the specific purpose of speaking out against the change to Article VI, did not speak on that subject, since the board did not act. She left, thinking that business was over.
Apparently intimidated by the planning board reaction, though, the town board reconsidered its vote to table Article XV and voted to schedule a public hearing for Article XV and Article VI as well, except for a new Section 88 exempting religious institutions from the maximum footprint limits of Section 77.
That didn't make the planning board happy either. The next day the mayor scheduled a special meeting for Friday to address Article VI again. This morning the town board scheduled a public hearing for all of the changes to Article VI, including the new Section 88.
(According to some townspeople, the new Section 88 is solely designed to alleviate a concern of the church attended by the mayor and his wife I have no idea if that is true). The truth is, it is impossible for a member of the public, by reading the five draft amendments to the GMO or by attending last Tuesday's town board meeting, to have any idea why the proposed changes were drafted, what problems they were designed to solve, or what justification exists for the solutions recommended by the planning board.
Regrettably, the emotions expressed, the misunderstanding of proper legislative procedure and the failure to have effective and transparent communication between the Town Board and the Planning Board has made a situation far worse than it needed to be. Neither did it build confidence among the public that this isn't a scheme to railroad the changes through the system.
I have some ideas about how to improve procedures that I think could go far to prevent this kind of thing in the future. I just looked at the clock, though, and decided to save my ideas for the next post.
At the beginning of the meeting, the board considered whether to schedule public hearings on five separate amendments to the town's Growth Management Ordinance (GMO), the town's zoning ordinance. When the proposal to schedule a hearing on changes to Article VI of the ordinance failed due to lack of a motion and the motion to schedule a hearing on changes to Article XV was tabled because some commissioners wanted to read it before voting on it, one member of the planning board stormed out of the meeting and the other members present expressed displeasure in other ways.
In view of the board's actions on the two most controversial GMO amendments, the subsequent public comment period was devoted entirely to the town dock issue (previous post).
At least one member of the public, who had come to the meeting for the specific purpose of speaking out against the change to Article VI, did not speak on that subject, since the board did not act. She left, thinking that business was over.
Apparently intimidated by the planning board reaction, though, the town board reconsidered its vote to table Article XV and voted to schedule a public hearing for Article XV and Article VI as well, except for a new Section 88 exempting religious institutions from the maximum footprint limits of Section 77.
That didn't make the planning board happy either. The next day the mayor scheduled a special meeting for Friday to address Article VI again. This morning the town board scheduled a public hearing for all of the changes to Article VI, including the new Section 88.
(According to some townspeople, the new Section 88 is solely designed to alleviate a concern of the church attended by the mayor and his wife I have no idea if that is true). The truth is, it is impossible for a member of the public, by reading the five draft amendments to the GMO or by attending last Tuesday's town board meeting, to have any idea why the proposed changes were drafted, what problems they were designed to solve, or what justification exists for the solutions recommended by the planning board.
Regrettably, the emotions expressed, the misunderstanding of proper legislative procedure and the failure to have effective and transparent communication between the Town Board and the Planning Board has made a situation far worse than it needed to be. Neither did it build confidence among the public that this isn't a scheme to railroad the changes through the system.
I have some ideas about how to improve procedures that I think could go far to prevent this kind of thing in the future. I just looked at the clock, though, and decided to save my ideas for the next post.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Town Budget
I've been thinking about the budget and some of the priorities reflected therein. But let's get to first principles.
What is a town for?
To provide services to the citizens. If there were no services, there would be no need for the town.
How are the services provided? The town's employees deliver the services. The water plant doesn't operate itself. Neither does it repair itself. The water meters don't read themselves and the bills don't get in the mail by themselves. The streets and sidewalks aren't self repairing.
No employees - no services. It's as simple as that.
Last year the town board decided to balance the budget on the backs of our employees by establishing and gradually increasing a monetary contribution by each employee to purchase his or her health insurance. The scheme was to reduce the town's contribution to health insurance, but to compensate somewhat by increasing wages and salaries. Even if this modification to the pay structure resulted in a dollar for dollar compensation (one dollar increase in pay for each dollar of decrease in the town's contribution to health insurance), the burden on the employee would be greater. We would replace an untaxed benefit (health) with a taxed benefit (wages).
We're talking about employees making as little as $11.00 an hour, who are having difficulty buying enough gas to get to work and we want to place another burden on them? These are people for the most part who can't afford to live in Oriental and walk or bicycle to work. And they don't buy Priuses.
So where might the town get the money to continue paying employee health insurance as before and still balance the budget? A good place to start would have been to not spend the $22,000 the board spent to hire a lawyer to investigate the previous town manager in hopes of finding a cause to fire him that would save spending the $25,000 termination pay in the contract the town negotiated and signed.
A second place to look for how to balance the budget without passing the hat to the employees is to tap into the money the water system should have been paying to the general fund (recently recalculated) but hasn't. That's on the order of another $25,000 for the coming fiscal year.
I think there are better options than taking up a collection from the workers.
What is a town for?
To provide services to the citizens. If there were no services, there would be no need for the town.
How are the services provided? The town's employees deliver the services. The water plant doesn't operate itself. Neither does it repair itself. The water meters don't read themselves and the bills don't get in the mail by themselves. The streets and sidewalks aren't self repairing.
No employees - no services. It's as simple as that.
Last year the town board decided to balance the budget on the backs of our employees by establishing and gradually increasing a monetary contribution by each employee to purchase his or her health insurance. The scheme was to reduce the town's contribution to health insurance, but to compensate somewhat by increasing wages and salaries. Even if this modification to the pay structure resulted in a dollar for dollar compensation (one dollar increase in pay for each dollar of decrease in the town's contribution to health insurance), the burden on the employee would be greater. We would replace an untaxed benefit (health) with a taxed benefit (wages).
We're talking about employees making as little as $11.00 an hour, who are having difficulty buying enough gas to get to work and we want to place another burden on them? These are people for the most part who can't afford to live in Oriental and walk or bicycle to work. And they don't buy Priuses.
So where might the town get the money to continue paying employee health insurance as before and still balance the budget? A good place to start would have been to not spend the $22,000 the board spent to hire a lawyer to investigate the previous town manager in hopes of finding a cause to fire him that would save spending the $25,000 termination pay in the contract the town negotiated and signed.
A second place to look for how to balance the budget without passing the hat to the employees is to tap into the money the water system should have been paying to the general fund (recently recalculated) but hasn't. That's on the order of another $25,000 for the coming fiscal year.
I think there are better options than taking up a collection from the workers.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Problems in Civics Education
The nation's report card in civics is just in. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in civics education has just been released. The news is not good.
We are not doing a good job of educating our students for their role as citizens. And the scores are not getting better.
Take a look at the report card and the sample questions, and you'll see what I mean. We need to do much better.
We are not doing a good job of educating our students for their role as citizens. And the scores are not getting better.
Take a look at the report card and the sample questions, and you'll see what I mean. We need to do much better.
New Town Dock Project
It was a good turnout last night at the town board meeting. Standing room only. Almost every attendee spoke during the public comment period. All but one were in favor of the project and that one wasn't vehemently opposed. The Board voted unanimously to go forward.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Protect Polluters
Monday night's County Commissioners meeting addressed, among other things, a request by Commissioner Mele for the board to pass resolutions of support for three bills now before the legislature concerning environmental regulations. The bills, attributed to drafting efforts of local real estate mogul Missy Baskerville and introduced by Senator Preston, were as follows:
Senate Bill 323, An act to create an exemption to the riparian buffer requirements for certain private properties in the Neuse River and Tar-Pamlico River Basins.
In brief, the proposed act "grandfathers" any parcel platted and recorded prior to August 1, 2000 from current riparian buffer requirements;
Senate Bill 324, An act to require greater notification of and ability to attend hearings for rule making.
In brief, the act amends present law to require the rule-making agency to notify the governing unit in each county and publish notice in a newspaper in each county that will be impacted by the proposed rule and to schedule public hearings within 60 miles of each county affected by a proposed rule;
Senate Bill 325, An act to provide additional requirements to apply to the adoption and implementation of any proposed administrative rule that is an environmental rule.
The most significant requirement is that at least 80% of any "stakeholder" committee created to consider a proposed rule be made up of persons employed in the private sector, residing in the city or county affected and essentially be in the industry regulated by the rule.
In a nutshell, these three bills are intended to obstruct agencies responsible for developing regulations to implement public law and delay or outright prevent them from doing their job.
Who in all this is going to represent the interest of the public?
Senate Bill 323, An act to create an exemption to the riparian buffer requirements for certain private properties in the Neuse River and Tar-Pamlico River Basins.
In brief, the proposed act "grandfathers" any parcel platted and recorded prior to August 1, 2000 from current riparian buffer requirements;
Senate Bill 324, An act to require greater notification of and ability to attend hearings for rule making.
In brief, the act amends present law to require the rule-making agency to notify the governing unit in each county and publish notice in a newspaper in each county that will be impacted by the proposed rule and to schedule public hearings within 60 miles of each county affected by a proposed rule;
Senate Bill 325, An act to provide additional requirements to apply to the adoption and implementation of any proposed administrative rule that is an environmental rule.
The most significant requirement is that at least 80% of any "stakeholder" committee created to consider a proposed rule be made up of persons employed in the private sector, residing in the city or county affected and essentially be in the industry regulated by the rule.
In a nutshell, these three bills are intended to obstruct agencies responsible for developing regulations to implement public law and delay or outright prevent them from doing their job.
Who in all this is going to represent the interest of the public?
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