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please keep in mind the efforts that have been considered here and the options, and to be creative with your own resources and help us bring each other together and find a solution. Dabney Grinnan: Hi, I'm Dabney Grinnan; I'm a parent in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School district. The thing that no one's talking about here is why is a merger, why do we need a merger? We need a merger because it would be irrevocable. Why does Orange County need an irrevocable merger? Because it's population has consistently not voted to support the funding that the Chapel Hill district has. And that's tough. My heart goes out to these parents in Orange County who can't get the services for their kids. It's rather like, you know, for a liberal living under the current administration, I'm constantly frustrated that nothing good ever seems to happen. But the bottom line is that's how those people voted. That's what America is really about. I might have really loathed Jesse Helms as my Senator, but I had to accept that that was the will of the State that I lived in. Orange County has voted consistently to not fund the schools at the level that these parents want ithem funded. And my heart goes out to them. But the answer is not an irrevocable thing like merger that raises all the other questions. I wonder is there some irrevocable way to raise taxes in Orange County. That seems to me to be what the issue really is. You want a solution that's going to permanently fund the district higher, but your district has not been willing to vote for it. If that's the case, merger is really not what the issue is about. The issue is really about Orange County has not consistently voted for the funding that these parents want. And that's a tough issue. But I urge you to work on solving that issue, because that's what the real issue is. The issue is not Chapel Hill versus Orange County. The issue is really about how do you get the tax revenues to support the school district you want. I really ask that you all focus on that question rather than the very thorny issues, the organizational issues that come up with the merger. Thank you. Susan Houck: Don't leave Dabney, because I'm going to give you a couple of examples why Orange County has not voted in a district tax, if I can fit it in three minutes. I'm Susan Houck, I'm an Orange County parent, and I've been pretty involved in the merger discussion. And I'm afraid, like some other speakers, like we're all forming opinions about merger without actually understanding the problem. And this is exemplified in the Chapel Hill School Board claim that they are aself-contained community. This attitude actually gets to the root of the problem, the problem being school funding inequity. The inequity exists specifically because we are not self- contained. What takes place in the County affects the City and what takes place in the City affects the County. No one is self-contained. Here are a few quick examples. The Chapel Hill district tax -the City school district tax places a ceiling on what Orange County Schools can receive. This is because in order for the Commissioners to allocate the per pupil request by the Orange County School Board, the City schools would be over funded. A district tax in, for instance, Guilford or Wake school district would not affect us adversely. But the Chapel Hill district tax has a negative impact on our school funding because we are one community, One County, and interrelated. Now people say, like Dabney, why don't you have your own district tax. A district tax in the County would not generate enough funds and would not solve the inequity. More than half of