Orange County NC Website
commitment made publicly back in April is a commitment that should be honored. She wants <br /> to provide water to the historic Rogers Road neighborhood initially and pay for those <br /> connections for the remaining families in that area as the County said that it would do. She <br /> also does not want to continue talking about keeping the landfill open beyond 2013. <br /> Commissioner Foushee said that the towns need to come to the table soon to talk <br /> about the next steps. The longer this is put off, the more expensive it becomes. She wants to <br /> talk closure as soon as possible. Her preference is to close the landfill by 2013. <br /> Commissioner McKee agreed and said that he is not willing to wait to hook up the <br /> remaining homes to the water system. <br /> Commissioner Hemminger agreed and said that she is not willing to wait on this either. <br /> She wants to hook up the remaining homes and clean up the illegal dump sites. Then there <br /> can be discussion of the remaining things on the list. <br /> Commissioner Jacobs said that he agreed with all of those actions. He added that, <br /> before meeting with the towns, there is no reason that the County cannot make it known that <br /> the intention is to close the landfill in 2013. <br /> Commissioner Gordon agreed that the remaining homes could be hooked up now as <br /> well as the cleaning of the illegal dump sites. <br /> Commissioner Yuhasz asked when the landfill would reach capacity if no changes were <br /> made and Gayle Wilson said April or May 2013. <br /> Jeff Kinges asked to speak. He spoke about the contamination of the water. <br /> Frank Clifton said that there is agreement with the towns, so there is not an issue there <br /> at all. There is an issue of going from the property line to the house. <br /> John Roberts said that there are a couple of issues regarding going from the property <br /> lines to the houses. The first being, North Carolina local governments cannot spend public <br /> taxpayer dollars for private benefit. Once you cross a property line and go to a house for an <br /> actual connection and pay for that, that is a private benefit and the individual Board members <br /> could be personally liable for those expenditures. <br /> Commissioner Foushee said that she knows this, and this is why she said that the <br /> County needed to identify another source for this, just as another source was identified for the <br /> CDBG funds for the nine homes that already received this. <br /> Commissioner McKee said that he is not sure that each homeowner will want to tap on <br /> and it should be left up to them. <br /> Commissioner Yuhasz asked to go through each recommendation. <br /> A motion was made by Commissioner Foushee, seconded by Commissioner <br /> Hemminger to: <br /> 1. Direct staff to initiate the Water Service improvements as outlined. Further <br /> refinement of those estimates, engineering and construction would be scheduled <br /> accordingly and Solid Waste Enterprise Funds be the source of funding for these <br /> projects. The Board of Commissioners would approve each project and OWASA <br /> would be the contract administrator. <br /> VOTE: UNANIMOUS <br /> Commissioner Jacobs said that there was also an issue that a lot of the houses may <br /> not be able to easily use higher water pressure without having a plumber come in and upgrade <br />