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the North Carolina state law that allows towns to buy parkland outside their territorial boundaries, but does not allow them to buy open space there. This stems from a time when open space had little value because there was so much of it. This cripples the ability to undertake inter-governmental cooperative efforts for open space strategies. Chapel Hill land is selling for $52,000 an acre. If Chapel Hill could buy land in Orange County that is going for 10% as much, we could protect much more open space. With the appropriate new legislation in place, the state might double what is assembled locally. He would like the AOG to discuss the desirability of removing these legal barriers. Mayor Mike Nelson introduced Carrbora's new Town Manager, Steve Stuart. He is from Greenville County, South Carolina. 1. Potential Impacts Resulting from a Possible Merger of the Orange County Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Rod Visser gave a synopsis of the PowerPoint presentation. He did not go through the entire presentation. The report is on the County's website. There are two public hearing dates to receive public comment. Commissioner Carey raised this issue at the County Commissioners' planning retreat in January 2003. The County Commissioners adopted a goal in March that asked the staff to prepare an analysis and contemplate a decision on whether to move forward with merger. The staff prepared a report and presented it a couple of weeks ago. There are two public hearings in October and two work sessions in November. The intent of the study is to focus on factual information rather than opinion. The analysis is not as extensive as other merger studies done by other jurisdictions' outside consultants. They also acknowledge that there are many questions that the report does not answer. In 1986, the County Commissioners received a report from a school merger study commission that reached four conclusions that are listed in the report. There has been some successful collaboration since the 1986 report {i.e., SAPFO, use of impact fees, construction and funding standards, etc.). Funding equity remains a challenge and the County Commissioners are aware of this issue. And there has been some progress on this. North Carolina statutes provide four ways to initiate merger. The County has focused on the last one, the County Commissioner initiated merger. If the County Commissioners initiate a merger process, then the per pupil funding for the resulting school system has to be at a level no less than the amount that the highest funded school system received any time during the previous five years. Also, under this model, there is no formal statutory role for the boards of education. Finally, the plan shall not be contingent upon approval of voters. There are several ways of electing a board of education. Regarding the financial considerations, most school funding that is provided locally is provided on a per pupil basis {current expense and recurring and long range capital}. The analysis that was performed focused on the difference created by the existence of the 20-cent Chapel Hill-Carrboro special district tax, which is about $12.6 million a year. He emphasized that the report was trying to focus on the scope and scale of the financial impacts and not to pin down the exact tax impact.