Minutes - 20070827 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Commissioners. When Ken Thompson arrived in town in 1981, there was not enough money to pay the bills from July to December, when the tax money came in. He said that Ken Thompson created an 11-point plan, which was nothing more than robbing Peter to pay Paul. He said that in 1983 when he served on the Board of County Commissioners, the County was still short of money to provide needs. At this time, he contacted the North Carolina Department of Commerce, and three people visited with him. He took the representatives around the County, and he was told that with US 7011-85/Southern Railway corridor through Orange County, that this was the most potential area in the State far goad, clean, low-water using, non-polluting, high-paying economic growth that would provide bath jobs and money for Orange County. He was also told that due to the lack of interest in cooperation from Orange County in the 15 years prior to that, when economic development interests came to Raleigh, that Orange County was marked off the list. He said that less than 90 days ago, he spoke with an individual involved in economic development in the State, who has been working in this position for about a year. When this individual took this job, he was told by his superiors not to waste his time in Orange County because they do not want anything there. He said that after four years since the Economic Development Commission was created, there has not been one brick laid within this economic development corridor. He owns property within this corridor. He said that two and a half years ago, the County Commissioners, along with the Economic Development Department, committed that by June 2010, 5,000 new commercial jobs and $45 million of new commercial tax base would be created. Nothing has happened yet. He said that it was reported in the State of the County meeting in the spring that there had been 915 new commercial jobs created and $45 million in new commercial tax base. He found out later that this was not true, but that it was referring to Meadowmont. He said that the developer of Meadowmont told him that Orange County had nothing to do with this growth. He said that I-85 runs through Durham, Orange, and Alamance Counties, and in the past 20 months, Durham County has created in excess of 2,500 new commercial jobs and has added $545 million of new commercial tax base. Alamance County has created some $200-300 million in new commercial tax base and hundreds of jobs. Orange County property tax has increased 524°~ in the last 20 years. The property tax has increased every year for 19 straight years. He said that Orange County has an image that has to be overcome. He asked the County Commissioners what they intended to do about it. Sam Lasris lives in Cedar Grove. He spoke on behalf of the Orange Unified Transportation Board. He said that it has come to the attention of the OUTB that the Durham/Chapel Hill/Carrboro MPO is going to release socioeconomic data and projections that will be used for regional transportation planning for the years 2005-2035. It is anticipated that this data will be released after the meeting on September 12`". He formally requested that this data be included in the profile element. James Carnahan lives on 122 Oak Street, Carrboro. He is a board member of The Village Project, but he said that the comments he was going to make were his own. He distributed a handout. The column on the right includes his suggested wording of the draft goals. He said that he is particularly interested in the concept of sustainability. He agreed with Marty Mandell that clarity of the sustainability goal is very important. He said that it is important to talk about the outcomes of growth and development rather than use a phrase like "sustainable growth" or "sustainable development". He thinks that the goal is that the outcome of all activities is ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable. He thinks that the language should reflect this and avoid the ambiguity of "sustainable growth" or "sustainable development". He said that a couple of the elements did not have over-arching goals, and he thought that it was important for consistency that they did, so he created them. He asked the County Commissioners to consider the amended language of the goals, which is in bald italics. Laura Blackmon made reference to the Economic Development overarching goal and said that the staff is looking at the definition of economic development. She would like for the Economic Development Commission to look at this again and perhaps broaden the definition.