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-10 <br /> Orange County Board of Commissioners <br /> Page 3 <br /> October 16, 1997 <br /> reasonable to assume annexation by the towns of their respective transition areas. The towns can <br /> provide public water and sewer in their transition areas. Furthermore, and in my opinion <br /> significantly, the entire identified community can be served with public water and sewer using <br /> the general fund revenue of Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in a joint undertaking. <br /> This would allow a "blurring" of jurisdictional lines by reasonable assumptions concerning <br /> financial contribution to the enterprise. I think there could be quite a bit of latitude in these <br /> assumptions given that the enterprise in question would be one of constructing public water and <br /> sewer utilities and not their operation thereafter. The operation of these utilities would <br /> presumably fall to OWASA once they were constructed. <br /> Fees for connection to the water and sewer utilities can be justified, if they are all to be <br /> paid, on the same basis as the line extensions themselves. However,if only those fees associated <br /> with homes owned by persons with low and moderate income are to be paid, then landfill <br /> enterprise funds would not be available. Low and moderate income homeowners' fees can be <br /> paid by the local governments under the community development programs and activities power <br /> of the County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill found in N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 153A-376 and 160A-456, <br /> copies of which are enclosed. <br /> The legal analysis for public transportation in the Orange Regional Landfill community <br /> is the same as the general fund public water and sewer extension analysis above. The practical <br /> issues are different but the legal issues are the same. <br /> Relocating future annexation boundaries by referendum is, in my opinion, problematic. <br /> I have previously written to the Board advising against holding non-binding or "straw" ballot <br /> referenda not expressly authorized by the North Carolina General Assembly. The annexation <br /> boundary and the joint planning transition area boundary should be determined through the joint <br /> planning process already in place. <br /> One of the recommendations in the Report of the Landfill Owners Group/Landfill <br /> Neighbors Working Group calls for using at least 50 acres of the Greene tract for recreation <br /> facilities. The Greene tract is presently an asset of the Orange Regional Landfill enterprise. I <br /> have not done an exhaustive research project on this question. However, transferring the Greene <br /> tract out of the-enterprise and essentially declaring it to be surplus property for landfill purposes <br /> raises a legal question because the property was purchased with landfill tipping fees, which by <br /> law cannot exceed the cost of operating the landfill. The question further becomes one of <br /> whether the Greene tract is or ever can become truly surplus given the potential liability <br /> associated with owning and operating a landfill forevermore and the cost of its continued <br /> operation. Put another way,can the Greene tract be disposed of by the landfill enterprise while <br /> tipping fees are charged for operations expenses, including the potential for future payment of <br /> environmental mitigation expenses due to past, present and future landfill practices, that could <br /> otherwise be avoided because of the availability of the Greene tract asset? I have not reached <br />