Agenda - 10-03-1977 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

Governor James B , Hunt Page 2 October 27, 1977. Messrs . Rose and Waters , were al.l.owed, the right to address the Board for roughly f rty-five minutes concerning local routing of 1--40. The Board the in roughly ten minutes, with one member voting "No", with one memo r abstaining, with no questioning of the engineers whatever, and with no Orange County citizen input to the Board being allowed voted in. favor of new highway Alternate I-B, paralleling existing Routes 86 and 541-n preference to Alternate 4" which would principally use existing Route 70. I and other Orange County citizens had previously requested, both orally and in writing, permission to speak to the Board at the September 9 m eti.ng and to present the interests of Orange County, Its towns, Bo rd of County Commissioners, and citizens at large. Such requests were denied in spite of the fact that I was acting under the joie t appointment of the Chairman of the Orange. County Board of co ssioners and of the Mayor of Chapel Hill. The above cir um.stanc.es constitute dishonest government in its crudest fora. Are Orange County citizens required to "purchase" a right to sp ak to the Board by offering the Board wining and dining before and after their meeting? How does this differ from pure graft? Surely, you, as Governor, have a legal, and moral responsibility not to condone such outright . di.shonesty as part of State Covernm nt. Federal and State law enforcement officials receiving cop es of this correspondence also have a duty to investi- gate this sca dal.Are Board members reporting such "income'.' for taxatioi I again remind you that $84,000,004 in Federal and State funds were involved at the September 9, 1977 meeting and public' records relating thereto were also involved. Numerous microphones were present at the September 9 , 1977 meeting, presumably for the pur- pose of providing accurate and complete minutes for public record. Yet, we now have three conflicting stories emanating from the Department of rransportation concerning keeping of the minutes of the September 9, 1977 meeting relating to the 84, 000,000 of Federal and State public monies. One story is that the recorder was there but �t broke. Another story is that, yes, there is a tape, but it will not be transcribed. A further story is that, no there is n tape and the practice of the Board is to compose a "summary' . ask, how can the public ever know what was actually- said and what ctually went on at the meeting of September 9, 1977, dealing with $ 4,000,000 of public monies. This additi.vna:l scandal relate to public records requires responsible and immediate action on your part. It also requires investigation by responsible Federal. and St to authorities . The Department of Transportation has just released a brief, composed summary of the 1-40 portion of the September 9, 1977 meeting and which is cal.le "minutes" . I have reviewed the same and fi