Agenda - 03-21-2006-9a - Laserfiche WebLink

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4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1.3 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 4.3 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 DRAFT la Howard McAdams, Jr. is a full-time farmer and a volunteer fireman,. He asked if the volunteer fire departments would have to pay for part of the 800-megahertz radios. Also, he thanked the County Commissioners for recognizing his wife at the last County Commissioners' meeting and he thanked them for supporting agriculture and the agricultural summit, He said that he would like for the Board to consider another plan and either change what is put in the referendum, or put both plans on the referendum and let the voters decide which plan they would Tike. Oscar Compton is from Cedar Grove and was representing the Cedar Grove Ruritan Club, He said that they strongly support all efforts to bring district representation to the Board of County Commissicners. He said that this would be the fair and equitable thing to do. He said that he bought a farm in 1989 and he appealed to the Planning Department to let him build a country store.. There was a store there before for about 79 years before it got burned.. He said that if he could have had district representation at that time, he would have been able to build the store. He was told that he could not build a store because of the node. He asked for district representation. Lee Mortimer said that he is not a resident of Orange Ccunty, but he was asked by Keith Cook to serve as an advisor to the 1993 task force that the Board of County Commissioners appointed to study possible changes in the elections. This study is also referenced in the background materials. He said that Proposal 5 is not likely to satisfy the people that are asking for an alternative method of deciding who will represent them on the Board., The 1993 task force made two recommendations -one for cumulative voting and a district plan requiring two County Commissioners to live outside of Chapel Hill/Carrboro. The proposal for one rural resident Commissioner falls short of either of the proposals made 13 years ago. The problem remains that the twc-thirds of voters living in Chapel Hill/Carrboro will continue to decide who will represent rural and northern Orange County, He said that the proposal would undoubtedly pass the referendum because the two-thirds of voters who decide elections now know that nothing will change for them.. He said that the one-third of voters seeking a change would remain unsatisfied, He said that, in truth, district plans are not the best model and in many ways they do not improve representation. He agrees with the task force members who supported the cumulative voting recommendation in 1993. He said that this would be the optimum compromise between district and at-large representation, Cumulative voting would allow candidates to be voted on and elected by all voters of the County, just as they are today.. But minority groups of voters -racial, political, or geographic -can cumulate their votes behind one favorite candidate and be relatively certain of electing someone who they feel truly represents their point of view. He said that several North Carolina counties and municipalities use a similar system of limited voting to elect boards and town councils. He said that the people asking for a new election system would probably prefer that the Board postpone any action until it feels more able to move ahead with something that addresses the concerns in a more meaningful way. Gary Barnes is a resident of Chapel Hill and the Chair of the Community Action Network. He said that they have taken an interest in the district election issue since Representative Faison proposed his bill. He said that, in general, they were supportive of two ideas -having proportional representation for residents of the County and increasing the number of County Commissioner seats to seven. He noted that the current proposal really means that only one of the five is assured to reside in a rural area, where 33% of the electorate lives. In terms of the issue of the number of Board seats, seven is a trend in North Carolina. In 1953, Orange County went from three to five members, largely in response to population growth. There has been significant growth since 1953 and he thinks it is time to increase the number of seats to seven. He supports aseven-member Board with a proposal similar to Representative Faison's or a five-member board with a "district vote', with one of those candidates voted on only by the residents of the district..