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-7 RURAL EDUCATION CENTER Responses to questions raised by Mars Hills and Fairview Group pertaining to locating the Rural Education Center on county property at the intersection of Hwy. #86 and Hwy. #57. 1. The committees or advisory groups involved in the process of planning the concept of a Rural Education Center have changed several times over the years. Some of the early committee members are included in the attached lists. Current committee members have been made up of several local cattle producers, including the following: Terry Chronaki, Don Johnson, C.B. Pope, Mike Johnson, Calvin Davis, and Bill Ray. Also on this committee has` been: County Manager John Link; Fletcher Barber, County Extension Director; and Karen McAdams, Agricultural Extension Agent. 2. Attached are copies of notes from committee meetings, etc. 3. The county began considering putting the Rural Education Center on the property in approximately 1992 when it was brought up that this property was county owned. The rationale was that putting the Center on county owned land would save greatly in the amount of capital it would take to start up the center. This site is apparently the only county owned property in the Hillsborough- Northern Orange area that had enough acreage that is county owned. There were some initial talks with the Town of Hillsborough about working out an arrangement between the town and the county for a land swap of some adjacent land to provide a site in that area. The proposal of putting the Rural Education Center on this site was brought up again in the fall of 1994 by the County Manager because the Center needed to be pushed forward and a site found. The proposal to locate the site on county owned property was never brought up to be voted on by the County Commissioners. The idea was in the planning process and would eventually have been brought up at a County Commissioners meeting to be voted on. 4. The county purchased this piece of property on December 3, 1990 from Patricia Jane Garrett. 5. When the idea was proposed to locate the Rural Education Center in this area, Fletcher Barber did request to speak at a meeting of the Mars Hill community group in December to inform them of the possibility of putting this facility at the county owned site. It was felt that this was not an appropriate time because this was a social function. It was suggested that a meeting with the community be scheduled for early 1995. Several phone calls were made in February to Ms. Parker to schedule a meeting, but we both failed to reach each other. r r L J