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--=_Orange Cry',Board of .Commissioners <br />Page-,3 <br />ry ?.. <br />October 16, 1997. <br /> <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 lincs 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. Scat. §§ 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 />Relocatin, 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 d-,e 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 o" the Greene tract for recreation <br />facilides. 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 5sset? I have not reached