Positive Messages: Jay White E-mail #4

This is the fourth message from the Jay White campaign:

This is the fourth of several emails about Jay White . Thank you for continuing to forward these emails to friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, teammates, etc. We need to encourage everyone to get out and vote. Less than 10% of registered voters voted in the primary. We don’t want our county’s leadership decided by just 10%. Make your voice heard and your opinions known. Please don’t assume Jay or any candidate can win without your vote.

Jay has been asked several good questions and we want to share some of them with you along with Jay’s answers. He has tried to keep his answers brief and to the point as to keep this email manageable. However, if you have any follow up questions or want more information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

What are the duties of the County Commissioner ?

The Board's primary duties include: adopting an annual budget; establishing the annual property tax rate; setting policies, goals and objectives to direct the County's growth and development; adopting and providing for ordinances, rules and regulations as necessary for the general welfare of County citizens; entering into written contractual or legal obligations of behalf of the County; and carrying out other responsibilities as set forth by North Carolina General Statutes. The Board also makes appointments to a number of advisory boards and committees.

Beyond those duties, county commissioners have an obligation to educate themselves and the public, to listen and consider public opinion and to make sound decisions in a timely manner.

What are some of the major issues you feel need to be dealt with and how would you attack those challenges?

The major issue facing Cabarrus County right now is unplanned growth. A rapidly growing population and inadequate infrastructure are testing the limits of our public schools and our water supply, slowing our economy, and threatening our rural character.

We need to attack these challenges by being proactive and not reactive. We must set policies, goals and objectives to direct our growth and development in ways that protect our rural character. We need to encourage business development with the potential for growth, creating a broader tax base with little impact on county services.

Growth not only affects our neighborhoods and businesses, it has tremendous impact on our water supply, transportation and schools. We must continue to work towards the approval of the interbasin transfer and ease traffic congestion by prioritizing our needs and taking a comprehensive approach to solving the problems we face. Our children in public schools are suffering from unplanned growth. We must find ways to build new schools to ease overcrowding. Please read below for more specific questions and answers concerning these same topics.

What is your plan to restructure local government?

In North Carolina , counties do not control how transportation funds are spent in their county. The Department of Transportation (DOT) in Raleigh determines how the monies slated for Cabarrus County will be spent. My plan is to ask the General Assembly to allow Cabarrus County to have local control of these funds. I believe that we have a better idea of how those dollars should be spent and where. We know the roads and traffic patterns better than people in Raleigh .

What is your idea for a regional plan that allows for residential and business growth?

I believe that the county, municipalities, and school board all need to work towards the same vision. We need to work together to pursue and recruit small to medium businesses that have the least impact on our roads, and schools while increasing our tax base. We need to look at warehouses and locations along the railroad corridor to determine if they can be up fitted for reuse. It is important that we look first at properties that exist which can suit our needs before building new.

To control our residential growth, all governmental entities need to come to a consensus as to the parameters of that growth. We must work together within our county and then work with surrounding communities in order to facilitate our plan when necessary.

What is your opinion about rezoning and approval of new developments without a plan for roads and schools?

My understanding as to why these rezonings are going thru is because each request has met the necessary requirements to pass. Several of these rezoning requests are coming through the cities and not the county because county restrictions have recently been made tougher. The county zoning requirements are lower in density than the cities. Meaning, fewer homes can be built per acre. Recently, some developers have asked for "voluntary annexation" into the city so as to take advantage of the city rezoning regulations.

Before the county’s zoning requirements were changed, several thousand homes were approved. It is my understanding that approximately 15,000 homes have been permitted to be built but have not been built yet. These homes were permitted more than 2 years ago.

By law, the County cannot place a moratorium on residential development without a reason such as the drought that existed several years ago. However, as commissioners we can change the zoning requirements to require a home must be on larger acreage.

The commissioners need to meet with all municipalities to create a common goal for our residential development. We need to determine how and where we want to grow and work towards that goal together.

Cabarrus County’s economic growth hinges on cities being able to provide water in the future. Do you support the request of Kannapolis and Concord for an interbasin transfer from the Catawba River basin ?

Yes, I do support the interbasin water transfer (IBT). While Cabarrus County has many natural resources, a supply of raw water is not one of them. It will be difficult for us to support the growth we're expecting from the research Campus without this agreement. However, we must continue to research alternative means of supplying our citizens with water and becoming self sufficient.

How do you plan to ease the overcrowding of our schools? Will there be another bond referendum?

There is no question that we need new schools and we need them now. We must be creative in our thinking and make sound business decisions to fund these schools. It is possible that there will be a need for a bond referendum for new schools and renovations of older schools within the next two years. But in the meantime, I would like to research other viable options such as the lease option plan. The recently created lease option allows a private developer to build the school and then lease it to the county. At the end of the lease, the county owns the school. We need to compare all options and make a solid, sound business decision that takes into account our children and our county’s budget.

My long term plan for the overcrowding of schools involves getting control of the residential growth. As I stated above, our zoning requirements need to be set to reduce the number of homes per acre. In conjunction with this I believe that the Commissioners need to meet with the cities to work towards the same goals of slowing our growth until our infrastructure can catch up.

We need to look into the feasibility of creating a land bank plan for future schools and parks. We need to anticipate where schools will be needed and bank that land for future use. If growth patterns change and we don’t need the land, it could be sold at that time.