As Monday afternoon's County Commission work session (3:30-6:00pm) approaches, a steadily increasing drumbeat of voices is weighing in on the BOCC's pending decision on the critical watershed boundary for a portion of Jordan Lake near the controversial Fayetteville/751 Assemblage.
As readers know, the BOCC narrowly voted to discuss the boundary change on Monday instead of at a meeting earlier this month where the topic was a late-addition to the agenda. The new boundary was set after a private landowner linked to the parcel submitted a self-funded new map of where the watershed ran on the property. The BOCC voted narrowly in the fall to send that map on to the state for approval; the Division of Water Quality did so since it was sent by the County Commission, though it raised eyebrows at ex-Planning director Frank Duke's actions in the matter.
Now the Durham Democratic Party -- or at least, some of their precincts -- is weighing in on the matter. Per an email from Milo Pyne, an activist engaged both in the Durham Dems and the People's Alliance, "at least five Democratic precinct meetings" adopted a resolution last night calling for the BOCC to reject the boundary change. An excerpt:
WHEREAS, It is the fundamental use of fair procedures and impartial identification by government of constraints such as floodplains, slopes, and distance to water bodies that gives legal power and moral authority to the government's infringement of private property rights in the interests of the public as a whole. Therefore, be it
RESOLVED, that the Democrats of Durham Precinct 8 urge the Durham Board of County Commissioners and the Durham City Council to reject the developer-financed survey, and. if necessary, to conduct an impartial government-directed study of the Jordan Lake pool height, perhaps in collaboration with the several other units of government (e.g. Orange and Chatham counties) that also have regulatory responsibility for the watershed and that also protect the public interest....
As Jim Wise notes at the N&O blog, the Monday meeting won't be a public hearing, so technically citizen groups won't be likely to weigh in verbally -- but expect to see a turnout for the session in the County Commission chambers.
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