One month. Three passionate zoning battles.
We started June analyzing a dispute over a racetrack in Patrick County and a fight over a scrap metal operation in northern Surry County. Now we’re ending the month with another business vs. the neighbors dispute, this one in Mount Airy.
In the pre-zoning era, you likely wouldn’t have three such [...]
Archive for June, 2008
When zoning lines become battle lines
Posted in Brook's Blog, Local government, Zoning and planning on June 26, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Budget debates, circa the 1880s
Posted in Brook's Blog, Budgets and taxes, Local government on June 20, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The process of settling on a spending plan for Mount Airy has produced an ample supply of analogies and metaphors both acute (Todd Harris comparing the city’s ride of industrial users to pay water expansion debt to Big Brown coming up short in the last sprit) and bizarre (see the post below).
But the best one [...]
The airport and jobs
Posted in Brook's Blog, Economic Development, Local government, state government on June 19, 2008 | 5 Comments »
What does the Surry-County/Mount Airy airport have that commercial airports in Asheville and Wilmington do not? Apparently an impact of more than 3,000 jobs, at least according to the DOT. The local airport’s much debated expansion picked up steam at the state level after an economic impact study done by the DOT ranked it fourth [...]
Weed crackdown … the Mount Airy way
Posted in Brook's Blog, Local government, state government on June 19, 2008 | 1 Comment »
No, not THAT kind of weed. Just the kind that sprouts up in unkept yards.
Sen. Don East got a little more popular in the legislature as of late. It appears that Mount Airy’s request to streamline the process of fining property owners with overgrown yards has a handful of other municipalities jumping on board.
We reported [...]
Budget talks with a heavy metal soundtrack
Posted in Brook's Blog, Budgets and taxes, Local government, water rates on June 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
During a Mount Airy City Council budget meeting where commissioner Tom Bagnal quoted Bette Davis (“Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night”) and Commissioner Dean Brown quoted Larry the Cable Guy (“Let’s get r done”), by far the most entertaining quote to sum up the situation came via Commissioner Deborah Cochran. [...]
The cost of living
Posted in Brook's Blog, Budgets and taxes, Local government on June 11, 2008 | 10 Comments »
Navigating budgets and separating the “fat” from the “bone” is tough without the expertise of actually running a department. But there’s one optional expense everyone can weigh in on without knowing the inner workings of utility systems, patrol divisions, building permits, etc.
That would be pay raises, this year specifically, cost of living pay raises. They’re [...]
Learning to share (a $2 million grant)
Posted in Brook's Blog, Economic Development, Local government, state government on June 9, 2008 | 10 Comments »
community-assistance-initiative-outline-20082
Want to see how a number of competing interests can all agree on how to share $2 million? June 30th could provide perfect example on how to do it … or not to do it.
That’s the next time folks from The Golden LEAF Foundation are in town to facilitate a process of deciding by consensus [...]
Stemming the tides of annexation
Posted in Brook's Blog, state government on June 3, 2008 | 4 Comments »
After blogging about legislation filed by Jim Harrell III and Don East, posting about the activity of the third member in Surry’s delegation in the NC General Assembly, Rep. George Holmes, is a bit tougher.
The Republican from Yadkin County is retiring this year, and for this session he hasn’t been the primary sponsor of any [...]
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