Letters to the editor: 11/02/00

Sierra Club member sets the record straight

To the Editor:

Oh, really?

Without addressing all of the trash talk, let me set the record straight about the Sierra Club and Taylor's environmental record. The Sierra Club is a national environmental organization with more than 14,000 members in North Carolina and about 1,700 members in Western North Carolina. While we don't regularly survey the political affiliations of our members, it is estimated that 30 percent of our members are Republicans with the remainder being Democrats and Independents.

The Sierra Club has been at the forefront of issues relating to public lands for over a century. We are also actively working for clean air and clean water.

Currently, three of the 15 national Sierra Club board members live in North Carolina. The Sierra Club is a grassroots organization, whose members direct its activities. Let's end the false rhetoric about the Sierra Club and realize that Sierra Club is a local group that works to help people protect and enjoy our natural environment - for our families, for our future!

Charles Taylor's record on the environment is horrible. He was the author of the Timber Salvage Rider, which authorized the wholesale cutting of our national forests under the guise of forest health. He singlehandedly blocked designation of the French Broad River as an American Heritage River. He consistently votes against clean air, clean water, and efforts to curb toxics.

By the way, the club's endorsement of Sam Neill and its expenditure of monies to publicize Taylor's poor environmental record were decisions made by club volunteers. As a club leader, I've heard nothing but praise from club members in Western North Carolina about our position on the Taylor-Neill race. Taylor's voting record and Neill's position on environmental issues makes the choice between the two candidates an easy choice for those who want to protect our environment.

I grew up in Cashiers. I'm part of no "special interest." I am interested in protecting our mountain environment.

Chuck McGrady

Flat Rock

Editor's Note: McGrady is the current treasurer and past president of the Sierra Club.

Vote to change Jackson's government

To the Editor:

Thirty-three million dollars is a lot of money, and many of us feel that it is time for Jackson to join the other 99 counties in North Carolina that have chosen this form of government.

I believe that the present salary of nearly $61,000 a year would be better spent on a professional manager working for the entire board of commissioners and would help to remove the politics from the courthouse scene.

Carl Johnson

Glenville

Land trusts are a better way to save open space

To the Editor:

North Carolina's private land trusts are constructing a solid foundation for the larger "smart growth" strategies currently under public debate. Land trusts work to save the natural resources and green spaces most important to local communities and private landowners. Most land trusts in North Carolina were created in the 1990s.

Over the past 10 years land trusts have protected more than 250 places of natural beauty and sensitive environmental resources across the state. While land trusts often acquire special natural areas by purchases or through donations, they also arrange permanent conservation management agreements or conservation easements with private owners of rural countryside and urban green spaces.

These permanent land management agreements generally restrict future land uses and protect environmental resources by prohibiting intensive development. In the 1990s land trusts arranged conservation easement agreements with the owners of more than 32,000 acres across North Carolina, and the level of interest in conservation easements among private property owners is soaring. The easement agreements ensure the wishes of owners to protect their land resources forever, keep the land in private ownership and often result in estate and income tax reductions.

Land trusts are natural allies with local municipalities and counties to control sprawling development and to establish more parks and green spaces for communities. A number of North Carolina's local governments have undertaken ambitious plans to acquire public parks and nature preserves through public funding initiatives. Land trusts now operate in most of North Carolina's urban growth areas: Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Salisbury, Asheville, Wilmington, Boone, Southern Pines-Pinehurst, and Fayetteville, as well as in the mountains and coastal regions.

Increasingly partnerships between land trusts and local and state agencies are protecting more valuable resources. Triangle Land Conservancy is working with Durham and Orange counties to establish parklands and nature preserves along New Hope Creek and the Little River, and with Lee County to create a linear greenway of protected forests along the Deep River. The NC Coastal Land Trust has helped New Hanover County preserve Arlie Gardens as a local Wilmington park and has arranged conservation agreements with the private owners of historic plantation lands across the Cape Fear River from Wilmington and forested floodplains along the lower Neuse River. Catawba Lands Conservancy is in alliance with local agencies to protect the shoreline and watershed of Mountain Island Lake, the primary water source for Charlotte. The Piedmont Land Conservancy is assisting Greensboro to establish new city parks, while saving farmlands and pristine streams in the countryside of the Triad region. The Land Trust for Central North Carolina has established greenways and nature preserves near Salisbury and along the Yadkin River and its tributaries. The Sandhills Area Land Trust is protecting wildlife habitats and the stream that provides Southern Pines and Pinehurst their primary drinking water supply.

A coalition of land trusts successfully persuaded the state General Assembly to provide income tax credits to donors of conservation land and easement agreements. The legislature has appropriated modest funds to begin a farmlands preservation grant program that helps local governments and land trusts acquire permanent conservation easement agreements with owners of farms on the urban fringes and in sensitive watersheds.

Most recently, with advocacy by the land trusts, the legislature accepted Governor Hunt's appeal to increase public funding for land and water protection, and declared a public goal to protect another one million acres of parks, wildlife reserves, forests and farm lands over this new decade. The protection of another million green acres will rely heavily on the work of the private land trusts and can only be accomplished with the infusion of substantial increases in public funds at the state and local levels.

Land trusts' thousands of citizen supporters are giving their time, energy and financial resources' to improve their communities and protect important environmental resources. The positive, results-oriented, and business-like approach of land trusts appeals to diverse and broad-based public support. When people voluntarily invest their time to protect the places they value they begin to understand the threats and costs of poorly planned development. They support alternatives to sprawl, including spending more tax dollars to buy green space, parks and development rights.

Land trusts are vital components in achieving "smarter" growth patterns and in preserving vital environmental resources, as their communities attempt to gain control over land development. North Carolina's land trusts are attracting wider public support to save North Carolina's natural and scenic beauty, its forests and farms, land resources and water quality. While our elected officials wrestle with the complexities of growth management, land trusts are busily saving land resources for the benefit of future generations. Their success depends upon public support.

Charles E. Roe

Executive Director

Conservation Trust for North Carolina

Raleigh

www.ctnc.org

Please vote Nov. 7

To the Editor:

The leaves are turning colors. Kids are playing football on Friday nights. There is a nip in the air, and we're all digging out our sweaters and flannel sheets.

Of course, there is something else we do this time of year.

We vote.

And in doing so we honor the past and we prepare for the future.

With the simple act of filling out a ballot, we honor those Americans who came before us - who built this country and gave us the many gifts we now enjoy. From the Native Americans who have been here for thousands of years to our immigrant ancestors who came looking for freedom and opportunity, to the countless slaves who came against their will and whose families helped win freedom and make our country a better place in the process.

And then, of course, there are the men and women who sacrificed their lives so that all of us and millions more across the world have the liberty to vote and to worship and to read and write whatever they choose. When we vote, we respect those gifts and make sure they are never lost. Taken for granted, perhaps. But never lost.

By voting, we also strengthen our country by renewing the rule of law and our respect for individual rights and the other cornerstones of our political system. And by making it stronger, we renew America's role as an example for other countries to follow in their own pursuit of democracy and prosperity.

Voting also helps us define our future and the future of our children and grandchildren when we choose the leaders who will guide us. And by combining our vote - our common interest - with others' we become not just a collection of millions of self-interested individuals, but join together to form communities and states and, ultimately, one country, regardless of whatever beliefs and experiences might separate us.

You see, I view voting as much more than simply a contest between politicians and parties.

For me, voting is a small but important way of giving back something to a country that has given me so much.

It is a way of honoring the men who I fought with in Europe almost 50 years ago - many of whom did not come back to their families and loved ones.

It is a way of ensuring that my children and my grandchildren enjoy the freedoms those men gave their lives for. Voting also allows me to have my say in the process of building the schools and the towns and providing the jobs my grandchildren will need to raise their own families.

As many of you know, my name will be on the ballot next week. If you vote for me, I thank you. If you vote for my opponent, I also thank you - for being part of the process and making our democracy stronger.

And if you don't plan to vote, well, I'd urge you to reconsider. Our state and our nation need you. Too many today forget the lessons of the past and stay away from the voting booth on Election Day.

Too many from the past have given too much for you to pass up the ballot. And too many coming after you are counting on your guidance to prepare the way for their future.

Please vote Nov. 7.

N.C. Sen. Dan Robinson

Cullowhee

Robinson is best bet for the environment

To the Editor:

Sadly, it was even more beautiful 10 years ago. And 10 years before that it was even better. We need to reverse this trend. We need to do it now. We can do this by voting for candidates who will defend our environment.

Senator Dan Robinson has been fighting for cleaner water and supporting legislation to protect farmland and open space. He is on a special Senate committee that is dedicated to improving air quality before it is too late.

Thanks to Dan, we'll have more of a chance to leave our children the gift that was given to us. He has the proven leadership that has earned our vote to return to the N.C. State Senate.

Sincerely,

Randy Cabe

Savannah community

Support sought for animal control officers

To the Editor:

Day after day the staff at the Jackson County Animal Shelter cares for animals in need, helps citizens with animal-related concerns and provides services in the community for two-legged and four-legged alike. All with a very limited budget and staff.

I encourage all animal lovers to visit the shelter, learn about its programs, and about the ways you can help. Whether you make a donation and/or volunteer your time, your help can make a difference for the animals and the under appreciated people who care for them.

Together I think we can bring the shelter up to the next century and provide more programs for the community, and more services to the animals, and maybe even more "happy endings."

Also, each and every pet-owner in Jackson County could make a difference by keeping their animals on their property and spaying/neutering their pets. That would make everyone's job at the shelter much easier!

Thank you in advance for your help and support.

Jane Finneran

Sylva

Not voting for higher education bond

To the Editor:

The state sets aside money every year from the Repair and Restoration Fund to maintain state buildings; however, most officials prefer to spend this money on new buildings and projects for the chancellors' legacy.

A recent audit revealed that N.C. State University's public safety department has misused $843,588 of state funds, some of which was used to tape phone calls as well as $3,417 in car wash fees when free washes were available.

Expenses for the induction (or was it a coronation?) of the chancellor at UNC-Asheville totaled $38,000. This money could have been well used for some of the repairs that the school says it so desperately needs.

When I voted for education bonds in the past, I later realized that some of the "much-needed" projects touted to get the bonds passed were never constructed or addressed.

During my years as a teacher in North Carolina, I saw first-hand how the taxpayers' dollars for the education budgets were poorly managed and wasted by the school administrators and officials. The number of teachers might be reduced, programs for students eliminated physical plants neglected; but the staff and facilities of the administrations will always increase and not suffer from neglect or lack of funds.

If businesses were as fiscally irresponsible and wasteful as the educational system in N.C., they would soon be bankrupt and out of business.

All borrowed money, including bonds, has to be repaid with interest. Money obtained from bonds is not a gift. Where will the payments for the $3.1 billion come from? From you and me - the taxpayers.

Mary M. Owen

Sylva

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