Even streetwalkers for Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton better look twice when doublecrossing the path that runs up behind “Friends of My Backyard” backyards.
For years, Carrboro has lectured its citizens on the need to increase permeable surfaces within the town. Impervious surfaces increase stormwater runoff, and thus, are bad. The most environmentally sensitive areas, local streams and stream buffers supposedly need the greatest protection. (You can pick yourself up off the floor now. Yes, Carrboro has placed its densest recent residential development, Winmore, smack alongside Bolin Creek.)
The recent proposal by the town to build a concrete “transportation corridor” aka a “greenway” (large enough to take a police patrol car) alongside Bolin Creek on the OWASA easement between Estes Drive and Homestead Road might have seemed odd. Such a plan was recommended by Greenways, Inc., the consulting firm that planned this transportation corridor.
It didn’t seem odd to Mr. Dave Otto, co-chair of that FOMBY group, Friends of Bolin Creek (FOBC) and political streetwalker par excellence for Mr. Chilton. He wrote a guest editorial for the Chapel Hill News praising the concrete corridor.
According to Mr. Otto, “The primary objection to the GWI plan seems to be harm of pavement to the natural environment. However, the “natural environment” that the proposed greenway will replace is the existing OWASA maintenance road which is badly eroded, deeply rutted and a quagmire following heavy rain. A concrete surface would actually stabilize erosion of the roadway. To simply leave the existing “natural” surface is not an acceptable solution. No surface of soil, crushed stone or Chapel Hill gravel in the riparian corridor will withstand periodic flooding.
Another argument for pavement is handicapped accessibility. Wheelchairs, walkers, even crutches cannot be used on the existing muddy and rutted OWASA road. Should the elderly and handicapped be denied access to one of the most beautiful areas in Carrboro? Is it appropriate to reserve this place for those privileged to live in adjacent neighborhoods or physically able to negotiate the rugged terrain?” (See CHN Otto editorial.)
The editorial was printed and presented in the name of Mr. Otto, calling him the chair of FOBC.
Unfortunately, Mr. Otto was only FOBC co-chair. Even more unfortunately, his co-chair, Ms. Julie McClintock, was dead set against a concrete transportation corridor.
Hell hath no fury like a co-chair scorned.
Mr. Otto sent a mea culpa to FOBC members. He acknowledged Ms. McClintock as co-chair. He acknowledged they disagreed on the proposed greenway. He said, “When I submitted the article to the CHNews, I clearly stated ‘this piece represents my personal opinion…FoBC is split on these issues…’.” He added that a correction would be printed in the newspaper.
He did not, however, attach a copy of the cover communication for his guest editorial, a communication that should have made these facts clear.
Curiously the CHN correction was neither as prominent as the guest editorial, nor forthcoming as to how such a mistake happened. In the words of CHN editor Mark Schultz, “A column by Dave Otto about the greenway path last weekend should have identified him as a ‘co-chairman’ of Friends of Bolin Creek and said the column represented his personal opinion, not that of the group. We have a correction running tomorrow, but it's out of date. The Friends named Julie McClintock chair after we went to press. Dave is now vice chairman. Julie or someone from the group will provide a dissenting view in an upcoming issue.” (See CHN Correction.)
More curiously, as of this writing, the online editorial still lists Mr. Otto as the sole chair of FOBC.
In response to the Otto editorial, one Carrboro resident wrote Mr. Chilton. “Could someone please explain to me why it is even a consideration to change these woods? I could understand making them a little more accessible to the community, but to pave any part of them?”
Mr. Chilton responded in his typically disingenuous fashion. ”At this point, all we have done is committed ourselves to the notion that we will create a paved greenway connecting Homestead Road with Estes Drive Extension. Two short sections were approved and are funded: 1) from Wilson Park to Estes Drive Extension and along Estes Drive Extension to the railroad tracks and 2) from Homestead Road to Chapel Hill High.
Whether the other parts of the greenway will be near the creek, near Seawell School Road or somewhere in between has not been decided and will probably not be decided until some funding for that part of the project is identified. At present there is no foreseeable source of funding available within the next five years at least. Consequently, I anticipate that the community will continue to have a lively debate about the merits of the various possibilities.” (See Whetten Chilton Letters.)
Mr. Chilton failed to tell the writer that the reason a paved concrete transportation corridor was being planned (plans paid for by the writer’s tax dollars) was to use non-town moneys to build the greenway. These funds are not only foreseeable, but also identified.
Mr. Chilton is just as forthcoming as his fellow bon vivant, Mr. Otto. Greenways, the company advocating the concrete corridor, also happened to have advised neighboring Wake County on its greenways. According to the Wake County Open Space plans (which include greenways), unpaved crushed gravel greenways can provide handicap access. “Type 3: Multi-Use Unpaved Trail Development This designation would apply to corridors that are capable of supporting a broader range of uses. Greenway trail development, if it occurs along a stream, would be located outside of the floodway. A variety of surface materials could be used, but crushed gravel is the most likely. These trails can be used by pedestrians, cyclists, equestrians and persons with disabilities (ADA).”
The leadership “Gunfight at the FOMBY Corral” was bound to happen. Spurs were strapped on. Someone was going down.
About one week after the Otto editorial was published, the following notice was sent to FOBC members. “Effective Monday, January 11, [Dave Otto has] stepped down from Co-chair to Vice-chair of the Friends of Bolin Creek.” Mr. Otto was too slow on the draw for Ms. McClintock, who is now the sole chair, and vehemently opposed to a concrete corridor.
Will Mr. Chilton’s mother, purported FOMBY friend, prevent a showdown between her son, the mayor, and the gravelly FOMBY shootists, set on protecting their backyards? Stay tuned.
Pulpsters are well aware of the self-serving, ineffective Carrboro environmental organization dedicated to preserving their backyards, aka Friends Of Bolin Creek, bka Friends Of My Backyard (FOMBY). In true Orange Progressive fashion, FOMBY has watched as Bolin Creek has been bulldozed up to its stream buffers by residential development approved by the Carrboro town government, all under the rubric of promoting “small town urbanism”.
There's no hypocrisy in praising the heaviest residential density in Carrboro alongside the steepest stream beds of Bolin Creek, at least so long as the bulldozing doesn't occur in their backyards. Fear of a scheduled connector road extending from Seawell School Road to Pathway Drive, aimed precisely at the cul-de-sac belonging to FOMBY president, Mr. Dave Otto has provided FOMBY leasdership with the intestinal fortitude to look beyond true environmentalism and into nobly saving their own backyards.
Despite Carrboro open space stream bed regulations that have systematically driven Carrboro's heaviest development onto Bolin Creeek, FOMBY has stood by, not silently, but perversely praising those who have openly heavily developed the Bolin Creek environment.
So what could be more fitting than FOMBY interjecting itself into the upcoming Carrboro municipal election. Yes, FOMBY has decided to bestow a completely surreal environmental award to that supreme Bolin Creek destructionist, Mayor Mark Chilton. A paragon of environmental virtue and patellar virtuosity, Mr. David Otto, has announced that FOMBY shall give Mr. Chilton an environmental award at a very public press conference, by sheer coincidence, just days before the Carrboro municipal election. How clever and so inscrutable.
Political whores or environmental stewards? Pulpsters can reach their own conclusions about FOMBY and its illustrious head giver of awards, Mr. Otto.
Time not only heals all wounds, it enables all amnesia. A classic example of OPie amnesia can be found in how local “environmentalists” can be “for” a dense growth development alongside an ecologically sensitive stream basin and also “against” the same development. All it takes is time and a familiarity with invertebrates.
On 26 August 2008 the Carrboro Boa will consider easing the impervious surface rules for the failed “mixed use” village real estate development called “Winmore”. Founded on a bed of misperceptions, the Winmore project had the highest density allowed in Carrboro at the time, yet was located on top of the most ecologically sensitive stream basin in Carrboro, Bolin Creek, home to rare salamander invertebrates. Despite objections from all adjacent neighborhoods, the Boa approved Winmore.
Five years after public approval, Winmore still has no retail or commercial development, barely having any residential development. Instead of houses costing on average about $300,000, the housing in Winmore starts well over $500,000 and exceeds $1,000,000.
The reason for making one more environmental excuse for Winmore is to allow a day care center at Winmore. The request comes not from the developer team that got the original Winmore approval, but from Capkov Ventures Inc., who bought the development approvals as a wrapped gift package from the friends of the Boa developer team that made all the original broken promises to the Boa in order to get Winmore approval. In typical Boa fashion, the request is simply to exempt day care centers from being counted in making impervious surface calculations. For environmental purposes, day care centers will not exist in determining environmental impact in Carrboro mixed use villages, even if the reality is that their existence harms the environment.
The local media reports that Mr. Dave Otto, chair of the Friends of Bolin Creek micro interest “environmental” advocacy group, is going to speak out against allowing the day care center exemption. Today, Mr. Otto (as quoted by the N&O) says, ”A mixed-use development never should have been approved in this location in the first place”.
Curiously, the local media doesn’t quote Mr. Otto from a puff piece done only about a year earlier to prop up Winmore. In Mr. Otto’s 2007 words, in 2003 he thought Winmore was “[T]oo close to Bolin Creek… Our original thought was that they could've done this farther from Bolin Creek. But now that it's been approved, now that it's here, we think they did a good job.” Mr. Otto is described as “one of the supporters at a ribbon-cutting off Homestead Road”. He is also quoted as praising, ”They've built an incredibly beautiful nature trail around the periphery of the property. People that enjoy nature will be able to enjoy a beautiful nature trail right outside their doorstep.” Mr. Otto carefully ignores the clear cutting of the last mature hardwood forest on Bolin Creek at Winmore, a clearcutting in clear violation of the Boa approval which “required” saving almost a hundred specimen trees.
So which is it? Is Mr. Otto for Winmore or against Winmore being built?
Pulp readers are familiar with having to dig deeper when land developers and progressive politicians are bedfellows.
Mr. Otto didn’t really object to Winmore at the public hearings in May 2003. According to official town minutes, Mr. Otto “, on behalf of the Friends of Bolin Creek, was sworn in. He expressed concern that this development will be approved prior to the Bolin Creek Corridor Master Plan. He stated that they support the idea of establishing a nature park in the Bolin Creek corridor and the conservation easement to protect the natural characteristics of this corridor, but that other features of the proposal such as rezoning for denser development and plans for storm water management require further study and review before the plan is approved.” Mr. Otto did not call for Boa members to vote against approving Winmore, i.e., he did not object to Winmore.
So which is it? Is Mr. Otto for Winmore or against Winmore being built?
Apparently, Mr. Otto is for protecting his own backyard from the intense development that he allowed to get built at Winmore. If a day care center can be made to vanish, then perhaps an automobile road bridge can be made to do so as well.
Mr. Otto lives here (see arrow):
Pulp readers can see that he lives in a Carrboro (in pink) residential neighborhood) right near a road stub out. That stub out, built far beyond the necessary carrying capacity of Mr. Otto’s now cul de sac, is shown on future road plans as being eventually connected to Seawell School Road by a bridge over Bolin Creek and a small patch of road (both in green). Mr. Otto’s road was approved and built to connector road standards, far beyond the needs of his neighborhood. The future proposed bridge will connect a high volume of traffic from a future Carolina North UNC research park mainly in Chapel Hill (blue) to Carboro’s historic business district. Any easing of environmental protections for Bolin Creek at Winmore can be used to justify building the bridge.
As witnessed also by the failure of now Commish Bernadette Pelissier to rise to a challenge to speak out agaisnt environmental racism, backbones are not required for “protecting” the invertebrate environment of Carrboro.
