Wendell News Outlet

Lawsuits aren’t an altogether uncommon occurrence for local governments to deal with.

All three eastern Wake County towns are currently dealing with litigation in one form or another at the present time.

But we haven’t seen a filing quite like the one recently made against Wendell in many years.

In that complaint, 64 people sign on to allegations that the town failed to follow its own rules when it approved a rezoning request that will allow the developers of Pepper Pointe to expand that development.

Click here to read the entire article.

GARNER — Town officials are requiring Wake County school leaders to reduce the percentage of low-income students at two Garner schools in return for permission to do renovation work there.

The Town Board of Aldermen voted 4-1 last week to attach conditions to work permits at Aversboro and Smith elementary schools requiring that their percentages of low-income students be reduced to meet by the time work is completed.

Click here to read the entire story.

NBC17 has posted a story about the lawsuit filed against the Town of Wendell on their website NBC17.com.
It can be found in the "Latest News" and "Video" sections of their website.
It is also being shown during their newscasts for the next few days.

A lawsuit has been filed against the Town Of Wendell over the rezoning of property for Pepper Pointe II.
Click here to read about it in the Eastern Wake News.
Click here to read a scanned copy of the complaint.

Following is a Letter to the Editor of the East Wake News sent last week and posted here with permission of the author. Glenn Harris
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I attended the Town Board meeting on Monday, November 12, 2007, and was appalled by what transpired. I happened to be sitting amongst a group of Boy Scouts who were attending as part of a requirement for a merit badge. I assume they were learning about citizenship in their community. After hearing a plethora of reasons for not building a low-income, government subsidized apartment complex, Ronald Thompson, Buddy Scarboro, and Terry Hodges voted to approve the project. As soon as the motion was passed, one of the Boy Scouts, who could not have been more than 13 or 14 years old, turned around in disbelief and asked his leader, “Does that mean that they are going to let them build it?” When his leader nodded affirmatively, the boy asked, “Why?” The criteria to allow it was clearly not met, yet no explanation was offered to the citizens. If the Board had any legitimate reasons for voting this way, it seemed like they had ample opportunity to express it. All that the citizens heard was a lengthy presentation from an attorney, testimonies from several education entities about the potential negative impact, and various questions for Evergreen Construction that went unanswered.

This is not the first time these elected officials have shied away from doing what appears to be in the best interest of Wendell. After witnessing this, I couldn’t help but think how lucky I was not to be the Boy Scout leader having to explain to those young, impressionable boys what just happened. It also occurred to me how readily a young adult could grasp the implications for this community and yet these community leaders either could not or would not.

Denise Roy
Wendell

Promise Yourself-

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To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

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To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.

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To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.

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To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

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To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.

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To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own .

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To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

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To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.

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To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.

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To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

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By Christian D. Larson in 1912 ,

Adopted by Optimist International in 1922

2008 property values will be available online Monday, November 19 beginning at 5:15 p.m. The Real Estate search will be inaccessible between 2 p.m. and 5:15 p.m. Monday to update the new values.

To check on your property go to wakegov.com and click on Real Estate Search. Then follow the directions.

This past Monday evening, November 12th, was the scene of another setback for the Town of Wendell. Once again we were sent to the woodshed and administered a sound thrashing by 3 of our town commissioners and Evergreen Construction, et al. Who the heck do the people of Wendell think they are, standing up to a local power broker’s wishes? Get back down where you belong and stay there! This is the way we have done it for the past 20 years, and that’s how it is going to stay!

Baloney! That’s not the way it is going to stay! The people of Wendell have spoken by their votes this past Election Day when they soundly defeated one of the oppressors and voted for a clean, transparent, even-handed slate of independent thinkers. We are on our way, the road may be full of rocks that need to be crushed and cast aside, but nothing is going to stop our town from moving out of a dictatorship and into a democracy.

Monday evening witnessed a parade of “experts”, led by an eloquent attorney from Raleigh, telling the town board that the property at 46 Selma Road was going to be used for 45 subsidized, low incomes apartments, and that’s that! That was that until Mayor Hinnant had had enough and told the attorney that he running the show. Way to go Mayor, we were all elated and extremely proud of your actions. You spoke for all of us!

The location of the 45 apartments being proposed has many apparent flaws, apparent to all except from those who stand to benefit financially from their construction. Rather than continue with my diatribe of frustration let me try and point out some of my concerns with this project:

1 – The Wendell school system is currently well past the suggested 40% level of free and reduced lunch pupils. So far past it that our schools are among the highest in the Wake County school district. Now Evergreen Construction says, let’s jam another 75 to 100 kids into your schools, so what if it drags down the other student’s academic levels, you need more low income housing. We do? That’s not what the representative of the Wake County school district said in her carefully worded presentation. She supported our contention that the Wendell schools were suffering academically due to the current over abundance of the free & reduced lunch students

2 – Safety concerns were spoken of by Commissioner Hinnant on several occasions but to no avail. She raised the question of the fireproof siding but was shunted aside.
The “one entrance and exit” debacle will come back to haunt the citizens of Wendell, mark my words. There is an adage called “Murphy’s Law” that states: "things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance". This apartment complex is Murphy’s Law personified, from a personal safety perspective.

3 – Our concerns over traffic were put aside when Evergreen’s “traffic expert” told us that only 22 vehicles would be leaving the apartment complex in the morning. Wow, that’s good! I was worried that there would be 80 to 90 cars pulling out into the Selma Road traffic jam each morning. I guess he figured each rental apartment would only have 1 car and only 22 out of 90 to 100 adults living there would be going to work or school in the morning. Who knows, maybe he’s right.

4 -One item of concern noticeably absent from the Evergreen attorney’s presentation was: where are the kids who are going to live in this enclave, yes I said enclave, going to play? Perhaps they can jump the fence and put pennies on the railroad tracks to be flattened by passing trains; maybe they can go over to Mr. G’s and buy candy; in the evenings they can hang around Selma Road and watch the traffic go past. Sure sounds like a fun place to live.

This developer of this complex, Evergreen Construction, even before receiving the approval of the town board, had started the financial assistance process with the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency. Point of interest: Mr. Lucius Jones, our former mayor, is Chairman of the Board of Directors of this august body. It is nice to see a Wendell resident elevated to such a prestigious state office.

The name of this project is the “Sandy Ridge Apartments” (Probably named after the owner of the property, Mr. Lucius S. (Sandy) Jones Jr. Looks like Evergreen felt the approval was a slam dunk so they started the paperwork early in the game. Still, maybe Mr. Jones will reconsider the use of his property for a low income apartment complex, and defer to the wishes of the community. Wendell has more than enough inexpensive homes and certainly more than enough rentals, which probably exceed 475 out of the approximately 1900 homes in the town. We need a diversity of housing in this town and that includes more expensive homes and families with greater discretionary income.

Nuff said on this subject. In leaving let me quote from that great literary giant, Yogi Berra, who said “It ain’t over till it’s over”. Profound words indeed!

NBC17 ran a story tonight around 7:30pm about the impact the low-rent, low-income taxpayer subsidized housing project to be located at 46 N. Selma Road will have on our surrounding schools.
It will probably be shown a few more times the next couple of days or click here to view it on their web site.

This article is simply an introduction and explanation of the Revaluation of Property process taking place throughout Wake County. As this process only takes place every 8 years, the Wendell Community Coalition thought it was appropriate to post this timely information so as to avoid confusion and concern among our residents.

In the latter part of this month all property owners in Wake County will receive, by mail, a notice of assessment informing them of their new property value. This will not change your current taxes but in July 2008 you will receive a tax bill based on this new value and the tax rate set by our town commissioners.

As you digest this information, the issue of housing diversity within Wendell and its ETJ, will surely become more relevant. Depending on the financial needs of Wendell in the coming years your property taxes will be greatly impacted by the pricing level of homes in our town. Too many inexpensive homes, as we currently have, will probably require a higher tax rate, while a greater balance between inexpensive and expensive homes will tend to modify any tax increases. More about that in future articles, but now on to the process of Revaluation:

1 - What is revaluation?
Revaluation is the process that matches your tax value with what your property is worth on the market today (the fair market value). It covers all residential and commercial land and structures, like homes, apartments and condos, and office buildings, stores and warehouses. It does not include what is known as “personal property” like cars, boats and airplanes. The values for those are adjusted annually.

2 - Why appraise property?
An appraisal provides a basis for determining a property owner’s share of the taxes that support schools, roads, parks, public health programs, libraries, and police and fire protection. The amount of taxes you pay depends on both your property value and the tax rates set each year by elected county and city/town officials.

3 - Tax Rate Set in Budget.
The tax rate is set by elected officials in the annual budget. Wake County and its 12 municipalities operate on a July 1 - June 30 fiscal year, so the tax rate that will apply to your new property value goes into effect July 1, 2008.

4 - What does “revenue neutral” mean?
You will hear this term used during revaluation, and it often is misunderstood. If the tax rate is set at “revenue neutral,” it does not mean that your taxes will stay the same as the previous year. “Revenue neutral” is a budget term that essentially means that revenues brought in by property taxes in a revaluation year would be about the same as if the revaluation had not taken place.
Generally, the existing tax rate is lowered to offset or “neutralize” the effect of higher property values. If commissioners set the rate higher than this, they are required by law to inform citizens that they have increased taxes.

Again, it does NOT mean that property owners will be paying the same amount in taxes next year as this year. If your property values increased below the average – for instance, around 25-30% -- your taxes would remain about the same next year with a revenue neutral rate. But if your property value increases significantly – around 75% or higher – you will most likely see taxes increase by one-third or more.

SOURCE: Items 1 through 4 were copied directly from the Wakegov.com web site section that deals with tax and property information.

There is a very good article in the N&O today about our local election.

View it at
http://www.newsobserver.com/630/story/763318.html

Congratulations to Mayor Broadwell and Commissioners Baynes and Hinnant.

The voters have spoken and it appears they are saying that now is the time to unite and move our lovely town forward and plan for the growth that is coming.
May we all work better at being proactive instead of reactive.
May we all strive to put our personal preferences aside and do what is truly best for the town as a whole instead of what is best for a few.

Here's a link to an Eastern Wake News report, showing yesterday's election results :

http://www.easternwakenews.com/front/story/1680.html

Let's ALL celebrate the beginning of a new era for our community , where the voices of the Townspeople of Wendell will be heeded in future. They spoke loud and clear yesterday.

A heart-felt "Well Done" to all of the the successful election candidates.

It's our hope that the remaining incumbents who were not at the end of their own terms will work with our new Mayor and the Commissioners elected yesterday to ensure that our town will progress and prosper in the years to come.

This is a time for unity and not division, when Wendell is facing unprecedented, but exciting, growth opportunities.

Good luck to the new Town Board in guiding our century-old town into a 21st century future !

Our very best wishes,

Neil & Eva Dearnley.