Wendell News Outlet

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!