Village agenda meeting recap

Here is my write-up of yesterday's Village agenda meeting:

The Village of Flat Rock town council met this morning for their regularly scheduled agenda meeting. Because of the feedback from the community on the golf club purchase, and because several residents planned to be at the agenda meeting to make sure this issue got on the agenda for the November 10 regular council meeting, the village council invited Mike Edney, chairman of the Henderson County Board of Commissioners (and the District 1—Flat Rock—representative), Clement Riddle, president of the HCSA, and Sheriff Rick Davis to speak.

Mr. Riddle began by giving a truncated version of the presentation the HCSA gave the county board on Oct. 19 (see link here to that presentation). The emphasis seemed to be that living next to a park only helped property values and upgraded a neighborhood. Of course, it was pointed out that none of his stats had anything to do with living next to a soccer complex.

Sheriff Davis then spoke to the crime issue, explaining how the county patrolled the other county parks since Highland Lake Park (HLP) would be under county law enforcement. Henderson County has three officers to patrol all the county-owned parks. There is the possibility that they could hire an additional officer part-time to help patrol HLP on busy soccer/tournament days. Of course, this is more county money being spent. I thought Sheriff Davis gave a very good, balanced perspective on the crime issue. He could not answer any questions on the traffic public safety issues and said that NCDOT would have to be contacted to get answers for those questions.

Mr. Edney then spoke as to how the deal for the golf course came about. He said the commissioners were approached several months ago when the HCSA alerted them that the golf course was for sale. They have completed no studies on traffic, environment, etc.  The county entered into a written option agreement with the owners on August 26, but did not announce this publicly by advice of lawyers and the owners (??). At the October 19 meeting, when this first was publicly announced, he said the commissioners at that time voted to exercise the option. I am still somewhat confused by what the actual legal status is. At first, Mr. Edney said the county had the option, then he said they had voted to exercise the option, then he said it was a done deal and they actually had exercised the option but they hadn’t closed—very unclear. The bottom line is he considers this a done deal, whether it’s because of legal action or because he wants it to be so, I’m not sure. (If anyone has a clearer picture, please let me know.)

During the questions, several people asked if it were possible to slow down the process, to ask for an extension of the option (the current option agreement says the county must purchase the property prior to December 31, 2011) to give all residents of Henderson County as well as the most affected homeowners time to work on viable plans. Mr. Edney categorically denied any possibility of extending the option, that it was not necessary and wasn’t going to happen. He also dismissed any idea of the county looking at other available property, including working with the town of Fletcher to develop the ArvinMeritor property which was donated expressly for recreation and which has yet to be developed.

The Village Council seemed to imply that they, too, considered this a done deal and didn’t seem too bothered by the fact that they had found out basically along with everyone else that the county had plans for a soccer complex inside the village municipal lines. The next regular Village Council meeting is Thursday, November 10, at 9:30 a.m.