Blogs

This fall, the Orange County Commissioners are scheduled to approve a new Comprehensive Plan; the first such vote in nearly thirty years! If you work, live or own land in Orange County, the Plan affects you; it sets a vision for how the county will develop over the next 20 years. Please take advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the future of Orange County by voicing your interests and concerns to the Orange County Planning Board and County Commissioners.

Once adopted, the new Comprehensive Plan will begin to impact decisions about our tax base, the kind of jobs and housing created in the county, where new development will occur, what that development will look like, and how we will move about the county.

At present two bills related to University airport(s) are proposed in the N.C. General Assembly. One is Apodaca's S1962, which has been discussed at some length on OP, designed to prevent the University from building hangars for AHEC planes at RDU and keep HWA open until another airport is built.

The other, about which I'd heard somewhat less, is H2725, sponsored by Yongue, Insko, Glazier (Primary); Bordsen and Faison -- short title: "UNC Operating/Capital Funds/Airport Auth" -- giving UNC board of governors the power to create and maintain state-level airport authorities.

It's a lengthy, typically intricate bill covering a wide range of requirements, needs, and eventualities (including the right to sue and be sued), as well as the construction of authority commissions (the likely membership of which we can certainly speculate about, given the recent history of lobbyist/advocate presence on committees and commissions related to HWA).