Setting the Record Straight
Cary and Apex have demonstrated how little respect they have for those being impacted by their proposed sewage plant.
Kim Fisher, Director of Public Works and Utilities, Town of Cary stated in an email:
"Seems to me New Hill is a zip code, not a community."
Jennifer Robinson scolded the residents of New Hill during the June 23, 2005 Cary Town Council Meeting. This is the meeting where the Cary Town Council voted to condemn the farm in New Hill.
You can listen to her by clicking here. (This recording is approximately 4 minutes long. The relevant portion comes approximately 2 minutes and 15 seconds after the recording starts, then again after approximately 3 minutes.) The recording of the entire meeting is located at: Town of Cary Audio Recordings.
The minutes of the meeting can be read Town of Cary Agenda & Minutes.
The official minutes do not include Jennifer Robinson's unprofessional tirade against
the citizens of New Hill. One can only guess as to why her statements are not included
in the official meeting minutes.
You can read another account of Ms. Robinson's tirade in the News and Observer article.
During the June 23, 2005 Cary Town Council Meeting, Mayor McAlister stated he met with the people of New Hill and answered all their questions. The Mayor is correct that he did meet with 4 people from New Hill, but he knows he did not answer all the questions that came up during the meeting.
Yet, he made this statement anyway. You can listen to the Mayor's comments here. (The Mayor's comment comes about two minutes after the recording starts.)
The recording of the entire meeting is located at: Town of Cary Audio Recordings.
The minutes of the meeting can be read Town of Cary Agenda & Minutes.
Unfortunately, Mayor McALister's statements are not reflected in the printed minutes. Guess the Mayor did not want his statements reflected in the minutes, as he knew his statements were not true.
On or around July 1, 2005 the Apex Mayor and Board of Commissioners stopped responding to letters and emails from the residents of New Hill. Many letters and emails have been written, but we have yet to receive an answer. You can read these letters and emails here or by selecting "Articles, Letters, etc." from the Contents at the left.
Perhaps Apex stopped responding because of the email Leila Goodwin, Water Resources Manager for the Town of Cary wrote in a May 27, 2005 email to the Regional WW Tech Advisory Committee: Bruce Radford (Apex Town Manager); Bill Coleman (Cary Town Manager); David Cooke (Wake County Manager); and Tommy Esqueda (CDM Consultant):
This shows who the Partners think are really important. Cary doesn't care about the people
who are being impacted, but wants to take care of the media.
Or, perhaps the Partner Towns stopped responding because of an email Cary Mayor McAlister sent to each of the towns. We received a copy of the email from Holly Springs Town Manager Carl Dean:
-----Original Message-----From: Carl Dean Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 11:56 AM To: Charles Simmons; John Schifano; Joni Powell; Kendra Stephenson; Stephanie Sudano; Thomas Tillage Subject: FW: Waste Water Treatment Facility Folks- Just received this from Ernie, and I agree with his position. In the future please direct all inquiries to Cary as it relates to the site location of the Western Wake plant, and let me know if additional information is requested from the Council. Thanks- Carl From: Jenn Randall [mailto:jrandall@shlf.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 10:39 AM To: 'rgsears'; Carl Dean; 'Chuck Simmons'; 'Chet VanFossen'; 'Hank Dickson'; 'hamwomble'; 'patwell' Subject: Waste Water Treatment Facility In regard to the recent exchange of emails regarding the New Hill site for the regional waste water treatment facility, I will repeat the comments I made at a recent Town Board meeting. Cary is the lead agency in this project. Representatives of Cary should be the only ones responding to inquiries about this project. It should be quite obvious by now that if representatives of our Town and other Towns involved in the project try to respond to questions about and make comments on this project, discrepancies between what we say and others say will be picked apart by the opposition and only be fuel to feed their fire, even if those discrepancies are minor. It has been my experience in handling a number of environmentally sensitive and inflammatory projects that it is best to have one source of information and comment. Questions regarding our sewer plant expansion and our waste water treatment line are different matters. Those we should speak to as the lead agency. Each elected official can do whatever they want to. But I would respectfully submit and urge that there is only one appropriate response from representatives of Holly Springs regarding this project, which is, “ Cary is the lead agency in this project and any comments should come from representatives of that Town.” Period. Nothing more. As a last point one should consider the obvious. Opponents are not looking for factual responses. They are looking for ways to stop the project. Carl, I would encourage you to direct all staff to have no response other than the above. Elected officials do what you want, but why one would want to get into the middle of this is beyond me.
Not only does Mayor Weatherly not have respect for the people of New Hill, he does not respect one of the Apex Board of Commissioners.
From: Bruce Radford [Bruce.Radford@apexnc.org]
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 2:31 PM
To: new.hill@apexnc.org
Subject: FW: Western Wake Regional Waste Water Treatment Plant location
From: Keith Weatherly [mailto:keith.weatherly@apexnc.org]
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 8:51 AM
To: bruce.radford@apexnc.org
Subject: FW: Western Wake Regional Waste Water Treatment Plant location
Bruce,
Here is another reference to an “ study” about the plant that was discarded.
Please tell me, again, what you think this refers to and how this
misinformation got started. Is it Jensen junk? I will respond to this email after I hear from you, but I want to be
absolutely sure there was no study.
Thanks,
Keith
From: (Name removed for privacy)
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 7:08 PM
To: keith.Weatherly@apexnc.org; billjensen@nc.rr.com;
bryan.gossage@apexnc.org; mike.jones@apexnc.org; dgmeckes@aol.com;
gene.schulze@apexnc.org; Michael.Deaton@apexnc.org
Subject: Western Wake Regional Waste Water Treatment Plant location
Dear Mayor Weatherly and Apex Town Council,
I am a citizen of Apex, and I am concerned about our town’ part in the siting of the Western Wake Regional Waste Water Treatment Facility in New Hill.
The rest of the email can be read here.
The Town of Cary lists their values at: Town of Cary Values In these values, Cary states:
These values were adopted February 23, 1989 by the Town of Cary.
With what we have shown you so far, and will continue to show you, Cary has not:
Wake County Manager David Cooke has gotten involved to support Cary. The Wake County Commissioners are the only elected officials who represent the residents of New Hill. Mr. Cooke says
He also refers to the first meeting he attended in New Hill as "mob commentary".
Initially, the Cary Town Council was going to vote on condemning the farm in New Hill before the public meeting of June 14, 2005. Only at the encouragement of Wake County Manager David Cooke did Cary agree to wait until after the hastily scheduled public meeting at the Apex Fire Station in New Hill. (Read the "mob commentary" email cited above.)