On 11/28, the Orange County Board of Commissioners voted 6 to 1 that it was appropriate to close off all three roads with 6 ft tall chain link fences across them despite the facts presented. Our commissioner asked for a gate to go in the fence on the middle road, E. Kaley, for pedestrian access. She requested for the gate to go on Kaley in her motion, so that kids weren’t walking around the backs of buildings. That just shows that she doesn’t even know what our neighborhood looks like. The area she’s talking about is tree-lined with sidewalks and a white picket fence with entry ways to the apartments on both sides of the buildings. She did not include sidewalks in her motion.

So, essentially, if this goes through, we’re going to have prison-style fencing, then all pedestrians will be funneled to the center without any sidewalks to support safe access. This isn’t practical, safe, or visually appealing.

For people with dogs, parents with strollers, and active community members, that means none of us can walk around the block without going over to Curry Ford with 20+ business driveways, high speed cars, and 5 lanes of traffic. Additionally, now we all have to walk in the street down one road to get through to the other side.

The county shouldn’t be bending current standards that support open community to appease a minority of racist and classist people, while also taking almost 4 million dollars from Vision Zero to protect the most vulnerable of travelers. The mayor himself spoke to how safe our neighborhood is and the county has confirmed the lack of crimes since the walkways have been open, so any justification should be void.

What message does that fencing send to the people on the other side?

In a post-COVID society, all the elderly people in our community having to touch that gate with all the colds that go around schools seems irresponsible. Kids having to stop their bike after going down an 8” curb, then open a gate and try to get through while wearing backpacks—it’s inconvenient at best. 

I was hoping the county would recognize the NFPA code violations listed on our petition and that were also emailed to them. That after they recognized that these fences were never authorized, they would do what they tell residents to do with unauthorized structures that violate code—bring them up to spec, pay the fees, and/or take them down. I was hopeful that they would give us sidewalks, so we could travel safer as pedestrians.

None of this seems ADA compliant.

It’s wild that citizens will be paying to take away our recreational freedom and to jeopardize our personal safety in times of emergency by reinstalling a series of fences which violate code.

I am trying to get them to change their mind. Your support would be greatly appreciated.