A perfect evening and wonderful turn-out for the second community meeting on Thursday night. A big thank you to the staff at St. Matthew Catholic Church for hosting the meeting.
Those who attended, presented a community united in opposition against the Gillespie Rezoning Request. With approximately 300/350 neighbors in attendance their concerns ranged from traffic to eagles.
Several neighbors and the Rea Road Coalition managed to convince both WBTV and WSOC to send out news crews and they did shoot some video, hit some of our talking points and interviewed a couple of concerned citizens.
The news story from WSOC is here.
The report from WBTV is here.
And Queen City News is here.
A report on the meeting was also posting by the Charlotte Ledger which is here.
We appreciate the attendance of Mr. Wesley Davis from North Carolina State Senator Rachel Hunt's office and look forward to continued discussions to address our concerns about the zoning process.
Unfortunately, rather than pass the mike around those in charge of the meeting made everyone line up. At one point it looked like a line for comunion.
Most who lined up to speak were focused on traffic. Unfortunately, that seems to be a lost cause because the traffic study is flawed, and the developer says traffic is not his fault.
Many of those in attendance agreed there’s no common sense to the traffic study and not even a thread of reality. They also agreed that to continue to talk about traffic is the proverbial beating a dead horse.
Tree Canopy concerns were also voiced, but Ed Driggs stated that since Charlotte will grow by 50% in the next ten years any discussion about trees was a waste of time and that is why he voted against the trees.
Someone pointed out that the online petition had more than 10,000 signatures (13,936 to be exact).
One woman was upset to the point of tears that Ed Driggs was focused on racism. However, in defense of Ed, he was talking about housing diversity, not racial diversity. In other words, townhouses apartments versus single-family. It was one of those confusing moments during the meeting. The woman then left the meeting still visibly upset.
At one point Ed Driggs was asked how many of the Developer's team had contributed to his campaign. His answer was "I've heard about this". John Carmichael dismissed the question as not being a big deal and that is was only around $300.00 ($400.00 in 2022 and 2019 the only years we checked). Note the amount is not in question but the intent is. Read our post on Ed Driggs campaign finances here.
Ed Driggs made it clear he’s not going to speak against the developers and he will vote for the project in some form. The general feeling of those gathered was that in the end Mr. Driggs will vote yes and he will claim that it was a compromise and a victory.
Oddly enough Mr. Driggs sent out an email "blast" reminding everyone of the meeting just an hour and 45 minutes before it started.
In the coming weeks we intend to again hold a petition signing at the head of the Four Mile Creek Greenway, contact members of both the Charlotte City Council and the Charlotte Zoning Commision.
If you would be willing to help with the table signing on Saturday October 7th from 9-3 please drop us an email.
Glen and Piper would appreciate your assistance.