Celebrity isn't everything
Sure, she's a television personality and all, but that didn't help Cindy Farmer fight city hall - or rather the Guilford County Planning Board - Wednesday night. Farmer appears on the Fox 8 (WGHP) morning news as an anchor, according to the station's web site.
Among the cases on the Planning Board's agenda Wednesday was a request to change the legal designation of a piece of property along Alamance Church Road at Southeast School Road. Previously set aside for farm uses, the owners wanted the new designation of limited business.
That designation would allow for a convenience store and other businesses that would serve the neighborhood.
However, the five-acre parcel abuts Alamance Elementary school. (Read the planning staff report on the case here. It's the second item, complete with a map.)
Farmer was among a group of about a dozen neighbors asking the board to reject the plan. They worried that the new businesses would create more traffic in an already congested area and that store patrons might trespass at the school.
"I was reading a story on the news today that Charlotte was the number one city in the state for sprawl," Farmer said, musing that the Greensboro area might be heading in that direction. She gave one of the longest, and most impassioned, presentations of the opponents, calling the potential development a "disaster."
At least five board members were unimpressed. The board voted 5-2 to allow the change, although the request could be reviewed by the Guilford County Commissioners if it is appealed.
A final note: unless they overflow the hearing room at the Old County Courthouse due to a particularly interesting case, Planning Board meetings are shunned usually by television news. But there was one station with a cameraman and a live truck on the scene Wednesday night: Fox 8.
Comments (6)
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Libertarians need to stop complaining and get a job at Fox 8.
Posted on November 12, 2004 10:03 AM
"That designation would allow for a convenience store and other businesses that would serve the neighborhood."
Just curious: Isn't it illegal to sell alcohol next door to a school? Not that all convenience stores sell alcohol, but for most it's their bread and butter. Maybe it's some sort of distance rule or maybe I'm just plain wrong.
Posted on November 12, 2004 8:02 PM
Billy: There's no such restriction in the county zoning code. I believe (because a couple folks have told me so, not because I've gone and seen for myself) that there is such a restriction in the N.C. ABC law and I believe it is based on distance. (It wouldn't be dissimilar to some of the local regulations governing strip clubs and their proximity to schools, churches and whatnot.)
I grew up in Maryland so this whole idea of selling beer in the grocery store (much less the gas station!) seems a bit odd to me.
From the plans I saw, and the section of the county that it's in, my guess is that a little store could do quite well without selling beer or what not.
Posted on November 12, 2004 11:18 PM
I've been at Procter & Gamble pushing 20 years. I took today, this day off on vacation. I had the privelege of watching FOX 8 this morning. I was inspired by your broadcast and how Cindy
Farmer tied it all together, she is local, for her to say Goobers on the air, makes me realize that I'am in tuned for my beliefs in the South. We are literate, I understand the words coming from her mouth.
Posted on May 17, 2007 10:20 AM
I've been at Procter & Gamble pushing 20 years. I took today, this day off on vacation. I had the privelege of watching FOX 8 this morning. I was inspired by your broadcast and how Cindy
Farmer tied it all together, she is local, for her to say Goobers on the air, makes me realize that I'am in tuned for my beliefs in the South. We are literate, I understand the words coming from her mouth.
Posted on May 17, 2007 10:20 AM
I've been at Procter & Gamble pushing 20 years. I took today, this day off on vacation. I had the privelege of watching FOX 8 this morning. I was inspired by your broadcast and how Cindy
Farmer tied it all together, she is local, for her to say Goobers on the air, makes me realize that I'am in tuned for my beliefs in the South. We are literate, I understand the words coming from her mouth.
Posted on May 17, 2007 10:20 AM