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Friday, 06 April 2012 00:01

Red Liners meet with town board, land owners

Proposed special assessment district property owners Candi and Bud Wilson (left) meet with Mark Briggs, Katherine Henderson and Huntersville Principal Planner Zac Gordon on Tuesday to discuss the Red Line plan.

 

For months, the Red Line Regional Rail Project has been a simmering and, at times, boiling over pot on north Mecklenburg's stove. Monday night, the Huntersville Town Board got a first official taste of the goulash-like details of the plan and the opportunity to examine the complicated and controversial recipe designed to make it palatable.

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Thursday, 05 April 2012 08:18

I-77 project may set new highway building standard

Scenarios 3 and 4 of the possible I-77 widening project involving public-private partnerships include two high-occupancy toll lanes and three general purpose lanes.

Partnering with private enterprise requires out-of-the-box thinking.

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Wednesday, 04 April 2012 07:32

Mary Deem interviewed by WBTV Charlotte about teen suicide and her story in the Lake Norman Citizen

Video courtesy of WBT TV Charlotte - www.wbtv.com

Mary Deem, 19, of Huntersville, wrote an open letter in response to reports that two Lake Norman-area teenaged girls had recently taken their own life.  This story touched many people and led Kristen Hampton of WBTV Charlotte to interview Mary.  The video of that interview, currently on the WBTV web site, is embedded below.

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Friday, 30 March 2012 00:01

'Plank owners' put LNC program on the map

From left, Lake Norman Charter’s Chase Webb, Brad McDonnell, Warren Ghareeb, John Clark, Justin Groody, Matt Wine and Andrew Gobble are the last remaining original team members. Photo by Justin Parker

 

Plank owners.

It's a term that has stuck with Lake Norman Charter lacrosse coach Terry Gobble since he served in the Navy in the early 1990s, and it's one he now applies to a group of players who helped establish LNC's lacrosse program in 2009.

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Friday, 30 March 2012 00:01

Vietnam war

Lake Norman resident Lee Sargent graduated from Harvard University, enlisted in the Marines and served in Vietnam. During the war, as a forward artillery observer he was badly injured and nearly killed. He also believes he is suffering health problems from exposure to Agent Orange. Courtesy Bill Giduz/Davidson College
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Friday, 30 March 2012 00:01

Census makes Statesville part of Charlotte

Census makes Statesville part of Charlotte Also, everything in between, meaning road planning body alphabet soup is about to gain more letters. By Andrew Warfield andreww@lakenormancitizen.com Until now, the area of Statesville and most of Iredell County north of Mooresville has managed to insulate itself from its burgeoning neighbor to the south. Because of its proximity and commonalities, Mooresville has become more assimilated into the Charlotte region, while the 15 miles or so of rural land between there and Statesville has allowed the county seat to stand alone, generally eschewing and casting a suspicious eye toward regional cooperative overtures from its southern neighbors. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, however, Statesville, Mooresville and Troutman are now part of what is identified as the “Charlotte Urbanized Area” (UZA). And while that may be enough to get an Iredell County Commission chairman’s blood boiling, the designation based on 2010 Census data also means there is a strong likelihood that Charlotte could have a limited say in how some highway funds are used in Mooresville and Statesville. Currently, Statesville, Mooresville and Troutman, as well as all of Iredell County, are members of the Lake Norman Rural Planning Organization (RPO), a regional planning authority that prioritizes state and federal roadway projects and recommends those findings to the state’s short-range and long-range Transportation Improvement Plans (TIP). An RPO is essentially the same as a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), which performs the same functions in urbanized areas. The current Mecklenburg-Union MPO, or MUMPO, oversees planning of all of Mecklenburg and the Union County towns of Stallings, Indian Trail, Waxhaw, Wesley Chapel, Wingate and the City of Monroe. All municipalities and unincorporated areas fall into either a regional RPO or MPO, their borders touching but not overlapping. Along with Mooresville and Statesville, the Charlotte UZA — and, thus, likely the MPO — also picks up Marshville, which had been the only Union County municipality not previously included in MUMPO’s planning process. “The Federal Highway Administration (FHA) mandates that in urban areas of a certain size, metropolitan planning organizations be created to ensure that transportation planning occurs in a cooperative, comprehensive and continuing manner (or at least if you want any of their money!),” writes Huntersville Transportation Planner Bill Coxe in an e-mail to Huntersville elected officials, department heads and staff. “MPOs must plan for those areas defined as urban and should plan for those areas anticipated to become urban in the next 20 years.” Coxe is a long-term veteran of MPOs and regional road planning. Before coming to Huntersville in 1998, he spent 23 years on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg planning staff and is the current chairman of the MUMPO Technical Coordinating Committee. That’s the engineering and planning body that makes recommendations to the MPO board, which is made up of one representative from each of the member jurisdictions. Each city, town or county has one representative with voting power, but it isn’t equal power. The votes are weighted by population. On MUMPO, Charlotte has 16 of 39 votes, meaning it usually requires just 20 votes — Charlotte and a few allies — to approve the project list or to make decisions about how to spend the discretionary funds at its disposal. The project to widen Sam Furr Road used $10 million of such funds, federal stimulus money granted to MUMPO via the state. Huntersville has two votes and Davidson and Cornelius one each. Monroe, Matthews, Mint Hill, Mecklenburg County and Union County have two votes. The remaining members, including the North Carolina Transportation board, have one vote each. That voting formula leads to concerns that Charlotte wields too much power when it comes to regional roadway projects because, unless practically every other MUMPO member votes against it, Charlotte gets what it wants. The math will be different after including the potential newest members in the equation, but probably not by much. The process does allow for RPOs and MPOs to cede Census-driven jurisdiction to a neighboring planning organization, providing it wants to take it and, most importantly, if there is one there to take it. There is no other MPO to cede Mooresville and Statesville to, so the two will likely become part of an MPO that would sport a different acronym (IMUMPO?). In the past, MUMPO has ceded parts of Cabarrus and Gaston counties to their respective regional planning bodies, just as has Rock Hill and Fort Mill in South Carolina. Coxe points out that the South Carolina element will likely be revisited given that the urbanized area into South Carolina has expanded. None of it, though, will happen in the near term. First, MUMPO staff will review the data and make recommendations, and then discussions will take place among elected officials. It will be, as Coxe put it, “an interesting year.” “The urban area boundary and commensurate changes in the MPO boundary do not occur until two to three years after the Census is taken,” Coxe writes. “It takes that long for the data to be analyzed and the political agreements to occur. Those agreements are the product of negotiations among the jurisdictions, existing MPOs, and the governors of the affected states.” Iredell County and its three potential member towns aren’t completely subject to Charlotte’s and Mecklenburg’s transportation planning ambitions. Because it’s in a different funding region, its “equity fund” dollars are not controlled by the MPO, and anyone in Iredell inside of the urban area could request “direct attributable” — or discretionary — funds and not be in competition with the Mecklenburg and Union requesters, which Coxe identifies as a possible net benefit for Iredell. Some projects, though, such as those that fall under air quality mitigation projects, are up for MPO-wide competition. And although the finalizing of the MPO’s boundaries is in part political, Coxe says nobody should expect any substantive changes to the Census data pre-determinations. “Many different federal and state agencies use this area boundary definition to assist with administering their programs,” writes Coxe. “I am told that alterations to the defined area are extremely rare.” What to expect from the new MPO Bob Cook, secretary of the Mecklenburg-Union Metropolitan Planning Organization, summarized the findings of the U.S. Census Bureau and its subsequent impact on the region’s transportation planning bodies, as follows: • The Charlotte urbanized area (UZA) which is the starting point for the MPO’s boundary, has increased in population from 758,927 in 2000, to 1,249,442 in 2010, and its land area has increased from 435 square miles to 741 square miles. • The UZA now reaches to north of I-40 in Iredell County, so not only will Mooresville be part of the MPO, so, too, will Troutman and Statesville. One significant impact of this beyond the new members of the TCC and MPO is that the boundary of the Metrolina regional travel demand model (has not until now included) areas north of Troutman. • Eastern Lincoln County, mainly along Lake Norman, is now in the UZA. There are no incorporated municipalities in this area, meaning MPO representation will come from the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners. • The UZA crossed N.C. 16 to take in a small portion of Gaston County. Since the area is currently a part of the Gaston MPO’s jurisdiction, a likely scenario is that MUMPO will relinquish its jurisdiction over this area to the Gaston MPO. • A small portion of Catawba County along N.C. 150 across Lake Norman from Mooresville is in the UZA. Unlike the issue noted above involving Gaston County, there is no functioning MPO in this part of Catawba County, therefore MUMPO may be required to include it in its planning area. • The Charlotte UZA gained and lost territory in Cabarrus County. A likely scenario is that MUMPO will relinquish its jurisdiction here, since Cabarrus County has a functioning MPO. As expected, the UZA now reaches into the Lancaster County panhandle. Also, the UZA’s footprint in York County has expanded. But wait ... The creation of a new metropolitan planning organization that includes Census-driven new members doesn’t require unanimous approval. An MPO must include the center city, in this case, Charlotte, and sufficient jurisdictions to represent 75 percent of the urbanized area (UZA) population. In theory, Charlotte and a few other towns could create an MPO without all jurisdictions agreeing to participate as long as the governor approves it. The MPO would then proceed to plan for the entire UZA as mandated under federal law.

 

Also, everything in between, meaning road planning body alphabet soup is about to gain more letters.

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Friday, 30 March 2012 00:01

News Briefs March 30, 2012

Tyler Murphy got a surprise this week when he opened a garbage can outside his house in the Crown Ridge neighborhood in Huntersville and found a possum sitting atop the trash. “He wasn’t real happy about it,” Murphy says of the moment he lifted the lid. He later left the container open, and the possum eventually left.

River District forms STEM program

The Catawba River District, a regional organization focused on sustainable community and economic development, has formed a strategic partnership with Presbyterian Healthcare and Huber Technology with the goal of supporting the district's STEM (science, technology, engineering and math)education initiative and outdoor learning labs.

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Friday, 30 March 2012 00:01

Davidson term length vote likely in November

 

As if there weren't enough big-ticket items on the ballot for Nov. 6 — when we vote for president, governor, members of congress, county commissioners and other offices — Davidson likely will have its own big-ticket item to add to the slate.

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Friday, 30 March 2012 00:01

There's a hunger for Huntersville man's movie

 

October Baby, the first feature film produced by Huntersville's Cecil Stokes, is on its way to being a March phenomenon.

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Friday, 30 March 2012 00:01

'Trifecta' band battle a foursome in year two

 

The tuneup is underway for north Mecklenburg's second Trifecta "battle of the bands."

The competition and showcase for local musicians will be held Friday, May 11, at Historic Rural Hill in Huntersville and is open to student bands from Hopewell, Hough, North Meck and Lake Norman Charter high schools.

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Wednesday, 28 March 2012 17:59

Revisions could reduce Davidson’s MI-Connection burden

You and a neighbor decide to start a company.

Together, you take out a huge loan, which you plan to pay back through sales of your product. But...

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