What’s in a name?
Choice for new road leaves neighbors, commissioners flabbergasted

BY JESSIE BURCHETTE
SALISBURY POST

There were folks embroiled in a dispute — a pregnant young lady, an anguished mom with her small child on her hip, and a distinguished-looking man trying to stay above the fray.

There were tales of somebody being done wrong and a few sobs and a story of how hopes for Happy Valley were quickly sinking into the muck — Muddy Acres that is.

It was one of those routine and usually brief public hearings on naming a road.

Earlier this week, Rowan County Commissioners had just navigated through a hearing on a supercross bike track and thought they were in the clear.

Before it was over, commissioners appeared flabbergasted.

The petition was simple.

Kimberly E. Davis, one of four property owners on a new private road, wanted to name the road Muddy Acres.

She failed to get the three signatures needed.

A nearly 40-acre tract has been broken into four separate 10-acre tracts that use a private road off Wildwood Road, north of Salisbury.

County planners said anyone wanting a permit has to have an address.

Davis said she was willing to accept about anything, and somebody suggested Muddy Acres.

She failed to get the other property owners to sign the petition.

Two of those property owners showed up at the hearing.

“I don’t want to live on Muddy Acres Road,” said Barry Dyson. He said he would agree to a name other than Muddy Acres.

Asked for his suggestion, Dyson had a quick reply, “I’d name it Dyson Road.”

Carrying her small daughter, Selena, Patricia Cromwell came to the microphone.

“Muddy Acres is demeaning,” sobbed Cromwell, while her daughter made noises into the adjacent microphone.

Cromwell said she had the idea to buy and subdivide the land, and she wanted a happy community to raise a family.

She suggested “Selena Lane.”

County staffers pointed out that policy does not allow roads to be named for people.

“How about Butterfly Lane?” asked County Manager Tim Russell, eliciting a few groans from commissioners.

Russell recalled an effort several years ago to rename either Upper Palmer or Lower Palmer Road. With a room jammed with residents, the county computer spit out suggestions for a new road name.

The first suggestion was Butterfly Lane.

Russell said that name made everybody mad.

None of the “Muddy Acres” group was wild about Butterfly Lane either.

One commissioner made the mistake of asking a question.

Several minutes later, Cohen stopped the narrative of how the land transaction came about.

“We don’t care,” he declared.

Commissioners rejected the Muddy Acres petition and advised the group to agree on a name by the next month.

Cohen said that they’ll get 10 minutes at that meeting.

If that’s not enough, Cohen added, We have three pair of boxing gloves in the back.”