Letters: Beware: Annexation may be in your future

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Beware, county residents: annexation may be in your future
If the citizens who live on the Rowan County side of Kannapolis have not been paying attention, involuntary annexation is beginning to get seriously dangerous to the economic stability of the citizens affected. Yesterday it was just going up a road, now it’s growing into a Vision 2020 plan that threatens the tax burdens on thousands of Rowan County residents. Rockwell has plans to also annex 500-plus residents to keep from losing out on tax revenues that Salisbury could potentially get if the town does not act fast.
What’s next? China Grove protecting its borders? Landis? Kannapolis? Granite Quarry? Cleveland? City against city to see who can get the most tax revenue? It’s time for a change. Support and urge your county commissioners from every county to do what’s right to protect their citizens.
Being involuntarily annexed because of a loophole in a 1959 law does not give cities the right to violate the constitutional rights of its citizens, and North Carolina should rewrite or abolish the law to promote the safe welfare of its citizens throughout the state.
It’s time people stand and protect the rights that the flag stands for, or do we tell our guys and gals overseas that the very essence of what they are dying for is being violated here in the United States, especially in North Carolina? Explain to the six decades of surviving veterans that they gave of themselves to protect o ur freedoms but that the right to choose and question our elected leaders is being taken away?
Please explain this to your children, the elderly on fixed incomes, the new young homeowner trying to survive to this economy, the spouse of a veteran that finds out they have to move out of their home because a city decided that it needed more money.
ó Harry RiveraRowan County
Transportation planning stays way behind need for action
Cabarrus Regional Chamber of Commerce CEO John Cox said that “I’ve said that it may take 20 years to do this….”
Let’s see, where will I be in 20 years?
Perhaps my grandchildren will be carrying my ashes to Charlotte one last time before they move away.
In 20 years, the light-rail commuter line should be a local network throughout the region and North Carolina. Connecting “Uptown,” Douglas International, UNCC, Concord, The Research Center and Salisbury. Then Harrisburg, Mt. Pleasant and Mooresvile to a hub at Concord Mills and from there to an elevated station at LMS. Looking even past that, to Raleigh, Durham, Winston-Salem and the shore.
North Carolina’s growth projection is 4.5 million in 10 years!
The “20 years” concept is brought to you by those of the two-lane I-85, I-77, I-485 planning mind set.
Roads will never catch up.
Let’s get the engineers and planners from Disney to consult our cast of characters in efficient and timely planning.
I have to go now and put $40 of gas into my 4-cylinder, ’01 Nissan to commute and pollute while waiting for the 1 million new people who’ll be here shortly.
Twenty years?
ó John H. Stanley
Kannapolis

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