Thursday, April 1, 2010

No sunshine when it comes to Graylyn

We continue to have serious questions about the ethics surrounding the Graylyn issue

What we know:
DOT was somehow able to prioritize paving this short, dead-end road with few residents--thus eliminating the roadside parking and greatly restricting access at this point even to neighbors living close to this entrance but not directly on Graylyn.

One of these residents at the Graylyn entrance, Sam Greenway, not only serves on the Umstead Park Advisory Committee but also utilized his position as part of the PAC to effectively persuade the others to eliminate prior plans for parking at Graylyn from the draft of the General Management Plan in a PAC meeting on 11/14/07. Of course, one of the recurrent concerns brought up was security. We attended PAC meetings where Mr Greenway made sure his statement of finding "condoms and needles" at Graylyn repeatedly made its way into the PAC meeting minutes. We also attended a meeting with Rep. Weiss where Billy Totten, former regional superintendent, added to the theatrics by indicating they did not want anything similar to the Eve Carson situation to happen at Umstead. We understand that security can be a valid concern. But based on our own experiences and in talking with others, while we saw people use poor judgment in selecting places to park at times of high demand, we NEVER, EVER observed evidence of illicit,illegal or threatening activity. We once observed beer bottles and remains of fireworks that we assumed were left from neighborhood teenagers. We attempted to learn the truth about the security issue at Graylyn to learn whether these concerns were valid or.... Paul requested the incident data from Carol Tingley, Chief of Natural Resource and Regional Planning, on 12/9/09 and has never heard back from her.

Another PAC member repeatedly made statements about the "uproar" from public meetings eons ago when the issue of having Graylyn as the main entrance was discussed. We note this was a very separate issue that had occurred in the remote past--and does not seem to have any bearing on being able to access the park from Graylyn. The current issue did not involve Graylyn as a main entrance--only continued use of it as an access for more than a select few. Ironically, NC Parks chose to ignore the current "uproar" of the petitioners and conveniently dismissed the majority opinion of their own survey of public opinion when making their decision about Graylyn. As NC Parks opted for their original plans, we believe all they did was allowed all of us to speak--but had no intention of listening. We find their decision both fiscally and environmentally irresponsible. Most parks are trying to reverse the adverse impact of increased vehicular traffic and NC Parks' decision only increases it by having cars come into the park rather than access it from the perimeter.

Also, effectively their decision gave the park superintendent and Mr Greenway private entrances to the park.

Is this how government is supposed to work?