Evaluating the WWP concessions

OK, now that a little bit of time has passed and the passions have somewhat cooled, let's take a look at what our GOP commissioner majority got from WWP in exchange for permission to run a treated wastewater pipe through Chatham County.  First of all, here is commissioner chair Brian Bock's take on it.


Involuntary Annexation

Probably the flagship concession in many peoples' eyes is an agreement from Cary and Apex to refrain from involuntary annexation into Chatham County.  Paul Stam will be introducing a local bill to make this agreement mandatory but these municipalities have also agreed to enter into a 20 year inter-local agreement to refrain from this type of annexation.  As Brian Bock explained it to me and on his website, the inter-local agreement is for backup in case the bill does not pass the legislature, and the bill makes the inter-local agreement binding at the state level.

How significant is this?  Well it's definitely something.  The fact that neither Cary nor Apex has previously involuntarily annexed into Chatham County, and that Cary has a sort-of-but-not-really policy of not doing involuntary annexations may diminish it a bit but not completely.

First of all, as every investment advisor or securities salesman has ever told us, past results are not necessarily indicative of future returns, and you have to look at Cary's involuntary annexation record in that light.  After all Cary could have 100% turnover on its town council over the next four years, and the new guys could decide to become aggressive annexers.   And also, despite trying to present a benign face to the world on annexation, Cary does do involuntary annexations, or a least has attempted to, in the past and been stopped only by the actions of another town,  and Cary continues to make statements implying they will try again in the future.    Also Cary has a comprehensive annexation program that they maintain which was last updated in February 2010, which explicitly keeps open the possibility of involuntary annexations in the future.

However it is worth noting from the Cary annexation plan map that no areas in Chatham County are included, so involuntary annexation by Cary was not an immediate threat to any Chatham County property owner.  However as Cary grows into Chatham County through voluntary annexations, so-called donut holes would be created, and those are the types of areas that Cary likes to target for involuntary annexation, as you can see from their map linked above, and from the town's past statements on the matter.

So this concession is something and Bock & Co.deserve credit for getting.  It closes off the threat of a possible long-term side effect from voluntary annexations.  It's a distant threat and a theoretical one, but the agreement preventing it was something worth getting.

What about voluntary annexation?

Voluntary annexation is where the commissioners GOP majority and their opponents differ strongly.  The previous board of commissioners and many of their supporters, especially the ones who live in the area most affected by Cary's growth into Chatham County, also wanted a rule that would require Cary to get Chatham's permission for voluntary annexations into Chatham County.  But not only was this never on the table, but even if Cary offered it Bock would have turned it down.  We have to be clear on this:  The Board's Republican majority never would have accepted, much less sought, this concession.  It goes against their basic philosophy.

The differing views on this offer an excellent window into the different views of each side on growth and planning issues.

To the Republicans, voluntary annexation is simply property rights.  Philosophically they believe that a property owner should be able to seek annexation into the Town of Cary if they choose, since doing so provides an opportunity for water, sewer, and other infrastructure on the annexed property which enables much denser, intense, and lucrative development.

Now in the arguments over this the Republicans often invoke the specter of the small property owner with a failing well and/or septic system who simply wants to join the town to get the basic infrastructure they need to keep their home livable.  And Cary does do annexations for this purpose on occasion.  But that is a red herring.  Commissioners of either party or political philosophy would have not a problem giving annexation permission for such small, one-off emergency annexations (remember what was sought was a requirement that Chatham give permission for these annexations, not an outright ban), especially since they don't change the existing land use in place.

The real interest behind the Republican support for unlimited voluntary annexation is large developers who want to develop property more densely and intensely and profitably than it would otherwise support.  For example the developers of Amberly and Cary Park.   Note I didn't say "their property" because usually these developers only purchase an option to purchase the land, then pursue annexation and only complete the purchase if they get the annexation.  This allows them to use the existing property owner, usually but not always a Chathamite who obviously wants to complete the sale, as a front to make the annexation look local and friendly.

What's so bad about that? 

So how could Democrats oppose something as seemingly benign as voluntary annexation?  Well because they don't see it as benign.  They see it as a way to get around Chatham County's own land use planning.  After all if a property is annexed into Cary, all the land use planning and permitting comes under Cary's jurisdiction, not Chatham's.  As a point of reference on this, Cary considers three homes per acre to be "low density" development, a definition I doubt many Chathamites would agree with.

So consider a scenario in which a developer wants to put a particularly noxious and intense development right in the Jordan Lake watershed.  It may not even be residential, it could be for example an industrial use or a bar like the Goldston Sports Arena, or a go-kart track like Frankie's Fun Park or Adventure Landing  (whose Raleigh location has sparked complaints from nearby neighborhoods over late night noise for years). Chatham County could deny the rezoning for this but if the property owner can then turn around and request annexation from Cary and get that permission anyway, Chatham would have to take it and the problems it would bring.

Would Cary do such a thing?  Well Cary would benefit from the tax revenue of the development (as would Chatham) without upsetting its own voters since most of those disturbed would be Chatham citizens and neighbors who aren't in Cary, and therefore aren't Cary voters.

This is one of the reasons why the previous Chatham Commissioners wanted a joint land use plan to be worked out with Cary before they gave permission for this pipe, and also why they wanted to have a say in Cary's annexations into Chatham County, including the voluntary ones.  It was to protect the Chatham citizens who would be affected but would otherwise have no say in what happens around them.  Republicans dismiss this concern out of hand, and they have a name for citizens having no say in what happens around them: property rights.

$500,000 for Moncure

Another concession being touted by Bock and his internet campaigners is an agreement by WWP to give $500,000 for improvements to the Sprott Center in Moncure.

First of all, Bock absolutely had to get this concession because New Hill, an unincorporated town with no commissioners or elected representatives to speak for them, was able to get this same concession.  So there's no way Bock could have said he was looking out for his citizens if he couldn't get at least what New Hill got.  (It's worth noting that New Hill also got sewer service from WWP for 36 properties, a concession Bock did not get for Chatham).

I consider this mainly a token concession, as $500,000 is less than 0.2% of the $327  million (for now) WWP project and the WWP were obviously willing to throw this amount around to silence opposition.  What's more interesting about this concession is the information that came out later about it, which illustrates how eager the GOP commissioners were to approve this plant and approve it now.

Oops

Two days after the commissioners' vote, the Independent reported that the $500,000 may not be usable for its intended purpose because the Sprott Center is owned by a church.  Bock's response to that discovery, as quoted in the Independent,  was  that there wasn't enough time to get all the information to properly vet this.

I don't know about you but if I made a deal of this magnitude, affecting this many people, I would do due dilligence on all aspects of it.   Unless of course I was planning to vote yes anyway and didn't actually care about the concession, and just saw it as icing on the cake,  or simply a token to give me a fig leaf cover for voting to deliver Moncure property owners into the tender arms of the WWP and their eminent domain powers.

In fact I emailed Brian Bock a few days before the vote urging him to take the time to completely vet any last minute deals or concessions before voting (I did not know about this concession) and to make sure they are properly ratified.  The Friday before the Monday vote he responded to me that he would not be delaying the vote, because he felt the impending deadline made people negotiate better and get it done.  There is some sense to that, except of course sometimes in rushing to get something done in time for an arbitrary deadline,  important things are missed or done sloppily. But really, I think  Bock would have voted for this pipe, $500,000 or no $500,000, so it probably wasn't important enough to vet out like it appears he did on the annexation concession.

Now two other points about the above paragraph in Bock's defense.  Brian Bock deserves credit and kudos for engaging with  his opponents, giving their emails that disagree with him a serious and personal response.  I know I'm not the only person he has engaged with in this way.   And the $500,000 hasn't disappeared.  It will now be up to the commissioners to decide how to use it to fund improvements in  Moncure.  You know, the commissioners who didn't listen to Moncure in making this vote in the first place.  Hopefully the $500,000 will be handled differently.

Tap into the pipe

The last concession is one from the original list that that I commented on before, permission to tap into the pipe in the future.  Not much has changed on this since my first comment, so there's no need to repeat it all here except to say that Chatham will likely never make use of it since we would have to build our own unaffordable sewer plant to do so.  So this one really doesn't count for anything in my opinion.  In fact Brian Bock may agree with me on this because he didn't even mention it in his own blog post on his vote.

What should they have got?

It's fair to ask what concessions I would have sought if I were in Brian Bock's place.  In addition to what was obtained, I would have wanted to see:

1. The same agreement on voluntary annexation  that was made on involuntary annexation
2. WWP agreement to treat raw sewage from Chatham at their plant, under their existing state allocation.  After all, even New Hill got sewage treatment for 36 properties in their agreement with WWP!  The Moncure industrial area is geographically well positioned to benefit from from such a concession.  I don't know how much I would ask for, but the plant overall will eventually treat 57 mgd of raw sewage, so 3 mgd for Chatham usage would be about 5% of that and doesn't seem out of line to me.
3. Explicit protection for the affected landowners.  One thing that stands out among all the talk from the GOP about how they protected the Moncure land owners by voting against them, is that there were really no concessions for them in the end. I would suggest requiring WWP to agree to use the 2009 tax value (plus any improvements) when valuing property and to make property owners whole, for example paying for sophisticated septic systems and replacement wells for landowners whose perk fields and/or wells will be destroyed, and paying 2007 market value for any timber removed rather than requiring the landowners to timber the affected land themselves (at today's depressed market values) to get that value.  There may be other things, I would take my cue here from the affected landowners. 

Conclusion

As I said earlier, the concession on voluntary annexation was never going to happen with pro-development Republican commissioners.  They had no interest in it.  The involuntary annexation concession they got is significant and will satisfy their supporters, and should be appreciated by others as well.  However,  without the accompanying voluntary annexation concession it won't be enough to satisfy anyone else in my opinion, but we should recognize the significance of what they did get here.  It's not nothing. It is something, and it's significant.

I don't know if they sought the raw sewage treatment concession and were rebuffed or never sought it.  Many people besides me suggested it so it's not like the suggestion wasn't out there. However that may have been something that actually would have cost the WWP and been truly significant, and they wouldn't give this one unless they absolutely had to.  In my opinion, WWP knew they were negotiating with a friendly partner who fully intended to give them what they wanted and was mainly just looking for political cover to do so, so there was no need for them to consider a concession this significant, and both they and Brian Bock knew that.  I'm guessing it never came up except maybe as a token gesture.

In the end Brian Bock got exactly what he wanted -- political cover.  He got enough to be able to say that he was fighting for Chatham's interests, and something his supporters can work to sell and rah-rah over, but nothing that actually would have any effect on the effects of the pipeline on Moncure, the  pace of development in Cary, Apex, or Chatham County, or cost the WWP anything significant.     It was a win for him.

A Sometimes-insider’s History of the Chatham Coalition, parts of which may even be true. Part 3: The 2004 election

(note: if you are coming into this series in the middle, please at least read the introduction to clarify the level of journalism or not as opposed to storytelling, that is contained herein)

For the 2004 election cycle the Coalition did not recruit candidates. By the time the Coalition was formally founded and off the ground, there were already multiple candidates in the Democratic primary. In district 1 the candidates were Patrick Barnes from Chatham County United (CCU), Ron Singleton, an engineer, and Uva Holland, a former commissioner and friend and ally of Bunkey Morgan.  In district 2 there was Mike Cross from the Southeast Chatham Citizens Advisory Committee (SECCAC), former Pittsboro Mayor Mary Wallace who was clearly the candidate of the development community, and Barry Gray, an African American minister and sort of a wild card in the race.

So in the 2004 race the Coalition decided to endorse an already-filed candidate.  They sent out questionnaires, which some candidates declined to fill out and from those the Coalition picked their candidates, and they chose Barnes and Cross. 

The Cross campaign (which I was co-managing with David LeGrys) and Barnes campaign (which Barbara Ford and Larry Hicks were running) were grateful and appreciative of the support and help of the Coalition.   However we were not part of the Coalition.  We kept separate campaign teams and worked with them, but were by no means a merged team. 

Some fissures form

In fact there was tension between Mike Cross’s campaign and the Coalition several times during the 2004 campaign.   These stemmed in large part from two things: the Cross campaign team’s belief that we knew what we were doing (David LeGrys had managed several winning campaigns in Chatham County before, including all of Margaret Pollard’s campaigns) so while we are happy to have the Coalition’s help we didn’t need them to tell us what to do, and Mike Cross’s personal unwillingness to sign on to some of the materials and slogans the Coalition was putting out. 

The bottom line is that Mike Cross was more moderate and some of the attacks and slogans he was being asked to sign onto made him uncomfortable, not only politically but also personally and in some cases he refused which caused tension.

One example that is illustrative of this occasional conflict between Mike Cross and the Coalition came late in the general election campaign.  The Coalition had dug up some old dirt on Mike’s Republican opponent.  A member of the Coalition steering committee (the only reason I don’t name the member is I don’t know exactly who)  brought this information to Mike and asked him “what should we do with this information.”  Mike’s response was “forget you ever saw it.”  The information was old, irrelevant to the campaign or the office of commissioner, we were confident we would win without it, and Mike felt it would just make him look dirty to use it.   The Coalition and Mike vehemently disagreed on this point and neither refused to budge.  In the end Mike’s campaign did not use the information, but the Coalition leaked it anyway, which completely pissed off Mike because he figured he would be blamed for the information being used.

Mike Cross also wanted to campaign in Western Chatham County, but the Coalition thought that was a waste of effort (a theme that would come to define the Coalition over time).  There were many disagreements and arguments along these lines but in the end we all worked together reasonably well. 

They knew what they were doing

The Coalition had excellent organizational and fundraising skills and a lot of people willing to work with and donate to them.  They were committed to grass roots campaigning and had the widespread support and pool of volunteers to make that happen.   Every weekend dozens of people knocked on doors and canvassed county events on behalf of the Chatham Coalition in support of Cross and Barnes, and their fundraising parties were huge events drawing dozens to hundreds of people to hear local music, book readings from local authors, and to support progressive politics in Chatham County.

The Coalition was also very good with data. Armed with printouts of registered Democrats and Independents in the county who were either newly registered or had a history of voting regularly in Democratic primaries, we would meet at the General Store Café, divide up canvassing assignments over breakfast, and then go out and spend the day campaigning. It was an asset any campaign would love to have.   And against it, the situation was reversed from 2002 – the other side didn’t stand a chance. 

Pushback

As the effectiveness of the Coalition was becoming apparent, the other side in desperation started attacking the Coalition, focusing on Jeffery Starkweather.  Many of Mary Wallace's and Andy Wilkie's supporters took to calling it the "Jeffery Starkweather coalition" and some of them even tried to claim he was a communist, a charge he effectively shut down as discussed in the previous entry of this series. These attacks didn't get much traction, but over the years it's a tactic that the other side never let up on.

The result

Combining the effectiveness of the Coalition with the expertise and experience of David LeGrys and Larry Hicks and others on the campaign teams, Mike Cross and Patrick Barnes won their 3-way Democratic primaries with over 50% of the vote each, and Mike Cross won the general election by 1400 votes (Patrick Barnes did not have a Republican opponent).

The Coalition also endorsed candidates in the school board election, who also all swept into office, winning over 60% of the votes in their races.   This Chatham Journal editorial by Chatham Coalition steering committee member Roland McReynolds captures the feeling of the time.

In its debut campaign, the Coalition had run the table and was starting to look like an unstoppable force. 

Western Wake Partners -- what is the choice really?

It's pretty apparent that the fix is in and our GOP board majority will be voting to give the Western Wake Partners the green light to run a sewer discharge pipe from its proposed New Hill regional sewage treatment plant to the Cape Fear River through southeastern Chatham County.

The signs that tell us this are the FAQ on the county's website and the hard work being done online by Tom Glendenning, Donna Kelly,  and other Bock campaign team members on the Chatham Chatlist and Gene's Chatham Online BBS to lay the groundwork with an online campaign designed to make people think that the WWP pipe would be good for Chatham, plus if we don't do it the state will make us do it anyway.

This blog post focuses on the latter argument. The argument being sold by Bock's online campaign team is that if the commissioners say Yes, we get the pipeline with the concessions from WWP/Cary as outlined in the county's FAQ. But if they say no, the state will make us do it anyway, and we won't get any concessions.

Concessions? What Concessions?

The problem with that argument is that WWP/Cary has in fact put no real concessions on the table.  The key "concession" being offered is a possible, maybe, if they feel like letting us, opportunity to tap into the discharge pipe.  People who are pushing this pipe often claim that it would help infrastructure and economic development, but they gloss over the fact that it's a discharge pipe for treated wastewater, not raw sewage.

That means that Chatham is not being offered any sewer treatment capability.  In order to tap in to the treated water discharge pipe, Chatham would have to treat the water first.  That would require it to build its own wastewater plant and sewer infrastructure, and then we could put the output of that infrastructure into this pipe.  That is unaffordable and won't happen, so this "concession" means nothing.

Another featured concession is Cary's promise to come up with a "rescue plan" for Chathamites near its annexation area with failing well and septic systems.  But this isn't a concession, it's business as usual for Cary, which routinely provides this "rescue plan" in Wake County already.  The rescue plan is this: if you have a failing system, Cary will hook you up to their system, but you have to pay the full tap-on fees and agree to be annexed into the town.  (I used to live in Cary and attended many town council meetings in which this plan was implemented for Wake County homeowners)

The other concessions mentioned in the FAQ are too minor to bother with, or are things WWP would likely have to do anyway.

If you don't want to, we'll make you do it

I also don't accept the argument that if the state passes a legislative bill forcing  Chatham to take the pipe, Chatham will get no concessions.  Legislation is a messy process of negotiation and also CYA, with lots of interests represented, including Chatham County and other rural areas that are wary of urban power in the state legislature.  In other words, Paul Stam, who has been represented as the person who will put this bill through,  is 1 vote out of 120 votes in the state house.  Add in the entire Wake County delegation (some of whom don't represent areas served by WWP) and it's up to  9 out of 120 in the state house and 4 out of 50 in the state senate.

There is a good chance that if our Republican legislature, which campaigned on favoring property rights and curbing municipal power in annexation matters, is going to go against its stated agenda to screw Chatham County and its southeastern property owners, they would put concessions to Chatham in the bill to give themselves political cover for their betrayal of principles.  They may also have to do this to get the support of other rural legislators who aren't inclined to help an urban county railroad a rural one, because Wake County does not have a majority in the legislature and will need help to pass such a bill.  And in that case the concessions would be written into state law, instead of just being an informal agreement may or may not be honored.

What they want you to think the choice is

So Bock's online campaigners are trying to portray this as a choice between these two alternatives:

1. Vote yes to WWP and get concessions from WWP
2. Vote no to WWP and be forced by the state to take the pipe with no concessions from WWP

With the assumption that under alternative 1, the county at least gets something.  The problem with this is that it's a false alternative predicated on the idea that WWP is actually offering meaningful concessions, which it is not, and that state legislation would have no concessions to Chatham, which is not a sure thing.   This set of fake alternatives is being sold to us to give political cover to developer-friendly Chatham County commissioners who plan to green light this project.

What the choice really is

The real alternatives are:

1. Vote yes to WWP and get no meaningful concessions from WWP
2. Vote no to WWP and be forced by the state to take the pipe, with concessions that could range from none, to almost none (which is what is being offered now),  to more than is being offered now 

You may ask, what's the real difference between 1 and 2 above if either one may yield no concessions, especially if the state law doesn't give any concessions to Chatham?

My answer to that is with alternative 2 Chatham County commissioners listen to and stand up for Chatham Citizens.  With alternative 1 they listen to and stand up for Western Wake Partners and by extension the Cary and Apex developers who will benefit from the expanded sewer capacity that WWP brings.

A Sometimes-insider’s History of the Chatham Coalition, parts of which may even be true. Part 2: 2003, Casting about in the Wilderness

(note: if you are coming into this series in the middle, please at least read the introduction to clarify the level of journalism or not as opposed to storytelling, that is contained herein)

Shortly after the 2002 election a big meeting was held at Lynn and Rich Hayes’ house to discuss what to do next.  Lots of people where there, many of whom I was meeting for the first time.  It was decided that what had happened was terrible and we needed to never be caught napping again but no real specific actions came out of that meeting that I remember.

Bunkey’s election definitely galvanized the community.  At first there was some hopefulness that his BOC wouldn’t be as bad as we feared. A bunch of us who had worked on the progressive campaigns went to meet Tommy Emerson.  He received us at his house and spoke reassuringly, telling us Bunkey’s people weren’t his people and he would listen to citizens. 

Margaret Pollard was at the meeting at the Hayes home and also expressed the sentiment that Bunkey wouldn’t be “that bad.”.  But it didn’t take long for it to become apparent that optimism was misplaced.  Bunkey had been put there by his developer supporters for one purpose, and he intended to fulfill it. Despite what he told us at his house, I can’t recall Emerson ever disagreeing with or voting against Bunkey in his entire tenure, and Outz just quietly went along with whatever Bunkey wanted.

Initially just liberals and progressives were galvanized but then as the extreme pro-development nature of Bunkey’s board became apparent, more moderates were drawn in as well.  There were noisy, well-attended demonstrations held at commissioner’s meetings urging them to be careful with growth and consider all the factors, but these were all ignored.  In fact Tommy Emerson, the chair of the commissioners the first year, seemed to resent that citizens would have the nerve to question him, an attitude that also helped fuel opposition to that board that would spread wider than just the liberal and progressive community (and ironically that’s an attitude that George Lucier would later be accused of also cultivating).  By the end of the first year Bunkey replaced Emerson as chair but Emerson continued railing against citizens who were rude enough to speak out against what they were doing.  

Grass roots green shoots

Another thing that was happening was that citizens’ organizations were being formed.  Chatham County United (CCU) was mainly formed to fight Cary annexation into northeastern Chatham, and the Southeast Chatham Citizens Advisory Committee (SECCAC) was an outgrowth of work to stop a regional landfill in Moncure in 2000. Also Chatham Citizens for Effective Communities (CCEC) formed around general growth issues in Chatham County.   There may have been a few other groups formed around specific issues during this time, but I can’t remember specifically who they all were.  

These groups worked on their individual issues and each had different outlooks and main directions, and there was no real coordination between them.  Over the next year or so two commissioner candidates emerged from these groups for the 2004 election: Patrick Barnes from Chatham County United, and Mike Cross from the Southeast Chatham group.  These candidates came more or less organically out of these groups, and had made the decision to run by late 2003.

Jeffery and company to the rescue

The Chatham Coalition was being formed at about this time as well under the leadership of Jeffrey Starkweather and others.  I would later learn that Jeffery had a long history of political activism in Chatham, dating back at least to when the Fearrington development was being proposed and planned,  and had also owned a newspaper in the county.  However, Jeffery was a new face to me and many others who had worked on the 2002 campaign because he had been relatively dormant for the past few years, but his reputation preceded him with long-time county developers and regressive forces in the county who had butted heads with him in the past.   

Many of them had a viscerally negative reaction to him because of these past battles that I and my compatriots hadn’t been here for, and we couldn’t quite understand why they hated him so much except we figured they were just concerned that he was building a progressive political machine that would challenge their dominance of county politics.  The attacks against him were pretty vicious, including accusations that he had been a member of the Communist Party, and the usual “not one of us” right-wing culture war crap. 

These attacks, of course only served to make him a more sympathetic and popular figure with most liberals and moderates, especially when Jeffery convincingly refuted them.  He did this by reminding them that he had owned a newspaper and had therefore been a business owner, and as a reporter for his paper had attended meetings of all kinds of groups, including not only the Communists, but also the KKK and surely they wouldn’t say he was a member of that organization.  It was the first time someone had refuted the right-wing haters in a way that actually shut them up (for a while anyway, and a lot of us think it was partially because by reminding them he had attended KKK meetings as a reporter, he was also reminding them that he knew who else had been there), and earned him immense respect from the progressives and moderates in the county.

As the Coalition was being formed and the campaign teams and organizations were becoming familiar with new (to us) faces like Jeffrey Starkweather, Jan Nichols, John Hammond, and Roland McReynolds, it looked like the Coalition was exactly what we would need: a political  machine of our own to counter the developers’ machine, and their formation was widely and enthusiastically welcomed by the progressive community and increasing numbers of  moderates as well who were despairing at the excesses of the Bunkey BOC.

Who was the Coalition, really?

The Chatham Coalition was organized as a PAC, and its stated purpose was to tie together the various citizens’ groups that already existed and help them coordinate their efforts towards electing more responsive county leaders.  It wasn’t at first intended to supplant these other groups but to provide an umbrella to help them work together, and an officially registered  channel to organize and fundraise for overt political activity.   However over a short time the Coalition eclipsed these groups in county politics. 

My opinion of why that happened is simply that the members of those original groups who were most dedicated to direct political action migrated to the Coalition because what it wanted to do better matched what they wanted to do.  As these people migrated between groups, when the dust settled CCEC evolved to more of an educational and informational organization (running a citizens academy for example), and SECCAC evolved to a mostly nonpolitical regional organization mainly dedicated to keeping people in Southeast Chatham connected and informed.  CCU probably had the most members move to the coalition and stayed more political but was mostly eclipsed by the Coalition.

As the coalition was forming and it was becoming clear that there were some smart, formidable and savvy people leading and running it, and many others flocking to it to help, it was clear it was becoming a formidable force for the 2004 election.  The thought most of us had about them was: thank goodness, too bad you weren’t around for the 2002 election, because we sure could have used your help then.

A Sometimes-insider’s History of the Chatham Coalition, parts of which may even be true. Part 1: 2002, A Desperate Need

(note: if you are coming into this series in the middle, please at least read the introduction to clarify the level of journalism or not as opposed to storytelling, that is contained herein)

In 2002 I was working on Gary Phillips’ re-election campaign and David LeGrys’ campaign for commissioner.  It was my first significant immersion into Chatham County politics after moving here from Cary in 1999. 

There was a core of us who did most of the grass roots work on David and Gary’s campaign.  I will probably leave some names off for which I apologize but I remember most of the work being done by myself, Will Sexton, Nancy Brown (who officially challenged Bunkey’s residency in district 4), Bruce Alexander, Mark Barroso (who provided videotaped proof that Bunkey did not live in district 4 which was ignored by the county board of elections), Karl Kachergis, and Barbara Ford.  As far as I could see we were the core workers of the  Phillips/LeGrys campaign besides the candidates themselves.  

The county commissioners led by Phillips had just turned down the Briar Chapel mega development and the developers of Briar Chapel, a California based company named Newland, and the rest of the development community were up in arms and determined to get rid of the commissioners who would stand in their way of doing whatever they wanted in the county.   The campaign they ran was unprecedented in Chatham County, it included push polls, expensive mailings, PACs formed and run by developers and realtors to push the Bunkey campaign, and culture wars attacking the incumbent’s religion and marriage.  In retrospect we really didn’t stand a chance.

To be fair it must be said we weren’t helped by the candidate at the top of our ticket, Gary Phillips, who separated from his wife in the middle of the hotly contested primary season, and who had overstated his educational and divinity credentials. These two things inflamed the county’s conservatives. 

Another thing that didn’t help us was complacency among county liberals and their allies caused by the sheer perceived ridiculousness of Bunkey Morgan’s campaign.  A lot of people who should have known better didn’t think he had a chance of winning a Democratic primary because he had run and lost as a Republican in another district 2 years ago so wasn’t a real Democrat, and he didn’t really even live in the district he was running to represent. 

A lot of people who should have paid more attention or helped defeat him dismissed Bunkey as a joke and thought we were being silly, or paranoid, or just trying to get money or volunteer time out of them by playing up the Bunkey threat. 

One incident I distinctly remember that illustrates this attitude was trying to get the News and Observer’s Chatham beat  reporter (hard to believe now that such a thing would exist, but it did) interested in Bunkey’s business history of being sued for nonpayment by suppliers and the IRS.  This was important because a major part of his campaign message was that he was a successful businessman who had shown an ability to make a payroll and get the bills paid with what he had available.   The reporter listened to what I laid out and then said “None of this matters because face it Bunkey is a joke and he doesn’t really stand a chance in this Democratic primary,  so it’s not a story.” 

After Bunkey won the primary and the Republicans pulled out of the race, a lot of people were shocked that it had happened and realized too late that complacency and letting others do the hard campaigning work wasn’t going to be a winning strategy. 

The fact of the matter was we were a handful of people up against a purpose-built big money political machine and we got bulldozed by that machine.   What we really needed was a political machine of our own.  

A Sometimes-insider’s History of the Chatham Coalition, parts of which may even be true -- introduction

Now that the Chatham Coalition is folding up their tent after a 7+ year run, I’ve decided to put my thoughts and especially recollections of them down to remember. 

This is a history of the Chatham Coalition as I remember it, and as I experienced it.  It is not a definitive or authoritative history.  Even though it is written, it is more oral history than anything.

I did not and will not do extensive fact checking on this history.  The fact checking I will do is based on my email archives and on bulletin board archives only, and information I can find with google searches. 

I did not and will not contact people mentioned in this history to get comments or clarifications or get “their side” of a story.  This is intentional.  I am not a journalist or historian.  Many of these people are my friends, acquaintances and rivals and I want this to be my recollection and not be colored by what they want me to say.  However, that said I welcome comments to this series of blog posts, and anyone is welcome to respond to or clarify what I say in the comments on this blog.

Who am I to write this history? 

It is important when reading anything like this to understand the context, where the author is coming from, and where his biases may be.  By way of introduction I moved to Chatham County in 1999 from Cary, where I grew up (yes it’s true some people did grow up in Cary, not everyone moved there).

When I was living in Cary in the 1990s I was politically active to an extent but not a large extent.  I was active in Citizens for Balanced Growth and peripherally active in the campaigns they supported.  These included Glen Lang, who was the first candidate in the Triangle area to emphasize smart growth as the centerpiece of a local campaign and who eventually became first a town council member and then a very controversial mayor of Cary, and his allies like Jack Smith and others. 

Other members of that group that I worked with were Stan Norwalk, who is now a Wake County commissioner, and Harold Weinbrecht who is now mayor of Cary.  However despite that little bit of name-dropping I had and have no influence over any of them and it’s been over a decade since we worked together.  None of them would likely recognize me on the street today, I mention them just to show who some of the people are who came out of that group.

At any rate I was never in the inner circle or as deeply involved in Cary politics as I have been in Chatham.

After moving here to the Moncure area  I engaged in local politics starting with opposition to a multi-state regional landfill in Chatham County in late 2000.   I worked on the campaigns of Phillips and LeGrys in 2002, and Cross and Barnes in 2004 and 2008.  I also was involved some in the 2006 commissioner campaign but not nearly as much as the other years, one reason being I spent October and a good part of November out of the country in 2006 on job-related travel. I did not participate in the 2010 commissioner campaign, unless you count online arguing and debating as participating, which I really don't. 

I was never a member of the Chatham Coalition’s Steering committee though they did give me the humorous (and completely unofficial) title of Ward Heeler after the 2004 election.  My view of the Coalition has always been that I am not one of them but I worked with and helped them when I agreed with them, and didn’t when I didn’t.

The Coalition was in my opinion overall a positive force in Chatham County, though they went wrong as they got more powerful and successful. 

It is not my intention to whitewash Cross and Barnes or to kick the Coalition people when they are down (OK, maybe a little bit) but to tell the history of the Coalition from one reasonably (but not completely) informed point of view. 

What's the deal with the moniker Peaceful Capitalist?

I've been using the moniker peacefulcapitalist on Chatham County bulletin boards since 2003.  It came from a BusinessWeek article.

We were in the run-up to the Iraq war and BusinessWeek ran an article headlined The High Price of Bad Diplomacy.  In this article BW described how the Bush administration's bungled diplomacy (or lack thereof) in the run-up to war had hurt American companies and would continue to.   What struck me about that article was that it put opposition to the war in stark economic terms, instead of the peacenik terms that most opposition had been using, and which everyone who wasn't already bought into the anti-war view ignored or dismissed out of hand.  It basically pointed out that war is not only bad for peacenik reasons, but also because it's not compatible with democratic capitalism.

When I picked that moniker it was specifically to post a link to the BW article, as I was arguing about the war and I didn't think I would keep it very long. But almost eight years later, I'm still using it because I think it illustrates the idea of being a liberal who nonetheless embraces and believes in capitalism and markets -- those are not incompatible!

Plus there are so few good monikers left on the internet that someone hasn't already claimed!

Sometimes in arguments people will try to claim I'm not really a capitalist because I don't agree with their view of how capitalism should work or be regulated.  That will be for later discussion on this blog.