My comments to the Town Council

"I suspect that this message concerning the Obey Creek agenda item tonight probably will travel the greatest distance to reach you as I am sending it from France. Sometimes it is easier to see things back in Chapel Hill more clearly from a distance.

So it is with Obey Creek.

What Roger PERRY and the Obey Creek property owners want to build on the land may be its highest and best use in every sense of that term. I simply do not know, and I argue that you, the Town Council, do not know either.

Yet you see pre-determined to move down a path called “development agreement” that sounds nice to you and gives you some illusionary cover.

I think you need to stop right where you are in this process and do the work that you are obligated to engage for our benefit BEFORE making the developer happy.

That work consists of concretely and factually laying out the reasons WHY any change in current zoning of the Obey Creek property ought to be considered. What, specifically, are the expected benefits laid out in fine detail?

For reasons that can only be explained in terms of some kind of influence exercised in some way by the developer over the Council you have chosen to ignore this step.

Ultimately, which is not far away, a court may have to determine how appropriate your refusal to address this question may be. I hope it does not come to that.

In order to avoid the costs of a judicial proceeding, and, mostly, in order to do your jobs, you need to lay out for us why any change should be considered.

Only with that basis convincingly established, can any of us judge what the rules should be for the use of the Obey Creek land, more or less restrictive than they are today.

So, from here in France where my French community still believes in reasoned decision making, I implore you to do what you are obligated to do – lay out in detail the reasons for change – before moving ahead with the development agreement process.

You should stop the entire process, put those documented reasons together, and then start whatever process you like if you feel those reasons truly support further consideration of any change in current Obey Creek zoning.

Terry MAGUIRE"