Friends of Bolin Creek held a community forum on October 7th, 2019 to ask the candidates questions about environmental issues.
Here is the full audio of the forum:
Each candidate was asked to respond to this question about Bolin Creek:
“Given Carrboro has nearly completed the new bike connections plan and the towns have designated Seawell School Road for bike lane funding, what is your view about revisiting the controversial proposal to pave along the creek? Why?”
Here is the audio for this question:
On the audio, the candidates answer in the following order: Mayor Lydia Lavelle, Steve Friedman, Susan Romaine, Sammy Slade, and Damon Seils.
Below is the transcript of those answers.
Charles Morris, Moderator
This is a question for all the candidates: Given Carrboro has nearly completed the new bike connections plan, and the towns have designated Seawell School Road for bike lane funding with the MPO, what is your view about revisiting the controversial proposal to pave along Bolin Creek? And why? And you’ll have 90 seconds to respond.
Mayor Lydia Lavelle
Thank you. Well, we have tried the last couple of years to submit the project of having a side path along Sewell School Road for a bike connection to Northern Carrboro. I have said for many years since the bicycle plan came out in 2009, that I would like to see some kind of a way to get through the forest from the northern part of Carrboro to Carrboro central. I’m not wedded to that being along the creek as we saw in the plan. I think there are a lot of creative ways we could have some kind of a path through the woods that could be non-paved. It could be platformed, it could be, you know, built a lot of different ways.
There’s different connections, there’s private landowners we would have to work with. But as someone who lives north of Homestead, who, you know, my two choices to get to town are to ride down Seawell School Road – but riding up Seawell School Road is terrible – or to go Cobblestone, which I have been using lately and that’s a really nice extra connection. But I would like to see some kind of a way to go through the forest. Now if that’s a side path along the forest, or that’s somewhere else through there, I think there’s a way that we could get it done, and I think it would be a great amenity for those of us who live in northern Carrboro to be able to get to town easily.
Steve Friedman
One of the motivations for me to run was the lack of understanding from people in my neighborhood about town policies. I live down in Berryhill. There was a (Town) plan to put a path along the creek where we live, (along Morgan Creek). It was roundly rejected by the neighbors in my area who found out about it, long after it was approved. That was one of the reasons that a lot of people in my neighborhood asked me to run because they did not want a path go through their woods and impact a beautiful forest that they enjoyed. Through this process, I came to know about Friends of Bolin Creek and their positions and what they stand for. I would take the same approach to (avoiding paved trails) along all other waterways as well.
Susan Romaine
I too would be opposed to paving in the Bolin Creek forest for two reasons. One is the Bolin Creek forest is made up of 425 absolutely beautiful forested acres. I think it really defines Carrboro in so many ways. It’s very rich and wildlife. It (the Foest) of course acts as a carbon sink with all of the trees and also it feeds into Jordan lake which provides water for about half a million people. So the forest has all of these very important environmental qualities. At the same time another reason to not consider paving is the cost. I’ve learned about the extensive maintenance of the paved portion of the Chapel Hill section of Bolin Creek. I worry what that would mean to the Town of Carrboro. Should we go down this road?
That said, I don’t want to close the door on other possibilities. I’m looking at some kind of previous surface and I know Damon has talked about this. The NC Botanical Gardens have used pervious pavement quire successfully. But I would want to learn more about that before I made the decision.
Sammy Slade
Ever since the Greenway his plan was approved, or I should since the day our plan was approved, I was the swing vote (on whether to pave along the creek in 2009) and I was the one that asked that we pull out phase three and four so that those can be looked at with more care. Obviously, the community was split on what to do with the (paved path recommendation). And my understanding was and I said at the time that we should have a community conversation about those sections. It’s been 10 years and we haven’t had that yet. It’s been festering as this problem that has split our community and so I’ve been pushing for us to have that conversation. And so coming out into the summer, we directed staff to open this conversation up for us to put all the pieces together for doing this path. And like I mentioned previously, looking at alternatives to (paving), that may make more sense if we’re thinking of it, for example, in climate terms, maybe a bike Boulevard that is parallel and serving the same places and connecting to the same places would make more sense. So I continue to be consistent on us needing to have the conversation, putting everything on the table and thereafter having the conversation with the community and making a decision about it from there.
Damon Seils
Thank you. So I haven’t taken and I don’t hold a firm position on whether there should be or what it would look like if there were some kind of improved path along Bolin Creek to replace the very informal path that is there (along the creek) now. And what I do feel and think is very important is that (this view is) not just for Bolin Creek, but for all of our surface waters, and that we avoid exacerbating flooding and avoid causing further harm to areas that are already ecologically distressed. And that is why I mentioned earlier the work that we need to be doing along Morgan Creek, the work that we need to be doing in the Tom’s Creek, and the work that we need to do along restoration work we need to do along Bolin Creek.
You know, I think for me, and Sammy mentioned the decision in 2009, that was a little bit before my time on the Board. That decision, as Sammy said, was that there was not going to be any further decision made about the future of phases three and four until the Board created a concept for further conversation in the community. And we haven’t gotten there. There have been some halting efforts to try to get there. As some of you know, but we hadn’t done it. And, you know, it’s gotten to the point where we almost can’t even have the conversation sometimes. I think some of us have witnessed that. Just last week, I have heard people who have lived in Carrboro for 30 – 40 years or more say they don’t want or need to revisit it – they don’t even want to participate in talking about Bolin Creek anymore, because the conversation has become so polarized and so toxic. I was told that just last week by yet another person who’s lived here a very long time. So I think our responsibility is to get Carrboro closer to a place where we can have a healthier conversation about Bolin Creek and our other surface waters, and then (how) to improve the conditions there now, which are not great, and (figure out) how to prevent causing further damage in the future.