Sorry, this is a long one.....

There was also a discussion about potential land for our ball fields last night. 

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One parcel is approximately 20 acres located on 220 where there was an auto salvage yard (Mark said the cost was $33,000 - $36,000 per acre) Because of the nature of the businesses housed on this land, an environmental study would be needed to see what costs, if any, would be necessary to clean the land.  This piece is rectangular and well suited for ball parks. 



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The other is approximately 25 acres ($26,000 per acre) on Summerfield Road owned by Mr. Friddle. The layout of this piece is not "rectangular" and it is unknown if ball fields would even fit on this parcel.  Someone also holds the first right of refusal on this land and that would need to be relinquished before the town considers negotiations.

Bob Williams wanted to look at both properties in order to save time and get the ball fields started sooner.  If one piece wouldn't work for some reason, then we wouldn't have to wait until the next council meeting to direct Michael B. to research the other piece. Bob's reasoning, I think, was that it isn't going to cost us anything to look at the Friddle property (other than Michael's time) and if Bill Hill (a.k.a. CJ's hero) could look at the first right of refusal issue, then things would be in place to move on the Friddle property if the 220 land falls thru.

Williams also made an excellent point about the 220 land.  He stated that we needed to obtain our own "first right of refusal" on the 220 property before we spend thousands of dollars on an environmental study.  We don't want to do the leg work and spend thousands of dollars for clean up and then some developer comes in at the last minute and buys that land.... Mark seemed upset by that.  He said that the owners aren't planning to sell to anyone else.   Problem is, you just can't trust people these days.

Bob Williams stated that he owned property near the Friddle land and that sure, he'd prefer to see houses next to his land, but the need for ballfields outweighed his "wants" and if this was the piece of land that worked, then he was all for it.

Strickland, who stated that she has always been a "proponent" of ball fields (ok.. am I the only one who is surprised by that statement?), asked that we do everything we can to "speed up the process" and only look at the 220 land......the MORE EXPENSIVE parcel.

The fact that Strickland didn't want to even look at the Friddle property makes one wonder why....

Could it be because she lives around the corner and doesn't want ball fields in her backyard?  I believe we've heard that before.

There's much more info on the council meeting posted on the other website.   PM me if you need the address.

Sorry Waytago...We don't want anyone to feel like that!!!

 NCLM is the North Carolina League of Municipalities.  Oak Ridge uses them to maintain their website and SF tossed around the idea of using them until Dwayne suggested our very own "firecracker"  (NWO website designer, Scott Redmon) for the job.

The only problem I see with Bubba's suggestion is that someone from Town Hall has to feed the info to the NCLM.