A Civic-Minded Change of Heart

After Thursday’s unanimous vote by the Aberdeen Town Board of Commissioners to adopt a Highway Corridor Overlay District along N.C. 5, Mayor Betsy Mofield turned to Commissioner John Hawthorne and asked: “Who are you, and what have you done with John Hawthorne?”

Mofield was expressing her shock that Hawthorne, a longtime opponent of the HCOD, not only voted for it but also even made the motion for its adoption. Joining Hawthorne in voting for the proposal was Commissioner John Davenport, another former opponent of the plan.

“I haven’t moved,” Hawthorne replied to Mofield.

But clearly he has. He said he was swayed by overwhelming public support for the overlay district, which will impose more stringent setback distances, signs, lighting and landscaping for new and expanding businesses along N.C. 5.

Davenport was similarly converted. “Sometimes when you hear the voice of the people, you change your way of thinking,” he said.

Let’s take Hawthorne and Davenport at their word. This newspaper has often taken issue with their positions on land-use issues, but the two have always been straightforward with their views. The two commissioners –– along with Mofield and Commissioners Art Parker and Pat Ann McMurray — deserve praise for voting in favor of regulations that will bring some order to development along the N.C. 5 corridor. Commissioner Robert Farrell also supported the HCOD, but he had to leave the meeting before the vote for family reasons.

N.C. 5 has been a victim of poorly regulated commercial and industrial growth. The good news is that much of the highway remains undeveloped, so the new regulations can prevent it from becoming an avenue of sprawl. Existing businesses won’t be subject to the HCOD provisions unless they expand. But over the long term, the highway’s landscape will change for the better. That’s why the Pinehurst Co., which is planning a major golf, residential, retail, office and hotel complex off N.C. 5, lent its unqualified support to the overlay district. Pinehurst realized that higher aesthetic standards are good for business. The company didn’t want its complex surrounded by strip development.

The Aberdeen Town Board should now begin looking, tentatively at least, to creating HCODs along U.S. 1 and U.S. 15-501 and N.C. 211, three other inviting targets for misguided bulldozers. But the N.C. 5 initiative is a good start and a basis for future improvements to the town’s planning and zoning policies.

To answer Mayor Mofield’s question, that was indeed John Hawthorne, and what he and Davenport had done with themselves was to exercise the courage and good judgment to change their minds for the benefit of their town.

Friday Football Foolishness

Friday nights in the fall are reserved for high school football. Players, coaches, cheerleaders, band members, students, parents and townspeople gather at North Moore, Union Pines and Pinecrest to cheer on the Mustangs, Vikings and Patriots. It is as much a reaffirmation of community as it is an athletic event.

That’s about to change if the barons of television and college football have their way. ESPN and the NCAA are making plans to air college games on Friday nights. High School athletic officials are rightly resentful.

East Carolina, a Conference USA member, already has a game scheduled for Friday, Nov. 23, in Greenville against Southern Mississippi. Tommy Peacock, the athletic director at Greenville Rose High School, says, “If East Carolina were to play a football game on the same night we’re playing, it would kill us. I guess we’re supposed to look at playing on Wednesday or something.” Says ECU athletic director Mike Hamrick, “To get the television that we needed with ESPN, Conference USA had to make some unique arrangements. We need the dollars and the exposure.”

Yes, TV dollars are what this is all about, and all Hamrick is exposing is the greed of big-time college sports. Other conferences should refuse to go along with biting the high school hands that feed them. And come fall, folks across America should turn off the TV on Friday nights and go to their local high school game.

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