Crowd Gathers to Oppose Northside Drive Asphalt Plant
An overflow crowd of more than 100 people watched Council proceedings on closed-circuit television
at the Statesville Civic Center. The fire marshal’s office decided that the crowd would be too large to
handle in Council Chambers alone.
Neil Furr
IREDELL CITIZEN
The mural by local artist Frans
Van Bergen, dominating the east
wall of Statesville’s City Council
chambers, depicts the marriage of
pretty little residential Iredell with a
strong, gear-toting industrial partner.
Of late, with the approval of a
bio-diesel processing plant in the
Snow Creek community despite
neighbors’ objections and now an
attempt by Maymead Industries
to place an asphalt plant at 2520
Northside -Drive, again over
neighbors’ objections, that marriage
seems a bit rocky.
One thing is certain, though; placing
such things as bio-diesel and asphalt
plants anywhere near residences
can surely spark an interest among
the citizenry in the workings of
local government. That’s’ why
it wasn’t at all surprising to find
so many citizens occupying the
100 or so chairs at City Council
Monday, Feb. 18, with two items
related to the proposed Maymead
asphalt plant on the agenda. The
concerned citizenry overflowed Council
chambers, as expected, and more
than 100 watched by closed-circuit
television from a room across the
street at the Statesville Civic Center.
So packed was City Hall that even
David Currier, city planner, who
would present Maymead’s sketch
plan for Council consideration, had
no seat. That was just as well; the
meeting did not last nearly so long
as expected.
Long or not, the meeting began
with an interesting twist that
turned out to be crucial. To begin
with, Council was down by two
members with John Gregory out
for foot surgery and Paula Steele
away on a long, scheduled trip. The
nine-member council went down
by another member when Mayor
Costi Kutteh recused himself from
the proceedings because a law
partner, William Pope, represented
Maymead in the proceedings.
Following Kutteh’s recusal, Mayor
pro tern Michael Johnson assumed
center chair and launched into
the first agenda item concerning
Maymead, which was consideration
to subdivide the 20-plus acres of
property into three lots.
Immediately after Currier’s
discussion of the sketch plan,
Council members Cecil Stallard
and Flake Huggins had questions
about the size and depth of three
ponds on the property.
“Everything feeds into the large
(pond),” Huggins observed. “This
goes into Fourth Creek.”
Huggins also questioned Currier
about how much heavy industrial
zoning and use there was in the
area versus light industrial zoning
and use. He noted that properties
to the north and south of Maymead
properties were light industrial.
Currier responded that “the balance
of the area is being used for
industrial purposes.”
Soon after his comments, Michael
Johnson called for a motion on
the subdivision request. After a
few moments of silence, he made
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Neil Furr/CITIZEN
Maxwell Combs, who lives less than a mile from the proposed
Maymead asphalt plant on Northside Drive, proudly displayed his
sign admonishing Council to disallow the plant Council proceedings
on Feb. 18. Plans to approve the plant were stalled by a 3-3 vote.
the motion himself to approve the
subdivision, which was seconded by
Bonita Eisele. Before the vote was
r
taken, Cecil Stallard commented
that he would have “a problem
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