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Trustees Give Resounding 'Yes' to Master Plan
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Chancellor James Moeser, Board of Trustees members and community
residents listen as the final version of the Master Plan is discussed.
Ticket
Policy
Disclosed
Department of Athletics
officials reported numbers
that differed from previous
allegations against the CAA.
Bv Greg Steffensen
Staff Writer
Officials from the Department of
Athletics’ Ticket Office rejected claims
Thursday that Carolina Athletic
Association President Tee Pmitt
receives a secret supply of discretionary
men’s basketball tickets, saying the dis
appearance of so many tickets is logis
tically and numerically illogical.
Ticket Office Director Clint Gwaltney
said recent accusations that Pruitt gets 40
to 60 tickets per basketball game are false.
“There’s a lot of things out there that
you need to inquire about before you go
off half-cocked,” Gwaltney said.
“(Pruitt would) have to boldly walk
up after the tickets are taken out of the
vault, take a stack off the top and tell us,
‘See you later, I’m going outside.’”
Fred Hill, vice chairman of the Board
of Elections, testified Tuesday before the
Student Affairs Committee of Student
Congress that Pmitt has offered extra
basketball tickets to many individuals
both in and out of the CAA.
The CAA receives 128 tickets per
game, said Kim Jones, the ticket office
employee who physically gives the tick
ets to CAA Ticket Distribution Director
Kerry Slatkoff.
Fifty tickets are earmarked for the
CAA Cabinet, which had 23 members
until five were either fired or resigned in
February and March. Two tickets were
distributed per member, leaving four
per game unaccounted for prior to
February.
Pruitt said Thursday that he received
two tickets as a Cabinet member and
also retained control over any excess
tickets earmarked for Cabinet.
Fifty-four tickets are reserved for the
25 workers in the ticket distribution com
mittee, leaving four extra tickets - which
Slatkoff said she hands out or keeps.
The 14 members of the sports mar
keting committee receive 14 tickets, and
the 10 members of the External
Relations Committee receive seven tick
ets, which External Relations
Chairwoman Rachel Goodman said are
distributed based on merit.
Based on the above numbers - ticket
totals given by Jones and committee staff
breakdowns by Pmitt - eight of the 128
tickets earmarked for CAA members
were unaccounted for prior to February.
Gwaltney acknowledged that he
would not know if members of the tick
et distribution committee skimmed tick
ets during student distributions.
Hill stuck by his claims Thursday that
See TICKETS, Page 4
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When a Tree
Western N.C. Balances Economic Profit, Natural Beauty
By Cliff Nelson
Staff Writer
The mountains of North Carolina have beckoned hikers, campers and tour
ing motorists for generations with the promise of natural beauty unequaled east
of the Rockies.
In 1999 alone, nearly 20 million sightseers drove the Blue Ridge Parkway,
North Carolina’s most-visited tourist attraction and most scenic road.
Each year, tourists from out of state decide to make the N.C. mountains
their home, and repeat visitors to Boone and Blowing Rock witness impressive
mansions growing out of mountainsides that 10 years ago were still untouched.
Ironically but predictably, the vistas and clear waters that prove so allur
ing to vacationers also result in development - billboards, mountaintop sub
divisions, traffic jams, strip malls.
“Growth and development is not a story, it’s the story up here, and it bums
hotter every day,” said Miles Tager, a reporter for Boone’s Mountain Times.
Might the very charm of western North Carolina attract such numbers that
the quality of life which entices newcomers could be lost forever?
Inevitable and big changes are coming to the N.C. mountains. That much
is clear to everyone, conservationist and developer alike.
But the nature of that change is the subject of a raging battle fought for decades
in court, in the media and in politics across the state’s mountain counties.
In places where any resistance to development exists, it often amounts to
the efforts of a few individuals or a patchwork of civic coalitions.
Almost no N.C. regulations of growth in the mountains are on the books.
State leaders have long known that development would someday threaten
the touristy ambiance of the N.C. mountains.
In 1973, the year the Coastal Area Management Act ushered in state regu
lation of growth along the N.C. coast, lawmakers offered a twin proposal, the
Mountain Area Management Act for the western part of the state.
But it died in the General Assembly when western opposi
tion proved too great for state oversight of mountain develop
ment to become reality.
In 1990, the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research inven
toried land-use policies statewide and found little had changed
in the mountains. The report stated that, “The mountain
region trails the rest of the state in planning for and manag
ing growth, despite a clear economic interest in protecting the
beauty of the region for tourism.”
Mountain voters to this day remain reluctant to endorse
zoning and planning laws that might prevent unsighdy sprawl.
Only two of North Carolina’s mountain counties zoned coun-
tywide 10 years ago, and only three do so today. Fourteen counties in the
mountains still have no zoning restrictions at all outside the limits of towns.
The debate over what western North Carolina will look like in 20 years
defies easy answers when any suggestion of land-use regulation falls prey to a
virulent mistrust of government that runs especially deep in the highlands.
Fights over development versus preservation are front-page news in moun
tain cities, where old traditions of land rights and freedom from government
clash with the preservationist values that newcomers bring with them.
Buncombe County is today North Carolina’s most populous county with
Lower Quad Residents Victims of Recent Break-Ins
By Rachel Clarke
Staff Writer
Olde Campus Lower Quad residents
are being advised to lock their doors and
watch out for strangers after several
recent break-ins.
Early Tuesday morning, an unidenti
fied person entered several rooms in
Lewis Residence Hall and took cash and
valuables, said Chris Moody, area direc
tor for the quad.
Moody declined to comment on the
number of rooms that were burglarized.
I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.
Joyce Kilmer
Ad Critic
Controversial ad gets reaction
from national newspapers,
campus groups. See Page 2
Serving the students and the University community since 1893
After granting unanimous
approval, the trustees
addressed implementation
of the UNC Master Plan.
By Brook Corwin
Staff Writer
The UNC Board of Trustees gave
unanimous approval Thursday morning
to the University’s Master Plan, launch
ing anew era of campus growth.
The Master Plan, a 50-year blueprint
for campus development, was met with
no dissent from trustees and granted swift
approval, despite lingering concerns from
many town officials and local residents.
.^From.
Maiiteo,
‘“Murphy
A four-part series on some
of the major environmental
issues facing North Carolina.
Today: Expansion
But a report filed with University
police about one of the incidents stated
that $220 in cash was stolen while the
room’s residents were present and
asleep. The room’s inhabitants had left
the door unlocked, reports state.
University police spokesman Mark
Mclntyre could not be reached for com
ment Thursday about the status of the
investigation.
Moody, who sent out an e-mail to
area residents about the break-ins, said
residents must be careful and protect
themselves. “We do what we can by
The rest of the meeting was spent dis
cussing the plan’s implementation.
The BOT approved committee rec
ommendations for contracting firms to
begin initial construction projects.
Chancellor James Moeser opened the
meeting by emphasizing the importance
of the board’s vote and praising the merits
of the plan. “Future generations are rely
ing on your judgment today,” he said.
Moeser also linked the Master Plan to
the University’s recent record endow
ment for research funds from the
National Institutes of Health, saying the
new facilities the plan will create would
further boost research. “The' greatest
limitation this University now has (with
research) are the physical limitations of
our research facilities,” he said. “We
WM
DTH/CUFF NELSON
Although excavation was stopped at this rock quarry near
Spruce Pine in 1999, it has left an imprint on the mountainside.
out any countywide zoning law.
Buncombe Commissioner David Gantt, a pro-zoning Democrat, said just
the word “zoning” is radioactive to a majority of mountain voters. “Zoning is
like desegregation was in the late 1950 - almost a curse word,” Gantt said.
From a manila folder, Gantt pulled newspaper clippings that he said demon
strate the fervor of recent zoning debates: a front-page photo of picketers with
signs calling Gantt “a communist,” and a letter to the editor that said zoning
was a “strategy used by Satan.”
“We had to have armed guards. We rode in police cars to get
to public meetings,” Gantt said.
But anti-zoning forces press a compelling issue - why should
retired farmers, counting on the sale of land suddenly worth
millions, have that option taken from them by public vote?
Jim Morton, whose family owns Grandfather Mountain, has
been active in preserving 2,500 acres around the mountain
from the bulldozer’s blade. “When you don’t own property, it’s
real nice to say you’re against development,” Morton said.
“But when you own property and pay the taxes, and a good
time comes to develop that property, it’s tough when people
complain about it.”
Nathan Ramsey, the Republican chairman of the Buncombe County Board
of Commissioners, won his post in November on an anti-zoning platform and
said restricting landowners’ right to sell or develop their property is unfair
because the land is all that some of his constituents have left.
“I think the major issue is that our incomes are about half that of the Triangle
and the Triad areas. But our cost of living is still high,” Ramsey said. “You can
See EXPANSION, Page 4
keeping the (entrance) doors perma
nendy locked, and we always have an
RA on duty,” he said.
But Moody said residents should be
careful not to let people they don’t know
into the building behind them. Moody
said he suspected that was how the per
petrator entered the residence hall.
As well as watching out for people
they don’t know, Moody advised resi
dents to keep their doors locked at night
and whenever they leave the building.
“This could happen just as easily during
the day,” he said. “The other thing I’ve
have an incredible compression of peo
ple to almost inhumane conditions.”
Several board members joined
Moeser in enthusiastic support of the
plan. “This is far better than lever
dreamt it would be, and I have very
high standards for this University,” said
trustee David Pardue.
Student Body President Brad
Matthews, the only student member on
the board, also praised the plan and said
he was eager to see it break ground. “It
really has addressed a number of stu
dent concerns and needs both now and
well into the future,” he said.
Questions about how construction
might affect transportation and parking
See BOT, Page 4
been doing is encouraging residents to file
police reports.” As of Thursday afternoon,
only one report had been filed, but Moody
said he had heard of more incidents.
Moody said one problem could be
the strong sense of community in the
area. “That comes at a price sometimes,
by them being too careful and letting
their guard down,” he said.
Several residents expressed concern
for the students who were robbed but said
they weren’t worried themselves. “Pm not
really concerned because we lock our
doors,” said Lily Russell, a sophomore liv
Sunshine
Today: Sunny, 65
Saturday: Sunny, 70
Sunday: Sunny, 53
Friday, March 23, 2001
Residents
Express Ire,
Pessimism
Some residents criticized
the trustees for being
insensitive toward their
Master Plan concerns.
By Lee Spears
Staff Writer
Local residents are critical of the
UNC Board of Trustees’ decision
Thursday to approve the campus
Master Plan, which could threaten
neighborhoods near the campus.
Certain elements of the Master Plan,
UNC’s blueprint for campus growth for
the next 50 years, have residents wor
ried that their neighborhoods are in
danger.
Residents who attended the meeting
said the trustees were not sensitive to
their concerns about losing their homes.
Criticism centered around the
Master Plan’s proposed construction of
anew access road from Fordham
Boulevard to South Campus which will
cut through the Mason Farm neighbor
hood.
“More discussion needs to be had
with the town,” said Ken Brown, a
Mason Farm resident and former
mayor of Chapel Hill.
Brown also expressed concern about
the Master Plan’s encroachment on the
Smith Center buffer zone, the area
between the Smith Center and neigh
borhoods south of campus where budd
ing is restricted.
Diana Steele, another Mason Farm
Road resident who has run a preschool
in her home for the past 30 years, said
she was never approached by UNC
about the Master Han even though the
proposed access road will go through
her yard.
“I don’t think there was any way I
could have taken action (against the
Master Plan) along the line, besides
speaking out at the meetings,” she said.
Steele also said her home is sur
rounded on three sides by the UNC
campus and that she is afraid future
development under the Master Plan
might further encroach on her property.
Elaine Barney, who lives on
Westwood Drive just west of campus,
said the BOT was hasty in passing the
Master Flan before considering the total
environmental impact
“The information just isn’t there yet,”
she said.
But most residents didn’t seem sur
prised that the Master Plan passed.
“We didn’t have great expectations
coming in,” Barney said. “It’s what most
of us expected.”
Residents present at the meeting said
they thought the BOT hadn’t paid
enough attention to their concerns
when considering the Master Plan.
Anne Sullivan, who also fives in the
Westwood area, said the BOT had lis
tened to the concerns of residents but
had not done anything to address them.
“They include us in their meetings
but don’t listen to what we say,” she
See VOTE, Page 4
ing in Aycock Residence Hall.
Andrew McCullough, a senior living in
Stacy Residence Hall, said he thought the
people who were robbed lacked basic
common sense. “I feel like dumbasses
should lock their doors at night,” he said.
Chris Duerden, a senior resident of
Lewis, agreed that the robberies could
have been prevented. “On the whole,
everybody just needs to be a little more
vigilant."
The University Editor can be reached *
af udeskQunc.edu.