VOLUME 116, ISSUE 37
Plane lands nose down; none hurt
BY JOSEPH R. SCHWARTZ
SENIOR WRITER
A pilot and three passengers
walked away Tuesday after their
plane came to a nose-down halt
in the grass a few feet from the
Horace Williams Airport runway.
Ralph Patterson of Laurens,
S.C., said a gust of air swept
beneath his Piper Malibu Mirage
when he tried to land. The aircraft
bobbed up and down, a condition
known by pilots as “porpoising." for
about 2,000 feet before veering to
the left and stopping 150 feet later
after the nose gear collapsed.
“The wind was blowing pretty
good," Patterson said. “We were
trying to put it on the ground, and
it just came up. That was it.’
The crash landing was the end
WASTE HAS IMPACT
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DTM/ADAM GRAETZ
Gertrude Nunn, a longtime resident in the Rogers-Eubanks Road community, said having a landfill next door has drastically changed the way
she lives. "They have consumed the whole area up,” she said. She is the last remaining of many generations, and her relatives have moved.
Some say transfer site proposal unjust
BY SARAH FRIER
ASSISTANT cmr EDITOR
Gertrude Nunn is tired of fight
ing with her next-door neighbor.
When the county landfill moved
into her Rogers-Eubanks Road
neighborhood in 1972, a dead odor
started to soak up the peace of
nighttime walks. Buzzards began to
feast on the trash and then crowd
the tops of houses and power lines.
Nunn and other residents in the
historically black, low-income neigh
borhood feel their quality of life has
been so altered by the landfill 's pres
ence that it constitutes environmen
tal racism.
Growth increases local schools’ needs
BY ALEX KOWALSKI
AND TRACEY THERET
STATE WRITERS
If you build it, they will come.
And when they come, you have to
build again.
The same residents flocking to
Chapel Hill and Carrboro to enroll
in its top-rated schools create pres
sure on the district to build more.
Environmentally friendly poli
cies, mass transportation, proxim
ity to job hubs and most impor
tantly, the public school systems
attract potential residents.
university | page 4
CLIMATE CHANGE
UNC students celebrated Earth Day
Tuesday with a lecture by Oberlin
College professor David Orr, who
emphasized individual responsibility
in stemming climate change.
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of a one-hour (light for Patterson,
his wife, brother-in-law and sis
ter-in-law, who were traveling to
visit the wife's mother at Duke
University Hospital.
No one was injured, and many on
scene said the plane did not leak fuel
or catch fire because the pilot shut off
the gas and the ground was soggy .
Patterson said he will have to
wait to access the damage to his
plane though one witness said
w'rinkling behind the engine may
have totaled it. Similar models are
valued at more than $300,000.
Paul Burke, airport manager,
said he couldn't recall many other
crashes in his more than 25 years
at the site, located a mile and a half
from campus down Martin Luther
King Jr. Boulevard, but he called
“We had meetings here. We had
everything, but nobody listened,"
Nunn said.
As the landfill reaches capac
ity, county officials are deciding on
criteria for siting a waste-transfer
station to replace it. Residents are
attending the meetings, pushing
for their neighborhood to be left
off the list of possible sites.
“It’s like a little ant trying to beat
a big hill," said Sam Rogers, 70.
who is descended from the family
after whom the road is named.
“We didn't have any success, so
what can you do?"
The landfill has changed gov
“It’s a desirable place to live
primarily because of both of the
school systems that we have that
are not overcrowded and the
mind-set that Orange County has,"
Orange County Planning Director
Craig Benedict said.
From 2000 to 2006 Chapel
Hill’s population increased by
about 16 percent while Carrboro
grew by about 11 percent.
Since most growth is residen
tial, developments bring new
families with children to enroll
in school. An influx of students
viewpoints | page h
TRANSFER TAX
Orange County voters will decide
May 6 whether to approve an
0,4 percent land-transfer tax. The
prospect has those on both sides
debating the merits.
Serving the students and the University community since 1893
www.dallylarheel.coin
this one “about as good as it gets."
“We’ll get it off the runway and
everyone will go home," he said.
Leigh Beadle, a Chapel Hill avia
tor and UNC alumnus, was sitting
on the porch of the airport admin
istration building and had a clear
view of the accident.
“They just started wobbling,
and each porpoise was worse and
worse," he said, adding that the
plane rebounded five to 10 feet off
the ground each time.
Beadle has been flying out of
Horace Williams since 1963 and
said he’s only seen one similar crash.
He said the wind played a factor
Tuesday but that conditions weren't
particularly dangerous.
“This is something so rare," he
said. “We’ve all been out there in a
ernment hands,
from Chapel Hill
and Carrboro to
Orange County.
Since county
officials took
charge in 2000,
they have helped
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some residents pay to tap on to
water lines, which many couldn’t
otherwise afford.
A solid waste advisory board
was formed with other local gov
ernments. One of the seats is des
ignated for a resident of the neigh
borhood.
The community lacks public
sewer lines, water lines, street lights
and fire and emergency services.
Buses run through Rogers
“Classrooms aren’t overcrowded. Its the
cafeteria, the library, the gym ... thatfill
*
Up. STEVE SCROGGS, assistant superintendent of support services
means there is less room for
everyone to operate comfortably
within the building.
To combat overpopulation
and inadequate services, state
standards determine how many
students can fill a school before a
new facility is needed. When the
school's population surpasses the
lot worse than this.... It’s a really
safe airport."
Patterson said that this was his
first accident since he began flying
as a 19-year-old and that he won’t
be attempting to return to the
Chapel Hill runway anytime soon.
“This is my second time at
Horace Williams, and I’d say it’s
the last time, most likely," he said.
The Federal Aviation
Administration is investigating the
case, as protocol requires.
UNC Department of Public Safety
and Chapel Hill Fire Department
officials responded to the scene.
The last accident reported at
Horace Williams came in 2001
when a flight instructor and student
SEE PLANE CRASH, PAGE 7
DTH ONLINE
Testimonials from
members of the
Rogers-Eubanks community
and a map of the area.
Road but don’t stop, said the
Rev. Robert Campbell, who has
been an active voice in the com
munity.
“It’s clearly an example to me
of environmental injustice," said
Flora Lu. an assistant professor
of anthropology at UNC.
“How is it that these folks in
Rogers Road don’t have the basic
amenities and then are asked to
SEE WASTE, PAGE 7
established capacity by about 6
percent, the district must build
anew one, said Stephanie Knott,
assistant to the superintendent
for community relations.
“We have to build the new
schools. It doesn’t matter either
SEE GROWTH, PAGE 7
state I pjigv .*j
GUBERNATORIAL DEBATE
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Beverly
Perdue and N.C. Treasurer Rich
ard Moore, both Democratic gu
bernatorial candidates, debated
Tuesday in Raleigh.
DTH/USA RERIN
Authorities respond to a plane crash at Horace Williams Airport on
Estes Drive on Tuesday afternoon. No one was injured in the crash.
Pa. goes to
Clinton;
N.C. is next
Old North State
to play big role
BY ARIEL ZIRULNICK
ASSISTANT STATE i NATIONAL EDITOR
Presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton’s solid win in Tuesday's
Pennsylvania Democratic primary
has sent the race for the nomi
nation speeding toward North
Carolina and Indiana. ...
All eyes now will turn to the
May 6 primary states, especially
North Carolina, which has 115
delegates up for grabs. It is the last
major stop before the Democratic
National Convention in August.
Clinton’s Pennsylvania win was so
decisive that it was projected early
in the evening, with a minimal per
centage of precincts reporting. As of
midnight with 95 percent reporting,
she was leading rival Barack Obama
55 percent to 45 percent.
“It’s a win, and I think it will
intensify her campaign's argu
ment that she has done a lot bet
ter in the big states than Obama,"
Moeser raises
fundraising bar
BY KELLY GIEDRAITIS
SENIOR WRITER
When Chancellor James Moeser
took office in 2000, he knew that
raising funds w ould be one of his
principal duties.
The state’s budget crisis that year,
which posed a threat to University
operations, made finding money
more imperative.
Eight years and more than $2
billion later, the impact of Moeser’s
efforts are visible from classrooms
to medical facil
ities.
“Under his
leadership,
we’ve enjoyed
record support
from the state,
increased fac
ulty compensa
tion, quality of
students, aid to
students," said
Roger Perry,
chairman of
UNC’s Board of
Thistees.
1223558 t
the ninth
chancellor
Today:
fundraising
Wednesday:
Carolina
Covenant
this dav in history
APRIL 23,1983
U 2 played “The Carolina Concert
for Children’ in Kenan Stadium
to benefit UNICEF. Other acts
included The Producers and Todd
Rundgren.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2008
said Ferrel Guillory , director of the
UNC Program on Public Life.
“But North Carolina, which has
emerged into the big-state category,
gives Obama a chance to recoup."
Most of the outcome in
Pennsylvania was well-established
even before polls began reporting,
said Robert Speel. a political sci
ence professor at Pennsylvania
State University in Erie.
He said the late deciders tended
to break for Clinton, especially in
the northwestern region.
She won by a predictably large
margin 7O percent or more of
the vote in most counties in
her southwestern stronghold and
swept the Northeast with 75 per
cent of the vote, an area the Obama
campaign had hopes of swaying.
His biggest win, predicted days
in advance, was in the Southeast,
particularly in the Philadelphia
area. However, the suburbs split
almost evenly between the candi
dates, rather than favoring Obama.
Speel said.
SEE PRIMARY, PAGE 7
In addition to lobbying for state
and federal funds, Moeser helped
lead the Carolina First Campaign,
a major fundraising initiative that
secured $2.38 billion.
Moeser, who led a $350 mil
lion campaign at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln prior to coming
to UNC, said public universities
are becoming more involved in
fundraising because state funds
are not guaranteed.
“Twenty to 30 years ago, only
private universities really raised
money," he said.
“That all began to change
roughly 20 years ago when state
support began to decline in a lot of
places and public universities real
ized they needed endowed funds as
well to sustain themselves."
He pointed to the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. which has
seen a decline in state funds.
“People are raiding their faculty
right and left," Moeser said. “We
were in that boat about four or five
SEE FUNDRAISING, PAGE 7
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