NIMBY +

[Michael Bacon]

I'm going to have to jump in here and stand up for my neighbors to the 
north.  While the Watts Hospital Hillandale Neighborhood Association is a 
bit stuffy, whiny, and nowhere near as cool as the hip, happening, with-it 
Old West Durham Neighborhood Association just to the south (where I live, 
of course), this really isn't about playing fields/no playing fields.  It's 
about Boarman being dishonest and misleading to all parties in order to get 
what he wants.

To be fair, a lot of this is probably colored by the past decade of 
Duke-Durham relations and Duke's (well, at least Ex. VP Talman Traks's) 
attitude toward Durham, which could probably best be summarized as, "Vat 
eez zis pesky 'amlet ver our Glorious Eeenstitution vinds eetself so 
unfortunately located?"  In the creation of the new college/university 
zoning category, Duke both tried to slip in a provision to allow it to 
build an eight food wrought iron fence around East Campus, and tried to 
remove any regulations on what kind of retail it could have (tax free!) on 
central campus.  So there's some bad blood running around about educational 
institutions and what they want to be able to do on their land.

But back to Boarman.  WHHNA has been negotiating with NCSSM for a good six 
months over this stuff, and has tried to get NCSSM to come to the table. 
But again, read Kennington's article again.  Boarman promised the 
neighborhood to shut the tennis court lights off at 9, then posted an 
official policy within the school that they go off at 9:45.  Now, should 
they be open later?  Open to debate.  But you don't promise one thing to 
the community, then just ignore that.  If you need to change it, go back to 
them and explain it like a civilized person, instead of just ignoring them.

Also, as Kennington points out in his Op-Ed, the neighbors have been 
hammering on Boarman to tell them about the stadium, and he's been evading 
by saying, "Ooh, too far in the future!"  Now he turns around and rushes 
out a memo to us alums saying, "Quick!  Quick!  We have to build it before 
we join the UNC system or the planning department will shut us down!"  To 
which Durham Planning director Frank Duke (no relation) replied, "Um, no we 
won't. We can't, and we already told you that."  The Raleigh paper has an 
article on it here: http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/417894.html , and 
the Herald-Sun had an article on it earlier (which has now gone to the 
subscription-only archive) which had an even more vivid quote from Frank 
Duke, in which he explicitly stated that the planning department had very 
clearly informed Boarman that the zoning process wouldn't even start until 
after NCSSM gained full membership to the UNC system, and then it would be 
a very long process.

In other words, Boarman knew perfectly well it was a lie, but he sent it to 
the faculty and alums in order to try to create false haste.

This isn't about whether to build lights, whether S&M kids should be 
playing sports, astrophysics, or anything.  It's about having a President 
of NCSSM who will not work with the community, the faculty, or the alums in 
any sort of honest or forthright way.

Michael

--On Saturday, March 18, 2006 12:25 PM -0500 MrsToast <toast at mrstoast.com> 
wrote:

> Is this REALLY an argument about whether a high school should have sports
> playing field???  With lights???!!!  Damn those rascally kids!  What next?
> Seats?!  Actual balls??!!   The bastards ...
>
> We all know NCSSM was started by a renegade band of ultra-orthodox nuns
> hell-bent on slow-dripping calculus, inside voices and strict twilight
> bedtimes.  This playing field non-sense smacks of heresy!  Our founding
> mothers surely are spinning - no, spinning AND writhing - in their blessed
> sepulchers!  I, for one, am appalled.
>
> Or rather, not.
>
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