97.9 Andrew Stuckey of The Hill spoke with Pittsboro Mayor Cindy Perry on Tuesday, May 24. She discussed the city’s budget, sewage and drinking water, and development news. This is a transcript. To listen to the full interview, click here.
Andrew Stucky:
Thank you very much for joining us. Let’s start with the weather we had yesterday. When I got home to Pittsboro yesterday (Monday) all my clocks were blinking so it looked like we lost power there. How was it there for the big storm?
Cindy Perry:
Well, we got out of the agricultural center around a little after 9:00 p.m. and it was just torrents, sheets of rain falling. We all raced to our cars and wrapped up a wonderful board meeting where we honored the Northwood High School women’s basketball team. They won the state championship for the first time in school history. We had a wonderful board meeting last night, making presentations to the women’s basketball team and their coaches.
Sticky:
That’s great. I think it must have happened just before I moved there. I was unaware of this, but now I’m going to have a lot of Northwood pride for women’s basketball.
Pear:
Absolutely. My three kids went to Northwood and it’s a wonderful school. It’s just for a bit of luck, they had never gotten a state championship before. I guess it’s been 20, 25 years. And so we’re just very, very excited and we’ll have a sign on the side of the road that says we’re celebrating the Northwood Lady Chargers in the first state championship.
Sticky:
Excellent. Congratulations to them. So there was a budget meeting last night, right?
Pear:
There was, there was a lot of work on the budget before that. We had several meetings, then two public hearings, and last night the final adoption of the budget took place. We felt happy that in these rather expensive times, especially when it comes to chemicals and utilities, we were able to keep the municipal tax rate almost the same. We moved up to 43 cents to a few decimal places and rounded it up to 44 cents, and the budget went from about seven million to nine million. We’re still a small town that depends mostly on property assessments and all that, but we were shocked to have to raise water and sewer rates again, this time by 15%. Last year it was 20%. Annoyances were expressed about this, but we all understood why it had to be done.
Sticky:
Yes, it seems to be somewhat the case in most municipalities at the moment as well.
Pear:
He is.
Sticky:
To the right. I have a few questions if you allow me. We’re on the radio, but it’s more like, “I’m a guy who just moved to Pittsboro and I have an urgent question on the radio.” The first is quite simple. Can I drink water in Pittsboro?
Pear:
Yes you can. Pittsboro water meets all state and federal regulations. It tops most of them, but what we’ve been dealing with over the past two years is a series of unregulated chemicals. This is why we insist that we comply with all regulations, as these unregulated chemicals, PFAS and 1,4-Dioxane are distributed in water from many different jurisdictions. PFAS is unfortunately very common, but there is no regulated limit. Now, along with 1,4-dioxane, it’s a chemical that periodically comes downriver from Greensboro industries. It is a suspected carcinogen and has been the subject of a lawsuit which has been filed by the Hall River Assembly. What we’re talking about is an increase in certain medical issues, but that applies to a lifetime of alcohol use. So, Andrew, I don’t know how old you are, but I guess you’re in your 30s or 40s, maybe?
Sticky:
That’s right.
Pear:
So you’ve lived 30 or 40 years without consuming these chemicals. The people I care about and work very hard to protect are young people, children, school children and teenagers here in our county. Not that we don’t care about the elderly, because there are people who have great sensitivities about other medical issues, but what we do is work diligently to try to eliminate PFOS and PFOA from drinking water. And we’ll be installing a multi-million dollar filtration system this summer that will take care of that. It won’t deal with the 1,4-dioxane that comes in downstream, but we’re meeting with Greensboro officials on Thursday to try to continue talking about the releases that come in downstream.
Sticky:
Has there been talk of taking legal action from one city to another? I know that sounds a bit drastic, but when I talk to people, that’s one of the things they always ask, it seems.
Pear:
Well, that’s a good question. However, there is something in the nature of municipal immunity. And so it’s not an easy question to answer, but there are remedies that I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t look into in the future.
Sticky:
OK. Would it be like a non-contentious remedy?
Pear:
Well, of course we hope we can do something non-litigiously. But it’s a tricky one because all of these people – the state water quality officials, the individuals in Greensboro, the governance of the entire watershed – we really all need to come together for the security and protection of small towns like ours. We are, of course, the number one water drinker downstream of these industries in the Greensboro and Burlington area. But there are things we could do in the normal course of a deal and hopefully we can come up with those kinds of things on Thursday and continue to keep them highly regulated.
Sticky:
Thank you. There’s one more thing I wanted to talk about, the development of Roberson Walk. There is a News and recording story about how it comes up against some hurdles and why. Is there anything you can share with us about this?
Pear:
Well, you know, this particular subdivision development issue was submitted in 2019, and it kind of languished with us. It’s 212 acres of what was meant to be mixed use, but it’s mostly residential. This is partly because this development and several other projects have been put on hold due to our lack of sewer capacity. But there are also other complications. One of them is that there are wetlands on those 212 acres. And so one of the issues is how to deal with a bridge that has to cross the property at Roberson Creek. And so at our last meeting, the board decided to put this on hold indefinitely pending further investigations and further design changes and things like that.
Sticky:
We have about a minute left. Is there anything else you wanted to point out while we’re on the air?
Pear:
Well, I would like to underscore the idea that you know, municipal government sometimes moves very slowly, but it prepares to move very quickly. One of the things we’re looking at is regionalizing our water supply and sewer capabilities and the city of Sanford, our council, and to some extent the county as well, are going to look at consolidating. It’s kind of an agreement to start looking at an agreement. But that was also passed last night at the board meeting. And this amalgamation, or regionalization of utilities, has become a hallmark in North Carolina because of the expense involved in high-tech water and sewer plants. We therefore look forward to building relationships with Sanford and being able to provide more development opportunities to our associates here in the Pittsboro area.
Sticky:
Is there some kind of timeline for this partnership or is it just some kind of open dialogue?
Pear:
This is the opening dialogue. I think there was a Sanford treaty with us, and we’re responding with the resolution that we passed last night, and then there will be a series of meetings to start planning how we might come together in some way . Sanford and Pittsboro have been well connected for years in terms of sewage sharing and a penstock to Sanford, which has yet to be built, but we hope to speed things up considerably, especially with the new money coming in for the VIN fast electric car factory.
Sticky:
Yeah, I hope we get a chance to come back, and we can talk about that and all the other things going on in Chatham County. We were joined by Pittsboro Mayor Cindy Perry. Cindy, thank you very much for joining us.
Pear:
Thank you.
Every Tuesday, find out what’s happening around Chatham County at the Chatham County Rally! Featuring local government officials, the Chatham News + Record and other community members, the segment highlights the latest news from across the region.
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