In last week's N&O, Rob Christensen has a column about growth in Cary. His thoughts were the same as Ernie McAlisters; Since we were allowed to move to Cary, we have no right to call for control of growth. Here's an email I sent to Mr. Christensen regarding his column:

Mr. Christensen,
Thank you for taking time to write about our
"little old town" of Cary.  As you state, proper
control of growth in Cary is a complex  matter,
with no 'right' answer.

I do believe the notion endorsed by Ernie
McAlister that any and  > all newcomers should
be welcomed is fundamentally flawed.  I came
here in 1992, you arrived a year later.  Back then,
our roads were unclogged and we did not have 20%
of our students in trailers.  Continuing to allow
anyone wanting to move to the Cary just because  
we were allowed to move here ourselves puts us
on the same path as an ill-fated Indonesian
passenger ferry.  Every new passenger must be
welcomed aboard, even if the boat is already
over capacity.  With every new passenger, the
boat is further at risk of swamping. In our case
the risk is running out of water, open space and  
passable roads.

Cary has two traffic problems, commuting and local.
Every business day we face worsening commute
times for people commuting to RTP.  We are in
a way fortunate that our commuter routes will in
fact face increasing pressure as quality employment
continues to grow.  But, Cary also faces worsening
local traffic problems.  Today, a drive across
town means running a gauntlet of endless stop-lights  
(with multiple-cycle queues), dodging traffic cones
and following dumptrucks at hopefully enough distance
to keep a rock from going through our windshields.

We can focus on fixing commute traffic by investing
more money in the arterials used by commuters --
highway 55, Holly Springs Rd, the Western Wake
Freeway and lower- Davis Drive.  This allows
redirection of growth to neighboring towns without
impacting Cary citizens' ability to drive within the
town on errands.

I believe your viewpoint on development impact fees
may also be based on transfer-taxes.  Impact fees
are only paid at time of construction, and I think
they are an equitable way for a developer to pay
their fair share of infrastructure costs.  Transfer-
taxes are imposed every time someone buys or sells
a home, and I don't believe in them.  If proper
impact fees are in place at time of contruction,
then there should be no need to pay for infrastructure  
a second time when you sell your home.

Cary is now annexing land in Chatham county, and
the growth continues.  When do we say enough is enough?

 Thanks,
Joe Ciulla

Here's his response:

Joe,
Thanks for your note. I respectfully disagree. When I moved
to  Raleigh in 1973, Cary had 7,000 people. I would bet that
a lot of Caryites liked that just fine. But you and I would
have been unable  to move to Cary if they had pulled up the
ladder in 1973. I think it's a little hard to compare a
ferry with a town. Who's to say that we have reached the
maximum population? In fact, urban experts would argue that
increased urban density in towns around RTP would reduce  
traffic congestion on I-40 and other routes.  Even if Cary
capped growth, it would only mean that surrounding towns
such as Apex and Holly Spring would absorb the additional  
growth, and those residents would use Cary's streets for
our shopping.  I've recently been in places in Ohio, Iowa
and Michigan and elsewhere that are losing population. They
would love to have our problem.

We will always have people who think this way, and they are
all entitled to express their opinions.
Today, the following LTE appeared in the N&O:

Regarding Rob Christensen's Oct. 14 column "Taming growth is

ticklish":

The answer to the question that Christensen was too well-mannered

to ask when my son and I went to his door before the Cary election --

when had we moved to Cary? -- is six years before he did, in 1987.

We knew the original owners of his house; my sons went to school

with their children.

We were not random campaign volunteers for Mayor-elect Harold

Weinbrecht. We were Christensen's neighbors participating in a

grassroots effort, handing out literature for all three of our newly

elected candidates in our area. We were personally spreading the

word that some of the candidates were actually willing to listen to

citizens rather than special interests and the truth about growth

trends because Mayor Ernie McAlister had far greater financial

ability to broadcast his versions of messages.

The graph Christensen was shown was accurately plotted Cary new

housing-permit data. It was my independently created graphic that

accompanied my opinion piece "Numbers tell the story" published in

The N&O's own Cary News, which chose to provide this powerful

illustration only in the online version. It appears from Christensen's

recent column that he might find enlightenment in my

multidimensional Cary growth analysis.

John Yoakum

Cary

The punch line of Mr. Christensen's column was that he had been 'too polite' to ask
the person at his door when they moved to Cary. Based on Mr. Yoakum's letter, I can
only conclude that Mr. Christensen was far more concerned about having a good one-
liner to close his column than he was about politeness.

We'll be adding thousands more passengers to the good ship Cary this year. Fortunately if the ferry does go down the passengers will all be able to walk to shore across what used to be the bed of Jordan Lake.