Cabarrus Cheap Seats

Earlier this week, the Concord Planning and Zoning Commission, decided not to decide to allow the county to expand the jail facility in Downtown Concord. My fellow Cabarrus County residents, the City of Concord believes that your public safety comes in a close second to preserving Downtown.

Zoning it in

It’s sort of amazing after all of the years County Jail overcrowding has been a problem that it comes to this - zoning. The City of Concord can zone to keep the well-compensated lawyers downtown, while leaving their pesky defendants, in the words of last week’s Concord Standard and Times Columnist John Miller, “elsewhere on county-owned land”. While they agree to some jail facility, they won’t stand for an adequate one to be built downtown. How do they get to decide this? Well, you have to look at some other zoning - like the City Council zoning.

Concord, North Carolina has about 61,000 residents over an area of roughly 55 square miles. Through annexation and growth, both of these numbers are increasing. First, the “old” part of town, (South of I-85, North of NC-49, East of US-29, and (roughly) West of Branchview Dr) is represented by five of the seven districts. This means that when the residents of the more established parts of Concord want something - they get it.

Second, looking at the Concord City Council district map, (yes, I finally found one) yields some interesting facts. The majority of the seven-member Concord City Council (4 of the 7: James Ramseur, Lamar Barrier, Alfred Brown, and Allen Small) live in a 2.5 square mile area (once again, Concord covers 55 square miles) with Downtown Concord in the center. The Concord Planning and Zoning Commission are a group of citizens appointed by a City Council who, by design, represent the more established parts of Concord first. Therefore, it should come as little surprise that Planning and Zoning Commission put the brakes on the jail when people from their neighborhood showed up and complained about this jail. However, there are 50 square miles of neighborhoods that they ignored.

An Issue of Priorities

The first task of government is to protect the life and property of its citizens. This applies to government at all levels. In good government, everything else should come in after this. So, if there’s a decision where Option A would keep someone from breaking into my house and Option B would keep a perceived historic ambiance wholly undisturbed - Option A would get my vote. I would also be a little more enthusiastic about Option A if this historic ambiance were being subsidized largely by tax dollars. I would be especially interested in supporting the proposal if Option A was designed in a such a way as to minimize the disturbance of the historic ambiance of this subsidized area. The proposed jail project does all of this in an area that’s gotten more than its fair share of attention by the local governments. The bottom line is that, while government has myriad responsibilities, it should keep first things first - which is keeping its citizens safe.

The opponents of this jail are likening this jail as the County’s will being foisted upon the poor residents of Concord. Well, there are a few other dimensions to this story. Downtown Concord is undergoing a rather gradual renaissance. This is in large part to a significant investment of public funds from the City and the County. As the county has grown, Downtown Concord businesses have survived in large part to the growing patronage of the City and County employees who work downtown, and of citizens who interact with the governments of both while they are there. There are not major manufacturers in Downtown Concord, and there are not large corporate headquarters. The business of Downtown Concord isn’t business - it’s government. This isn’t bad for any Cabarrus County resident. You can get a marriage license, eat lunch, close on a house, bail a friend out of County lockup, and have a nice dinner afterwards without ever getting in your car. Try that in most other places. So, it only makes sense to locate as much of the operations of City and County Government Downtown. The jail project won’t displace any additional businesses. Because it’s adding on to an existing jail, it probably won’t have an effect on property values. It’s merely an expansion of an existing facility.

It’s quite obvious that the City is proud of its Downtown. As a resident, I’m proud of our Downtown. When my boss and his wife visited from California, we drove all the way up from North Charlotte to eat at the Union Street Bistro just show I could show them Downtown Concord. It has a rich history that should be preserved and celebrated. We should maintain a Downtown of character that generations to come should build upon, and I think that we are moving in that direction. However, this should not come at the expense of public safety. And one resident’s safety isn’t more important than the others.

The Two Types Of People

To the jail opponents there are two types of people - those are from the Historic District and those that wished they were. Don’t take it from me, just read what they write. I’ve read most of the letters to the editor and special columnists who write in opposition to this project. Given enough space, they’ll start by telling you how long their family has lived here. The main argument for the jail expansion is that there are more people in the County, and, thus, more criminals. That want you to know that they are not the ones that caused the need, and it’s not their problem. They tell you how it was and how all of these outsiders are ruining it…without using those words. Read between the lines and you’ll get their point.

People who state their generational attachment to this area are sending a message that they possess some sort of birthright, and that their opinions should be given priority over the unwashed Philistines who sauntered down I-85 and ruined their picturesque little town. Unfortunately, that doesn’t hold a lot of water. Concord has managed to grow and thrive in spite of the massive losses in the textile industry. This is due mainly to the expansion in other parts of the County, and the expanding tax base that resulted from that growth.

Over the past couple of decades, Concord has annexed large parts of the County to support this. While a decreasing share of the tax base is in the established areas of Concord, a significant portion of the development funds go there. By some measures, those of us in the less-established areas of the City are subsidizing the existence of the more established ones.

Those in the established part of city will argue two points - that newcomers are the problem and there’s more of “us” then there is of “them”. It’s true that the new growth stresses public services; but mainly County services like schools. The City services like water, sewer, and garbage are largely fee-based and “pay-as-you-go”: growth pays for itself in those situations.

As for the “more of us vs. less of them” argument, many people believe the established parts of the City still account for most of the city population. Let’s take a look at the numbers. Assuming that voter registration is a pretty good sample of the population, it’s safe to use Township 12 as the established part of the city and Township 2 as the new part. Township 12 has about 18,000 registered voters. The precincts of Township 2 which are completely in Concord (2-04 precincts is partly in Kannapolis and is entirely excluded from this calculation) have around 16,000 registered voters. 57% of Concord residents are in established parts of the city, while 43% are in the “new” parts of the City. While not a majority, the public safety of 43% of a city should matter in a discussion of a new jail; and it’s large enough that their safety shouldn’t be ignored.

Bottom Line

Let’s say that you found out that there was a guy molesting children in your neighborhood. Would you want the DA and the Sheriff to throw them in jail or to think about if they could spare the space and decide to put the molester under house arrest? The answer is obvious. People in my neighborhood pay the same tax rates as everyone else in Concord, and one neighborhood shouldn’t be given priority because more of that neighborhood’s family-tree branches hang over Union Street.

As residents of Concord, we should take the time to ask ourselves the question of how is it that a Planning and Zoning Board of the City would put the brakes on the project. Well, it might have to do with the fact that while 43% of voters in the City live in the new part of town, only 29% of the City Council does. And it’s the Council that appoints the members of the Concord City Planning and Zoning Board. It’s a pretty fair assumption that most of the Concord City Planning and Zoning Board lives in or near Downtown. The contact information for this board wasn’t anywhere on the City website where I could find it; but it’s safe to say that they haven’t heard from anyone that wasn’t walking distance from Downtown about this jail project - otherwise they wouldn’t be putting the safety of the resident second. This is a strong example that there is a strong need for reform on the part of City government. It’s quite obvious that people in the newer parts of the city are inadequately represented. This is the root cause of this whole conflict, and it should be addressed soon.

This jail project leaves a lot of flexibility for future residents to make decisions about expansion and it takes care of a need which has been largely ignored by previous County Commissioners who’ve lacked both the political courage and common sense to tackle the problem. There are those who think it is a bad project. Robert D. Raiford, Concord’s #1 Cultural Export, wrote in the most recent Standard and Times that the jail was a bad idea. Well, it isn’t. Who says that? I say that, and so does The City of Concord, The Cabarrus Bar, Historic Concord, and The Concord Development Corporation (three times, actually)