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To the editor:

To say that I am disappointed in your (county commissioner’s) decision voting for the rezoning to business from residential really doesn’t describe how I truly feel. That would be difficult for me to put into words without being offensive to someone.

I listened intensely to the prayer by the preacher of Mocks Church as he prayed over the meeting. I truly do not believe a one of you truly heard or understood his prayer.  Of course you truly didn’t vote last night.  You had already made the deal with Mr. Rye. Maybe each of you should go back and listen carefully to the prayer again. It was profound and moved me. Each of you will have to live with your decision and trust me, you will hear about this decision again and again.

While I appreciate the words “said” of trying to be fair to all parties, I did not see one thing that showed fairness to the James family, the majority property owner attached to that property.

I saw that the building is being moved 25 feet inward from the south back property line. That does not help the James property line from water runoff damages. It just moves it inward onto our property more.

I saw where Mr. Rye must put in a tree barrier on the Everett side, which the Everett’s will have to wait years for it to mature. That does nothing for the James property at all. I did not see where Mr. Rye is responsible for keeping that tree barrier alive and that he would have to replace any dead trees with like size trees.

I did see that Mr. Rye must place his scrap into a dumpster which is to be hidden by a fence and some sort of screening. That does nothing for the James property.

I did not see any conditions placed on Mr. Rye that he must control his own water runoff and keep it on his own property. Therefore, he is, based on your conditions, allowed to destroy our property.

I saw where Mr. Rye was in breach of your own conditions from the April commissioners meeting whereby Mr. Rye was supposed to have signed in agreement all stipulations prior to this coming to a vote at the May meeting.  Thank goodness Mr. Vogler, being the good attorney that he is, caught this. If this had been in a court of law, I would have moved for immediate dismissal of the vote. Instead, what I believe I saw was shock and awe from the commissioners that you had failed in your duties to the residents of Davie County and my family.

As stated at the meeting, you needed to make three people happy. Those three people were Mr. Bailey, Mr. Rye and the Everetts. No mention was ever made of the fourth party, and the majority property owner, the James family. I still contend that you only made two people happy, buyer and seller.

And we, the surrounding property owners, were not a consideration at all and will have to live with your decision forever.

That bit of Mr. Bailey having owned that property for however many years and paid property taxes, etc. .. you failed miserably at calculating the amount of property taxes that the James family and Everett/Sowers family has paid over those same years.  There is no comparison.  We have paid more, much, much more. Have someone in the tax office go add it up if you are unable to calculate that in your own head.

In closing, it is obvious that you were not an impartial party and hid behind the 2019 DC Comprehensive Plan which has not been adopted or voted into existence

Sandra Mooneyham

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