Last week’s newspaper included coverage about a Mebane planning board meeting and specifically a proposed apartment complex along N.C. 119.
One item from that meeting apparently drew the attention of various county commissioners as they examined the county’s proposed budget prior to Monday night’s vote, specifically with regard to the school system.
Nathan Duggins, an attorney with the Tuggle Duggins law firm in Greensboro, made various statements on behalf of Brown Investment Properties, which wants to construct the apartment complex.
Some of his statements responded to the concerns of residents, which included the fairly typical opposition based on traffic and overall crowding, as well as an objection based on crowded conditions at nearby schools.
Duggins told the planning board that based on information he said he had received from the school system, the three nearby schools were not overcrowded.
Duggins cited the school system’s figures as showing that Garrett Elementary is at 70 percent capacity, Hawfields Middle School is at 83 percent, and Southeast Alamance High School is at 85 percent.
County commissioner Steve Carter called us Monday before the commissioners’ meeting to tell us we had made a mistake in last week’s edition with regard to the capacity figures.
No, we explained to him, we had merely reported what Duggins, the developer’s attorney, had said at the planning board meeting. (According to Carter, who forwarded information from ABSS, the actual capacity figures place Garrett at 108 percent, Hawfields at 90 percent, and Southeast at 82 percent – the last slightly lower than Duggins’ figure.)
Somehow by that night’s meeting, however, that distinction between our reporting versus an actual claim by the newspaper was lost on Carter, who proceeded to tell fellow board members and the audience at the courthouse that The Alamance News had said thus and such about the ABSS capacity figures at the three schools – and that it had been wrong.
We don’t try to verify every statement that public speakers make at meetings any more than we try to verify commissioner Carter’s assertions at commissioner meetings.
In our news stories, we merely report – as objectively and as comprehensively as possible.
On the editorial page, however, we’ll give our opinions freely.
And, just by the way, the Tuggle Duggins law firm has responded to our inquiry this week about where they got the capacity figures used in the Mebane planning board presentation, particularly for the two schools that Carter and his ABSS information show to be more crowded – with Garrett over capacity and Hawfields at 90 percent.
Lo and behold, the firm sent us links to. . . wait for it. . . the county’s capital projects website for the respective elementary and middle schools – with, you guessed it, the precise figures for ABSS that attorney Duggins had quoted in his presentation.
Why two sets of figures for ABSS?
Frankly, from our experience, that’s about par for the course.
Here’s the original planning board story that drew commissioners’ attention about school capacity issues at three Mebane area schools:
Mebane planning board likes expansion of commercial, townhouse project, doesn’t like more apts.
Here are the links to the disputed figures used by the developer’s attorney:
Audrey W. Garrett Elementary School: https://alamancecapitalprojects.com/audrew-w-garrett-elementary-school/
Hawfields Middle School: https://alamancecapitalprojects.com/hawfields-middle-school/
