Groups could heat up local politics
HILLSBOROUGH – First, there was Citizens for a Better Way, a group that formed in Orange County last year and campaigned against the $ 75 million bond package that voters approved in November, saying the timing was wrong to take on that much new debt.
Then the national group, Citizens for a Sound Economy showed up, after a request for help from Citizens for a Better Way. Working in a county with a history of successful bond referendums, Citizens for a Better Way asked for and received funding from the Sound Economy folks to help support Better Way’s campaign, which included pamphlets, phone calls and signs that urged residents to “Vote No Bond Tax on Nov. 6.”
The Sound Economy group is based in Washington, D.C., and has a number of regional offices around the country, including one in Raleigh. The group describes its members as “Americans working for free enterprise and limited government,” who want lower taxes and more economic freedom.
“We asked for their help,” said Kathy Hartkopf, a Hillsborough resident and spokeswoman for Citizens for a Better Way. “They’re a group that, if you have a need that fits their value system, they will come and help.”
Hartkopf says the Sound Economy group has formally established an Orange County chapter, with membership made up primarily of Better Way members.
And now it appears a third group, dubbed the Citizens for Progress, could join the mix in the next few months.
Orange Commissioners Vice Chairman Steve Halkiotis, a proponent of the bond package, says he wants to form such a group primarily as a response to Citizens for a Better Way, at which he leveled sharp criticism.
“The thing that intrigued me during the whole anti-bond campaign was that they represented themselves as Citizens for a Better Way, but they never once told us what the ‘better way’ was,” Halkiotis said Sunday, when asked about the status of the envisioned Citizens for Progress. “If they have a better way, then I, for one, would be glad to hear it.
“The thing that’s troubling is that they came out against all four bond issues,” Halkiotis said. “Therefore, I have to surmise their better way is that they’re against senior centers, against affordable housing, against meeting school-construction needs and against recreation. If they’re for something, maybe they can tell us. All I know is what they’re against.”
The bond package includes $ 47 million for schools, $ 20 million for parks, recreation and open space, $ 4 million for two senior centers and $ 4 million for lower-cost housing. County officials have drafted a potential timetable that shows four bond sales spread out over five years, along with another $ 36.7 million in borrowing by 2007 for projects not addressed by the bonds.
The first bond sale listed in the timetable is for $ 19.05 million in July, but the commissioners haven’t fully debated or adopted any piece of the timetable.
As for potential Citizens for Progress members, Halkiotis said he expects they would come largely from people who supported the bond elements and the overall bond package. He said the group’s members could “come together in some kind of forum and network and keep in touch with each other, to share new and exciting ideas, and to see what the challenges are for the future and how we can meet those challenges.”
Halkiotis first mentioned creating a citizens group at a November commissioners meeting, following the bond vote. He said Sunday that he’d like to have an organizational meeting in late spring, although he hasn’t talked up the group to date, and he’s still looking into the legalities of an elected official participating in such a group.
“I’m still in the exploratory stages,” he said. “It may be that I just help set this group up, and somebody else, not an elected official, becomes the spokesperson. I have to check out all the legal ramifications of this thing.”
Contacted Sunday, Hartkopf said she was taken aback by the comments from Halkiotis.
“I do find it very interesting that Commissioner Halkiotis is continuing to perpetuate this debate about the bond referendum after it has ended,” she said. “It will be interesting to see what’s coming next.”
Still, Hartkopf confirmed that Citizens for a Better Way remains active, with about 20 people attending the most recent meeting in December.
“We are certainly watching what’s happening in the county, and we’re monitoring both school boards’ meetings and commissioners meetings, particularly the school board meetings,” she said. “We’re concerned about the possibility of a proposed school-district tax for northern Orange being on the May ballot. We would not make a formal decision on whether to oppose that until we knew the exact details, but we’ll be meeting regularly and watching it closely.
“We have stood for something,” Hartkopf said, in response to Halkiotis’s criticism. “Our ‘better way’ is a very simple one – it’s the choice to be fiscally responsible. We’re not anti-tax or anti-bond. We just thought the enormity of that bond package was the wrong thing at the time for Orange County. “
Asked to define “fiscally responsible,” she said some people questioned whether certain projects within the bond package were necessary.
“Certainly, there were some very needed things in this bond package,” she said. “One of those things was for Hillsborough Elementary School. I’m there every day, and certainly that was needed, and there were some other things that were needed as well.
“But there were some things that were included in all four bonds that there had been questions raised about,” she said, without naming them.
About a week before the November bond vote, Hartkopf stated that the Better Way group doubted whether projects such as a new Orange County middle school were needed, and about the amount of bond spending in Chapel Hill-Carrboro compared with the rest of the county.
The bond package includes $ 900,000 for renovations at Hillsborough Elementary, with that money included in the potential $ 19.05 million bond sale the commissioners are considering for July. Hartkopf’s daughter attends Hillsborough Elementary, and Hartkopf chairs the fund-raising committee of that school’s PTA.
Given that she believed the renovations at the school were necessary, Hartkopf said it bothered her to vote against the $ 47 million in school bonds.
“It was a personal struggle, but I just couldn’t ask voters to support the entire [school] bond package, even though there were things that were very needed within it,” she said.
Hartkopf also responded to comments from Susan Halkiotis, an Orange County school board member and the wife of Steve Halkiotis. Before Steve Halkiotis took a reporter’s call on Sunday, Susan Halkiotis was asked about Citizens for a Better Way.
In a reference to Hartkopf, she said, “I think it’s curious that the spokesperson for that group was quoted as saying that she and her husband liked this area because of our successful school district but apparently doesn’t want to support the tax funds that it takes to continue and broaden that success. That’s just one of those ironies that kind of makes you pause.
“Another thing that’s troubling about that whole organization and effort is that I hope people who live in this county realize that funding for that group has come from outside the county,” Susan Halkiotis said. “So people who don’t live here and don’t have a vested interest in our school system have become involved in the dialogue.”
“That comment concerns me a great deal,” Hartkopf said in response. “Since we ‘ve had a child in this school system, I’ve spent untold hours to better Hillsborough Elementary School.
“I don’t think it’s fair to question somebody’s commitment to education simply because they’re opposed to a school bond,” Hartkopf said.
GRAPHIC: Photo: HALKIOTIS
