Worst Week in Raleigh: Dix Park Advocates

by | Mar 27, 2015 | Carolina Strategic Analysis, Features, Mental health, NC Politics, NCGA, NCGov | 9 comments

It looks like the battle over the future of Dix Park may not be over.

After extensive negotiations between McCrory and the city, an agreement was reached to sell the former Dix land to the city for $52 million. The Senate has hinted in the past that they’re not fans of the arrangement and think the state is getting a raw deal.

Yesterday, that disenchantment manifested itself when several Republican senators filed a bill that would take the take the matter out of the hands of Raleigh and the governor entirely, likely revoking the past agreement. Instead, the Senate would put the 308-acre Dix land up for a bid with a $52 million minimum price tag, leading to the possibility that the site would be purchased by a private developer. The senators say it only makes sense that NC gets the best deal they can, considering the value of the land and its location in the middle of a metropolitan area.

Dix Park advocates aren’t happy. They fear the bill will jeopardize their plans for, in their words, a ‘world-class destination park’ – a place where people from all over the state and presumably, all over the country and the entire world would come to … walk their dogs, or something. Advocates of the park say it will be the state’s ‘greatest attraction’. Yes, people will come to North Carolina, not to explore the Outer Banks or to enjoy the mountains, but to go to a park. Hopefully the Senate won’t mess with the current agreement, because if there’s one thing Raleigh needs, it’s another park … or a greenway.

Just about the only thing worse than a park would be converting the land into a shopping mall or another apartment complex. With the bill’s filing yesterday, those outcomes just became a lot more likely.

Dix Park people, with the Senate looking to swoop in an undo the agreement between the governor and Raleigh leaders and possibly turning your world-class, destination park into a world-class, destination subdivision, you’ve earned this week’s ‘Worst Week in Raleigh’ award. Congrats, or something.

In the past, these folks also had a week that wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. Read about their misfortunes here:

March 20, 2015 – Dana Cope (Again)
March 6, 2015 – Wake County Board of Commissioners
February 27, 2015 – Tony Tata
February 20, 2015 – Jeff Jackson (Best Week in Raleigh)
February 13, 2015 – Dana Cope
February 6, 2015 – Thom Tillis
January 30, 2015 – Julia Howard
January 9, 2015 – NC House Democrats

9 Comments

  1. Donald Byrd

    I keep wonder where Raleigh will get the money to buy this property and where in the world will they get the money to development it. There is no way Raleigh can afford this, they will take ever penny available to fund this. Taxes will go up and they will take every penny from the hotel and motel tax.

  2. Frank McGuirt

    Well, other than being a citizen of NC I have no dog in the fight but it does seem to me we’ve gone “park crazy” in recent years. We need more treatment facilities for the mentally ill (“Dix Hill” ring a bell?) and we need roads and bridges repaired and maintained.

  3. cosmicjanitor

    So then, how do these most despised (and despicable) republikan corporate operatives continue getting elected to office, especially when many within their own party see them for what they are? The least thing these ‘brown shirts’ can be accused of is representing the interests of NC. voters; the only people they represent are the monied interests. The good citizens better rise-up and and demand independent, transparent vote verification or there will be even more of these fascist republikans winning office, for vote swapping with electronic touch screen and/or ballot scanning machines is easy to do and otherwise impossible to stop! How much more do you need to see?

  4. River Rat Dem

    Let’s keep on adding adjectives! Disgusting, obese, *aesthetically challenged* third-world hicks!!!

  5. Russell Scott Day

    I don’t know a great deal about this, but do know that once it becomes standard for all contracts and agreements to be subject to revocation, you undermine the stability of the entire edifice of businesses who will stop committing to one thing after another. The people who negotiated an agreement in this case may not actually be a business, but I well imagine that they did act like one, and attempted to negotiate a contract. If their aims were good, and the goal was good, which it appears to have been, what a slap in the face to see those with more money given more power to alter the situation. Whatever you have created, or attempt to create for the people can be destroyed by the rapacious and their money and lobbyist. When legislators will not let honorable people try to work at these sorts of things intended to advance the public good, they may as well resign and take positions in the private sector who they obviously want to work for.

  6. Progressive Wing

    Wow, John. You could not have offered a more callous blog. Ridiculing people for their hopes and dreams for an urban park of great attraction and use. I’ll guess you’ve never heard about or visited NYC’s Central Park.

    Actually, beyond nominating YOU for the “Worst Week in Raleigh” Award (for a very shallow, harsh, and ill-informed blog), I nominate the GOP sponsors of this bill. Adding it to the myriad other ways the NCGOP is undermining the vitality and voters’ voice in Raleigh and the state’s other urban areas, I’d say that this bill, which seeks to overrule a negotiated agreement between two government entities, offers every NC voter a clear example of just how mean-spirited, anti-urban, and extreme the NCGOP has become. And that will come back to haunt the NCGOP, big-time, hopefully sooner than later. So, I say give the bill sponsors the WWiR Award……

    • John Wynne

      Relax, PW. Other than the suggestive name, I really don’t have a problem with Dix Park. I just think claims that it’s going to be the next Central Park are overstated. Additionally, I think this bill has a very remote chance of becoming law, and is bad optics besides, for many of the reasons you stated.

  7. Mike L

    If this passes both the Senate and House would the Governer be able to veto this or would it be considered a “local bill”? I can’t imagine the GA being able to override a veto if the Wake County GOP reps and all the Democrats vote against this…

    • John Wynne

      Not a local bill, so McCrory can veto. Hard to see him signing it if it reached his desk.

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