Category Archives: Lewisville

When Your Pastor Behaves Like a Jerk

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Lewisville, NC has plenty of churches, but as far as I know it only has one pastor (now ex-pastor) who maintains a regular blog. I stumbled across the blog of one local congregation's pastor a few years ago and at one point wrote a post about some misgivings I had about his congregation's approach to proseltyzing to folks in hospice. He left me a comment on that post inviting me to lunch to discuss the matter and I looked forward to having a lively discussion. Alas the lunch never happened and later that year he resigned from the church. When I read of his resignation I sent him an email wishing him well and I believe I even offered a helping hand, although in practical terms I don't have many connections that would likely be of use to a Baptist preacher. His reply to my email was, well, curt.

The pastor's blog remained in my reader and occassionally he would write something that caught my attention. His latest post – My Former Church, Obama, Nice vs. Kind, SBC Name Change – offers a not-so-subtle hint as to why he might have had to resign from his church:

To The People At My Former Church
I am not your long, lost buddy, or your best friend. When you see me and you want to hug me, don't be surprised if I don't want to hug you back. Your refusal to take a stand against the evil in the church is the reason I am no longer there. I don't blame the evil people for revealing who they truly are. However, I lay the church problems at the feet of you who refused to stand up for what is right because you didn't want to rock the boat. You closed your eyes to the boil on the butt of the church and refused to lance it. Your cowardice in the name of peace did not and does not honor the Lord Jesus. I have moved on. So when you see me in the marketplace, don't be surprised when I don't pretend to be your good buddy. I'm not. 

That's the damndest interpretation of forgiveness and grace I've ever seen from a man of the cloth. But he really shows us something with his take on why Obama will win the election:

Obama Will Win
Not because I want him to win, nor will I vote for him, but I believe he will win a second term. This election is not about issues, it's about race. Most African-Americans will vote for Obama because he is black. They are proud to have one of their own in charge. They will always give him the benefit of the doubt. Black folks will vote for Obama and a few white folks will too. That is why Obama will be reelected. It doesn't really matter what the Republicans do or who they run. Obama will win.

Considering that African Americans make up less than 13% of the US population I'd say President Obama would need more than a "few" white votes to be reelected. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the candidate the Republicans pick, the state of the economy and the rise or fall of unemployment will have as much or more to do with the President's chances than race will.

Earlier in his post our friendly pastor wrote:

I have come to the point in my life where I am going to say what I think. You may like it or you may not like it. My remarks will not be politically correct. We have too many folks tiptoeing around words and never saying nothing. My tiptoeing days are over. I'm not going to place links in my posts or cite any sources. I am out of school and this is not a term paper. If you don't like my comments, then don't read the blog.

There won't be any comments on the blog. I don't have the time to moderate them because many of you will just say stupid things and expect me to respond. I don't have the time nor the desire to respond. If you want to talk about stuff, get your own blog.

Obviously I do have a blog, which means I'm able to comment and what I have to say is this: bitterness truly only hurts the man who carries it.  Also, you'd be well advised to say the Lord's Prayer and pay particular attention to the whole "trespasses" thing when you do. I truly hope you find it in your heart to forgive, because if you don't you're the one being hurt, not your former congregants.

Talking Trash

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Last night I attended the Lewisville Town Council meeting to see the swearing in of several new Council members, and that was fun, but what was most interesting was what I learned during a presentation by a representative of Waste Management to the new Council.  It seems that Waste Management is going to open a new single stream recycling operation in Forsyth County some time between May and July of 2012. What that means is that Waste Management's customers will be getting a new container that is the same size as their regular trash containter, but will be intended for recyclables.  In that container they'll be able to put all recycling materials (paper, plastic, metal, etc.) without sorting them and putting them in smaller containers as they do now.  It also means that recycling pickups will only happen every other week.

I didn't take good notes during the meeting, but if I remember correctly the Waste Management representative said that in other parts of the country where the single stream recycling has been introduced they've seen a significant increase in recycling and a significant reduction in solid waste going to the landfill.  All of that's good news as far as I'm concerned.

The Waste Management rep also showed a six minute video of one of their single stream recycling operations in Florida.  I couldn't find that one online, but I did find another of their videos about the process:

It will be interesting to see what kind of impact this facility has in Forsyth County. At a minimum I hope it lengthens the life span of our landfill, and really I hope it's the first step in getting us to the point where technology eliminates the need for a landfill altogether, or the need to truck our garbage somewhere else when our landfill is at capacity (Yeah, I'm a big dreamer).

You Know You’ve Ticked Them Off When…

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You know you've ticked off the voting public when two candidates for village council seats win via write-in and the mayor almost loses to a write-in.  Voters in Clemmons were sufficiently teed off at some of the candidates on the ballot (it had to do with a bond referendum and what appears to be a rift between a "new guard" and an "old guard") that they voted in two people who weren't even on the ballot, and narrowly missed voting out the incumbent mayor with a write-in campaign.  That's what I'd call a motivated voting populace.

Over in Lewisville things were much more sedate. I had the pleasure of serving on the Planning Board with two of the town council's newcomers, Sandy Mock, who garnered the most votes and Ed Smith who wasn't far behind in the vote count.  I think they'll do a great job for the town.

A Job Well Done

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As someone who has served on the Lewisville Board of Adjustment in the past I read this post by attorney Tom Terrell with more than a passing interest. Basically he lauds the Harnett County Board of Adjustment for their hard work on a landfill case that took 33 hours spread over six nights to conclude. Most people have no clue what boards of adjustment do, and quite frankly the people who volunteer their time to serve on most municipal boards like BOAs don't get enough credit for their efforts, so it's nice to see when someone who deals with them on a professional level takes the time to give them their due.  Here's a bit of what he wrote:

After six nights and 33 hours of testimony and deliberation, the Harnett County Board of Adjustment reached a decision this week regarding a Conditional Use Permit for a regional landfill.  It was a marathon.  I know, because I was there…

The hearing demonstrated why we desperately need quasi-judicial proceedings and, despite what I consider to be demonstrable legal flaws in the decision itself, provided a showcase example of how a BOA should operate.

Quasi-judicial proceedings establish evidentiary frameworks for unpopular but necessary land uses.  Without them, the alternative is a decision based purely on emotion and, sometimes, hysteria.  Or bad math.  (Let’s just count the number of people in the room for and against and let it be “democratic” despite what our comprehensive plan says, despite what our zoning ordinance says, despite what our staff says, and despite what our planning board says)…

But my other point is that this BOA was among the best I’ve ever seen in how it handled the hearing itself.  Each night board members systematically disclosed calls from the media and emails from neighbors and how they handled them. They disclosed civic and personal connections with witnesses.

The board chair did a better job ruling on objections by attorneys than most judges I’ve been in front of, and he gave some leeway to members of the public to stray from true evidence (in one case, a speech on “the purpose of man”) and to relate blatant hearsay conversations while instructing and reminding board members what can and cannot be considered as evidence.

He also praised the Harnett County staff members and I think he's absolutely spot on when he says that "I’ve learned never to underestimate the importance of working with good staff." I've been lucky enough to work with many of the staff members in Lewisville and I can say that it has always been an enjoyable and rewarding experience.  

Splitting Important Hairs

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At last night's Lewisville Planning Board meeting we were reviewing the town's 2010 update to its Comprehensive Plan.  The Comprehensive Plan is a document that is created and revised by a series of task forces made up of volunteer citizens and then sent to the Planning Board for review and from there to the Town Council for final approval and adoption.  The task forces working on the 2010 review took the 2005 version and made necessary updates and edits based on changes in the town over the past five years — changes in the regulatory environment (ex. new Federal stormwater requirements), new developments over the past five years, etc.

One of the additions made was the mention of social media as a form of communication that the town should use to engage and inform its citizens.  During our discussion of that addition we hit on the fact that hyperlinks would be included in the document for the first time since the 2010 version of the Plan will be the first to reside online and not merely in print.  What ensued was a discussion that reminded me of President Clinton's famous quote that it "depends on what the definition of is is."

One of us (it might have been me) said that it would be great to have the ability to go back and add appropriate hyperlinks to the document if new sources of information became available.  For instance if the Comprehensive Plan references a map that isn't currently online, but becomes available online at a later date, it would be great to be able to insert a hyperlink to the map at that time.  The town attorney stopped us and said he'd be hesitant to say that would be allowable, mainly because it would change the document from whatever form the task forces had created, the Planning Board had reviewed and the Town Council had voted to adopt.  I, for one, wasn't sure that adding a hyperlink changed the document since it was merely adding a link to a source that was being referenced by the original document.  Then the question of who would confirm the accuracy of the linked document arose, and it doesn't take much imagination to see that we got started down a pretty serious philosophical rabbit hole from that point on.  

We're not done reviewing the Comprehensive Plan, and I'm still not convinced one way or another on whether or not the addition or deletion of a hyperlink changes a document.  I know our attorney well enough to be 100% sure that he's right legally, but I'm not sure that I agree philosophycally with the law in this case.  In the end I think the rabbit hole we started down will lead to one very significant choice that needs to be addressed: should a document like a town's Comprehensive Plan be a static piece that is changed only when the community comes together every X number of years, or should it be a living, breathing document that is updated on a regular basis? I won't tell you what I think, although you could probably guess, but I'd love to hear what others think.

Forgiveness

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I know a lot of Christians, myself included, who struggle with forgiveness. After reading Rick Reilly's column I'd say Lewisville's own superstar Chris Paul could probably teach us a thing or two.  Not many people would seek a second chance for their grandfather's killers:

"Even though I miss my granddad," Paul told me, "I understand that he's not coming back. At the time, it made me feel good when I heard they went away for life. But now that I'm older, when I think of all the things I've seen in my life? No, I don't want it. I don't want it…"

No, what floors me about Chris Paul is his humanity. If strangers had bound my weak-hearted grandfather, beat him for no reason and killed him for the cash in his wallet — strangers who to this day have not shown a thimbleful of contrition — I'd want them in prison 100 years after they were in the dirt. 

Chris Paul once wrote that his grandfather "taught me more things than I could ever learn with a Ph.D." 

One of them must've been love.

 

Lewisville, er, Western Forsyth Development Almost Complete

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Did any of you catch the interesting play by the town council of Lewisville, NC to annex roads just outside its current borders?  You read that right – Lewisville's town council tried to annex roads, but not the land surrounding those roads, and in the process ticked off just about every state legislator from the area.  Basically the town was trying to control the access and delivery of services in the immediate vicinity because it wasn't granted extraterritorial jurisdiction and it wanted to prevent a development being put right outside its borders, thus increasing use of Lewisville's resources without contributing to its tax base.  You ever wondered what might have prompted this concern? I'd venture a guess that the soon to be completed Lake at Lisarra development had something to do with it:

Construction on the upscale Lake at Lissara residential development in western Forsyth County is slated for completion this month, capping a more than $60 million project.

Lake at Lissara, a 254-acre project developed by Lang Wilcox, Brant Godfrey, Pete Ramey and Beau Dancy, features a man-made lake and 102 lots off Shallowford and Conrad Roads. Homes prices range from the $400,000s to more than $1 million.

Read more: Forsyth development nearly complete | The Business Journal

 

Funerals and Weddings

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I've written here before that I serve on the Lewisville Planning Board.  Generally we spend our time on thrilling conversations concerning things like where to put driveway cuts downtown, but this week we're ramping it up a notch at our public meeting (Wednesday, 7:30 at Town Hall). We have a case that involves three lots downtown that Hayworth Miller is requesting to be rezoned so that they can build a funeral home. I've heard that several of our citizens aren't real pleased with the location for the funeral home, so I expect we'll have a lively crowd tomorrow night.  If you plan on coming to see the festivities bring your own refreshments since there isn't a concession stand at Town Hall.

At our last work session the folks at Hayworth Miller presented some initial drawings and took questions from the Board and one of the questions asked by a fellow member of the Board just about knocked me out of my chair.  He asked, and I'm paraphrasing here, "What other uses are you considering for the facility?" I have to admit that I kind of thought he'd lost it when he asked the question because, I mean, what else would you use a funeral home for?  Ends up he hadn't lost it.  Apparently a new trend in the funeral home business is the use of their chapels for weddings.  I'll let you think about that a minute and see if you enjoy, as much as I did, the thought of so many jokes that just write themselves about a marriage that begins at a funeral home. (Feel free to share them in the comments).

Anyhoo, I expect tomorrow night's meeting to be a long and rather interesting one.  If you're a Lewisville citizen and want to say your piece then come on out and join us.

According to the Biggest Loser Winston-Salem is Profane

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So I decided to try and motivate myself to lose a few pounds by signing up for the The Biggest Loser's Pound for Pound Challenge.  The Challenge pushes you to lose weight while also helping your local food bank, which in our case is Second Harvest Food Bank.  So I input all my info on the registration page of the website and found that it wouldn't accept my registration, not because I forgot to fill something out but because it seems to think that something about Winston-Salem is profane.  Check out this screenshot (click on it to enlarge):

WinstonSalemProfaneCropped
See how they politely ask for "No Profanity in Team City please"? Go figure.

So my team is now officially located in Lewisville.  If you'd like to join and pledge to lose some weight while benefiting Second Harvest just go to www.pfpchallenge.com and sign up. You can do it individually or as a team; if you'd like to join my team the name is Lewisville Designated Losers.  Let me know if you run into problems by leaving me a comment on this post and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.