To the Editor:

Here we go again! Another School Bond vote. So why are we here when we voted six years ago? Those projects are almost all completed from the last bond. So why do we need more schools? These schools were needed six years ago, but the bond would have been beyond our means so these projects were put on hold. We can’t wait any longer. The word has been out for years that Iredell County is a great place to live, learn, work and play. New folks keep coming. As long as we keep boasting about having the lowest tax rate around, people will keep coming. It is self-fulfilling.

Everyone wants to know how to stop folks from coming. You can’t demand personal property rights and then tell people they can’t do what they want with their own land. If people buy these old family farms that no family member wants and they decide they want to put in a housing development, that is their legal right. The saying out here in the County is that if you want to control who your neighbors will be then buy the land that joins you. Local government cannot stop them. They cannot even charge impact fees.

Voting against the bond won’t stop them from coming. No matter what anybody says, there is no hidden money tree to use for these projects. If the bond referendums do not pass, county commissioner will be forced to do more expensive financing for these critical needs and potentially have to raise taxes by more than a penny.

The taxpayers in South Iredell pay a large portion of property taxes. They need schools because that is where many people want to live because of the proximity to Charlotte and Lake Norman. The reason the folks in the rest of the county can afford to keep their family farms and way of life is because of that growth.

We have the lowest tax rate of all the counties around us. They would love to have our tax base. We need to vote for the School Bonds, build those schools and be thankful that many of us can keep our land. I am always thankful that I can keep my small farm. Please join many of us in voting “Yes” for the School Bonds. Election Day is Tuesday, March 3.

Diane Hamby
Statesville