Initiated over five years ago by a petition of property owners, the construction and paving of Woodland Circle Extension is officially complete. But the possibility that a majority stakeholder could walk — potentially leaving Foxfire Village with a $1.5 million unpaid assessment — dominated discussion at a Public Hearing on Thursday, January 13.

Addressing the Village Council on behalf of John McKean, who owns a significant portion of the property to be assessed, attorney John May argued that the Village was asking his client to pay more than his fair share of the cost.

Using the equal rate per acre methodology laid out in the preliminary resolution approved in December would burden McKean with almost three-quarters of the project costs, yet, owing to the position of his land, he will own only 30% of actual road frontage lots.

“The property that is going to pay the most for the assessment will not be equally benefited by the methodology you have chosen,” said May. “He [McKean] is not looking for a fight or to avoid paying some of the costs, but he would like very much for the Council to consider another more equitable methodology or approach in how to pay for this.”

May said that the current tax value on McKean’s 156-acre property is $1.1 million and that his anticipated assessment is $1.5 million. He also noted that a 2008 survey delineated 20% of the property as jurisdictional wetlands, leaving only 130 acres of divisible land.

“He will get to a point that it is not economically appropriate for him to pay the assessment, if he’s never going to get the money back out of the property,” warned May.

Construction on a rail safety project that will close two crossings in West End and equip the Lakeway Drive crossing in Seven Lakes with gate arms and upgraded signals is likely to begin in late Spring or early Summer, NC Department of Transportation [NCDOT] engineer Nancy Horne told The Times on Tuesday.

Documents assessing the environmental impact of the project have been signed by the NC Department of Environment and Natural Reources and by the Federal Highway Adminstration, which is providing funding for the $650,000 project.

Once she has those signed approvals in hand, Horne said, she can prepare the Plans, Specifications, and Estimates package and seek approval for construction funding.

NCDOT personnel are likely to handle the crossing closures in West End, while the Aberdeen Carolina & Western Railway will complete the work on the Seven Lakes signals.

The condition of drainpipes uncovered in Seven Lakes West's first culvert repair has persuaded Infrastructure Director John Goodman to accelerate his work schedule and fix four more culverts this Spring.

"It's really a matter of public safety," Goodman told The Times. "It's not worth the risk to wait for one of these to fail, because you don't know how long it would take to get on the contractor's schedule."

The questionable culverts carry water under Longleaf Drive. The first repair was conducted in the first week on the New Year and involved removing three 30-inch galvanized steel pipes from a culvert located on Longleaf between Wagoner and Vanore. Two of the pipes, when removed, turned out to be "on the low side of the scale in terms of their condition," Goodman told The Times.

"We could see that they had rusted out" during an earlier inspection, Goodman said, but silt in the pipes made it hard to determine the level of damage. Two of the pipes lIterally fell apart as they were being removed, he added.

Bringing more water to the greater Seven Lakes area is at the top of the agenda for the Moore County Board of Commissioners this year.

The Board concluded its annual two-day budget retreat, held January 13 and 14 at the Moore County Senior Center, with a goal-setting exercise moderated by Agricultural Extension Director Craven Hudson. The result was a list of ten goals for 2011 and six additional long terms goals. At the top of the list was finding a "Seven Lakes Water Solution."

“The only reason I stayed for four more years," said Commissioner Larry Caddell, referring to his recent re-election to the Board, "is because I promised my friends in Seven Lakes that I would take care of this.”

"We don’t need to wait to find water. We need to find it now,” Caddell said.

And, if the right deal can be negotiated, the Commissioners would like to find that water in the Town of Robbins.

The County plans to reopen negotiations with Robbins within the next forty-five days to determine whether the two local governments can work together to utilize a reservoir and mothballed water treatment plant that Robbins owns but is unable to use. Currently, Robbins buys water from neighboring Montgomery County.

The Robbins plant could pump as much as one million gallons per day of water into the county system that serves Seven Lakes and Pinehurst, through a new water line that would likely run down NC Highway 705 to NC Highway 211 and on to Seven Lakes to tie into the county system. Previous estimates have placed the cost of that water line and its pump stations at approximately $3.6 million -- and rehabbing the Robbins water plant is likely to cost nearly that much again.

The possibility of bringing water in from the Robbins treatment plant has gone back and forth for more than two years without any agreement being reached, but the Commissioners appeared determined to go back to the table with the intention of finally making a deal.

There's no dues increase in the proposed Fiscal Year 2011-2012 budget of the Seven Lakes Landowners Association [SLLA].

That's the good news.

But initial reports from the recently completed Reserve Study suggest that substantial annual increases to reserve funds will be necessary over the next five years -- increases that may be hard to achieve without future dues increases.

"This year, we did not attempt to incorporate, at this late notice, any dues increase," Treasurer Denny Galford told the SLLA Board of Directors during their Monday, January 10 Work Session. "We want to take time to review operating costs and whether we can improve those first. If we can perfect current operations, then we may be able to generate additional monies.”

Detailed information on the Reserve Study and the proposed FY2011-2012 budget were not presented at the meeting, but discussion indicated that anticipated capital expenditures planned for next year include $125,000 from unrestricted reserves for work at the stables, among other projects, and $80,000 in restricted reserves to complete road repairs at Lancashire and Dogwood Lane -- two of the four areas identified as needing significant repair work prior to a community-wide major road repaving project.

The Board is expected to vote on the proposed budget during the January 26 Open Meeting.