Guest columnist
This Monday, Sept. 14, my mom will be tried in Chapel Hill Criminal Court for a crime she never committed. This charge was brought by the Town of Carr-boro when she tried in April to view 1997 and 2004 inspection documents that pertained to our farm that the town was hiding from the public.
My mom is not a criminal. She did not alter any town document. She had no reason to alter documents that had been widely distributed for nearly two years beforehand.
This claim was brought by Carrboro to hide its own activities. It was brought because Carr-boro wants my mom to stop telling people that Carrboro’s leaders are trying to steal our farm without having to pay for it! Actually, Carrboro doesn’t want to steal our farm to develop it. Instead, its leaders want to make it impossible for us and our neighbors’ farms to operate successfully. And, to devalue them over time.
Carrboro recently adopted a fertilizer law that could drive the farms out of business because it favors the town over the farms. When farmers can no longer fertilize their fields because the town has used up what the state will allow, the farmers will be driven out of business. When this happens, they’ll try to sell their farms. But their land won’t be worth anything because by then there won’t be enough water to allow the building of more houses or businesses in Carrboro.
Please pay attention to this situation. My mom is a good person. She’s done more for the Carrboro community than anyone I’ve ever heard of. In 2008 about 22 people nominated my mom to be Carrboro’s first-ever “Volunteer of the Year.” In 2009 she received the “Hometown Heroes” award from WCHL.
My mom has been widowed since 1994 when I was only 4 years old. With all she had to do alone, my mom still made time to volunteer and to tutor at the McDougle schools and Chapel Hill High School. And for about 15 years she has donated umpteen thousands of hours of her time and our money so that others might benefit from our farm.
She also has regularly donated for use in fundraising, education and research our ponies and facility, including to local schools and churches, the juvenile court system, the universities, social services, the PTA and other nonprofit organizations. She’s even taken kids off the street, brought them to live with us, paid for their care, tutored them to get high school degrees, and has helped pay for some to attend college. These were Carrboro’s kids! And she did all this without ever asking for anything in return.
And now Carrboro is rewarding my mom for her efforts by calling her “a criminal.” We’ve even had to disconnect our telephone because crazy people started calling to say that members of the town Board of Aldermen are calling her “a liar” in public. Even the mayor has called my mom a liar on television. This is wrong! I hate Carrboro for this.
Kristen Kille is a graduate of Chapel Hill High School who lives and works on Peppermint Spring Farm, owned by her family.
