President Worth called the meeting to order at 12:35 p.m. Tony Lathrop introduced the guests and visiting Rotarians. Leland Park gave the Health and Happiness Report. He cited Luther Fincher as a "local treasure" and complimented him on his recent fire-fighting award. Howard Chadwick led the singing of "Nothing Could Be Finer Than To Be in Carolina." Thomas Moore did his usual marvelous job on the piano throughout the entire program.
     At the head table were Glenn Cline-felter, Jerry Blanchard, Kitty Stutts, Jerry Grohowski, and Jan Thompson, who gave the invocation.
     Juan de la Torres, Rotarian from Lima, Peru, made a plea for help and asked for matching grants for special projects.
     Mary-Stuart Brooks presented us with a Rotary greeting from St. Andrew's, Scotland, and a hard-to-obtain banner from that club.
     President Worth complimented those in charge of the spectacular speakers during the last quarter. Representing the committee, Luther Moore accepted the award.
     Mary Rinehart introduced the speaker, Lisa Renstrom, the Co-Chair of Voices and Choices, who spoke on Environmental Choices Facing the Charlotte Region. Lisa is also the Chairperson of the regional Sierra Club.
     Ms. Renstrom's motivation is to give back something of herself for the common good, and her principal concerns these days are of the environment. She cited North Carolina and Charlotte as indeed a fine place in which to live. But, she said, we will make the difference in our future environment. The quality of life here means that we have jobs, that we can drive relatively short distances to get to our jobs, our children can ride their bicycles to the neighbors, and there are few environmental "red alert" days.
     Proper land use is a necessity to maintain what we have. How will we use it? We must retain our natural green space and protect our wildlife habitats. There are 190 million acres of national forests in this country, all protected. There we can still see wildlife and the stars.
     But the debate has moved on to the cities. How do we build the urban landscapes? How do we deal with our sprawl? We still have choices in our zoning, in our sewers, in our roads, in our water quality.
     Charlotte is in the infancy of its city-hood. We can still choose what we want to be.
     The answer lies in developing a Regional Land Use Plan. We must define our use of the land, and, in sequence, our transportation and our open space, which must be as contiguous as possible to rivers and to wildlife. Governor Hunt has a state commission to deal with all of this, but it is imperative that we take the local initiative first. We cannot wait to be told.
     We must develop a Comprehensive Regional Land Use Plan. One size does not fit all. Mecklenburg is different from the surrounding counties, and our plan must reflect this. This comprehensive plan must not be a patchwork of the many plans. The fourteen counties must adjust to a regional reality.
     Voices and Choices is a coming together of these people and their voices from the fourteen counties. There are six areas of concern: air quality, transportation, water quality, land use, open space, and resource recovery. We must educate everyone on these six areas and the attendant 150 issues within these areas. We can continue to grow, but this regional land use plan must be created.
     In the Q-A period. Bob Freedman, the other Co-Chair, joined Lisa. ("He's the suit; I'm the tree-hugger," she quipped.)
     Q. The city many times overrides neighborhood plans, even when approved by the city. How do we prevent this? (There was no answer.)
     Q. What kind of car does Lisa drive?
     A. A Honda Insight: 60 mpg in the city, 70 mpg on the highway.
     Bob Freedman said that new business will be attracted to Charlotte in the future by the quality of life here. The new Carolinas Partnership with its new logo Charlotte USA talks about business strength, business access, and quality of life. Bob also stated that there are no birds and no squirrels in Mexico City, which had already been cited as a city with massive air pollution.
     Q. Will there be additional condemnation procedures in the Catawba River Basin to create more buffer space?
     A. I do not know, but more buffers are needed. This is probably a high priority.
     Q. Didn't we create our own problems in Charlotte?
     A. Post World War II, we built in a boom and created our own problems of sprawl. We have tended to make our own rules in building, each according to our own interests.
     Charlotte has the lowest city density, but the highest congestion rate. Pat McCrory and Parks Helms, however, are well attuned to the issues involved.
     We need a network of transportation options which will consider all forms of transportation — trains, buses, and cars. The Voices and Choices is a product of the regional meeting held at Rock Hill recently.
     At the end of the meeting, President Worth thanked Bob and gave Lisa a "momentum" of her speaking here, perhaps as a symbol of the sense of urgency which she generated.

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POWELL'S
OBSERVATIONS

POWELL  MAJORS

     Richard Early, in a letter to the "Observer," describes the new Symphony Park on the corner of Barclay Downs and Morrison Boulevard. The expansion of South Park and widening of Sharon Road took much of the area where the Summer Pops performed the past six years.

     Luther Fincher accepted an award for the emergency service personnel, fire-fighters and law enforcement officers at the Northside Baptist Church at its annual 911 Sunday.

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