What is The Waxhaw Wall?
We are everyday people with families who are concerned by the irresponsibly rapid growth of our town that has occurred with little open discussion or dialogue. As local residents, we work towards good governance in our town.
Our goals are:
- Responsible decisions on land use and development that protect our quality of life and safety.
- Low taxes that maximize the choices that individual residents can make with the money that they earn.
- Government that is transparent, service-motivated, and puts current residents first.
We are not anti-government, but we recognize the profound fact that government has the monopoly on the legal use of force, and we want that power to be wielded with great care. While our positions might seem to spring from a “conservative” mindset, we consider local town issues to be generally non-partisan – just as our municipal elections are.
Why a “wall”? This metaphor illustrates the need to keep profit-motivated influences out of our government. In this sense, all levels of government should have a “wall” that separates service-motivated government from profit-motivated private industry.
The profit motive has its place – we are not against free enterprise or profits, but profit motivation has no place in government decisions. Elected officials should be motivated by a desire to serve their community. There shouldn’t be any conflict of interest in our public servants.
We wouldn’t want the coal industry to regulate clean air and water, or the pharmaceutical industry to regulate drug safety, so neither should we want town employees or anyone with ties to property development to make decisions on taxes or regulate land use in our town.
Some are tempted to venerate knowledge over service motivation. They value the knowledge of those who have worked in the housing development industry more than their desire to serve current residents. This is a mistake.
The Waxhaw Wall wants our town government to do its job as a land use regulatory agency, and put current residents first. Potential future residents should not be viewed as customers who we are obligated to accommodate. It is not in the interests of current residents to cater to all the population pressures from outside. Our town board should not see itself as “developers of real estate”, as a former Mayor once said.
It’s important to understand the differences between progress, development, positive change, and degradation. Irresponsible growth can lead to a lower quality of life, and higher taxes. Since residential development doesn’t usually pay for itself, too much of it will lead to pressure to raise taxes or cut services. It’s not desirable, or even possible, to “stop development”, but we can make sure that board decisions are cautious and responsible.
Those who profit from the over-development of residential housing love to portray it as an altruistic endeavor, and demonize any who oppose it as “Nimbys” (not in my backyard) or closed-minded bigots. But is it altruistic to expand the scope of government action beyond those who elect it? No. It is profoundly undemocratic. Our town government is here to represent the interests of its constituents, and anything beyond that only serves to dilute it and make it less representative.
We hope you will participate in civic life and support us as we work to ensure that truly service motivated people are elected to our town government.