Guilford County Commissioners placed five bonds on the May ballot at last night’s meeting (more about splitting off the new Eastern Guilford High School later), but funds from a passed in 2004 produced the most animated discussion among our already-animated commissioners.

The controversial matter was brought up by perhaps the county’s greatest open space advocate — Commmissioner Bill Yow. This is no joke, and fellow Commissioner Skip Alston bluntly stated that Yow had cut some sort of a deal in return for supporting this issue. Turns out the county wants to spend $500,000 in county funds (combined with another $500,000 in state funds) to purchase development rights to a 306-acre dairy farm in order to establish a conservation easement.

Fortunately, a number of commissioners were alarmed that the county would spend money to allow a working farm to continue operating as a private business on private land. But the issue evolved into a discussion of exactly how to spend money from the $20 million open space bond voters passed in 2004. Guess what: A lot of people aren’t exactly sure what the term “open space” means.

OK, a staff member from the county open space committee did say that preserving farmland was one of the general goals set when the committee was set up. But after the bond was approved, the committee passed a motion allowing for 10 percent of the bond money to go toward purchasing farmland as part of an effort to set up conservation easements. Problem is the county commissioners never heard about any of this, a matter that greatly concerned Commissioner (and state senate candidate) Bruce Davis.

Commissioner Mike Winstead summed things up well when he expressed concern that voters didn’t always know exactly what they were getting when they voted bonds —- especially bonds for such ambiguous concepts such as “open space”:

When voters vote on something, they should be told specifically what the money’s going to be used for…..What we don’t do good enough is describe what these bonds say on the ballot. These numbers come up and a lot of times I don’t know where they get the numbers. They round them off to $20-$30 million and you ask for a descriotion and you don’t really get it. There’s just not enough description on these bonds and when people go to vote on them they need to know what they’re going to get.

Definitely something for voters to think about before the May ballot.