The Chapel Hill weekly., 1959-04-30
Outside Experts Often Don't Know Any
More than the Hometown Governors

The Outside Expert is a familiar
figure in municipal government. Maybe
d good deal too familiar.
He has impressive credentials and
his preliminary remarks upon the prob
lem at hand persuade the members OF
a town governing board that they will
get from him some truly valuable
advice. His Astounding self confidence
and his eloquence possibly have d sort
of hypnotic effect on them.
They engage him. He makes a sur
vey, covering several weeks, and pre-
sents d report He receives his check
and departs. Shortly thereafter con-
tractor gets to work digging up old
pavement to be replaced by new, relay
ing water and sewer pipes, relocating
electric light and telephone lines, and
cutting down whatever trees may be
in the way.
Now, ! do not mean to imply that
all Outside Experts are pretenders and
that their advice is not worth paying
for. do not believe that is true OF all
of them by any means. The services OF
some Of them are valuable and they
are no doubt as honest as the members
Of any profession What ] do say is
that there is no sense in engaging an
Outside Expert unless it is perfectly
clear that he is more competent to judge
what ought to BE Hbne, in any situa-
ton, than persons in the local govern
ment and other persons with experience
in the field under examination.
Here in Chapel Hill, for example,
our town manager, Thomas ID. Rose,
is an engineer Of high standing who
has had long experience with munich
pal problems and is known for his good
judgment. And we are singularly for
tunate in the ability and character Of
our mayor and aldermen. They attend
to their duties and are jealous in
bringing their knowledge and experience
to bear on every problem they are called
upon to solve.
Mr.. Rose and the aldermen, with
whatever advice they might care to
get from members Of the University
faculty or from any other element in
the community, were far more com
petent to decide the question Of widen
ing the block on Rosemary street from
('Dlnv,ahio 10 uarlorcpp hoY @hn M lido
Expert whom they employed and whose
recommendation they adopted. If they
hadn't engaged an Outside Expert ]
believe they would have made a diff
ferent decision.
The reason ! say this is that the ad
dtional width of the street is so OBJ
viously not needed to accommodate the
volume Of traffic. The widening has
made the street five lanes wide | go
along that block every day, sometimes
several times in day, and have made
it point to observe carefully the traf-
fic on it. During a great part of the
time there is only one car on the width
Of the street Almost never are there
more than two cars abreast When
there are two abreast one on one side
of the middle lane, one on the other,
there is a lot of unused, that is, wasted,
space from the curb outward on each
side of the street.
If any reader doubts what ] have
said here about the volume of traffic
on this block in relation to the width
of the street invite him to 90 and look
for himself
Because of the wide expanse of
pavement we now have a street that
makes much bigger show than the
old street but is no more serviceable.
Drivers delight to speed along the
block. You will never go there that
you don't see cars exceeding the speed
limit.
But some of the wasted space can be