Get it right: Cary's a town, not a city

CARY -- The bright-green signs aggravated Neil Nadeau like a flea bite. "Cary City Limits," they said.

For years, he explained to anyone who would listen: Cary is a town! Think of all the innocent drivers getting welcomed with a blatant error.

Thanks to Nadeau's needling, Cary has replaced 50 signs to correct the error. Cost: $2,003.

"Everything is right with the world now," said Nadeau, a retiree and longtime resident.

The move invites jokes about Cary's persnickety history.

It is, after all, the town that fought to keep a diner from opening because its stainless steel exterior was considered too garish.

And it is the town where a certain neighborhood requires approval for a new shade of house paint and forbids colors that clash with neighbors' houses.

And it is the town where the fast-food signs are tastefully small enough to be obscured by a good-size bush.

But this isn't pettiness, Nadeau insists. This is a matter of fact.

"It was wrong," he said. "That's the fundamental reason. The error just perpetuated itself, with thousands and thousands of people driving past it everyday."

It nagged him for years until he buttonholed a Town Council member at a veterans' breakfast.

The response: Gee, you're right Neil ... .

Then a few weeks ago, he brought it up to council member Gale Adcock, who suggested Town Manager Bill Coleman, who nipped the mistake in the bud.

Shiny new "Cary Town Limit" signs went up Thursday. Painting over the mistake wasn't an option.

"How do I say this?" asked town spokeswoman Susan Moran. "Altering the existing signs with paint would present its own set of unique challenges."

No one in present-day Town Hall remembers when or why the first city limits sign went up, Moran said. The newer ones were just added for uniformity's sake.

Since his triumph, Nadeau has taken hits from fellow townfolk. Two letters to the Cary News called his crusade wasteful.

"Cary wastes a lot of money," said Charles Braunhardt in one of them. "It would have been much easier to simply ask the council to change the name to city of Cary."

North Carolina's statutes seem impartial.

Any budding municipality can choose to call itself city, town or village. The state sets no legal difference between them, calling it a matter of style.

Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary makes this distinction: Towns are bigger than villages, but smaller than cities.

But at least in Cary's case, being a town means watching the details, being precise. It means loving truth as one loves beauty and shouting it out in bright green.