‘Four Oaks is not for sale’ residents tell CSX, politicians

Four Oaks, a small community settled along I-95 between Smithfield and I-40 in Johnston County, is full of farms, families and churches.

The town has fewer than 2,000 residents, and most residents like it that way.

According to the more than 200 citizens who rallied at Four Oaks Elementary School Monday night, their community is not for sale.

That message was made clear again and again Monday night to local politicians and CSX officials who support a plan to locate a $272-million railroad container hub on 450 acres of their community.

Of those invited, three elected officials attended. Four Oaks Commissioner Chris Haley and Johnston County Commissioners Tony Braswell and Chad M. Stewart attended at least part of the two-and-a-half-hour meeting.

Grandparents, parents and children packed the gym’s bleachers, filled rows of folding chairs, lined the walls and sat on the basket ball court floor. More than a dozen residents spoke, and some called out from the audience. They reasoned, raged and cried. All were against the hub’s locating anywhere near their town.

“Four Oaks is not for sale,” they repeated – surging to their feet, clapping and cheering and stomping their feet as each new speaker stood at the podium.

They said they felt abandoned, lied to and misrepresented by their elected officials, especially Four Oaks Mayor Linwood Parker, who welcomed CSX to the town against their wishes, they said. They charged that local and CSX officials were guilty of backdoor dealing, betrayal, greed, dishonesty, secrecy, injustice and stealing.

Selma is home to the intersection of CSX’s north-south lines and Norfolk Southern’s east-west tracks, but the political tide turned against the company’s plan to build the container hub between Selma and Micro. So, Mayor Parker stepped up when CSX began to look elsewhere, and pointed out that Four Oaks is closer to the intersection of interstates 40 and 95.

CSX needs 450 acres near major rail lines and highways.

Parker believes the proposed container yard would become the center of a new economy for the area. He hoped to round up enough willing landowners to attract a second glance from the railroad company.

None of the landowners who spoke Monday night, however, agreed with the proposal. Instead, bright yellow signs that read “Four Oaks does not want CSX here” have popped up around town.

Casey and Randy Johnson have a 50-acre farm on which they raise cattle and grow crops. Both work other jobs. They have two small children they’d like to see inherit their farm one day. Their entire farm could be taken and destroyed if the CSX hub is located in Four Oaks, Casey Johnson said.

“We’re not sure ... We’re not sure of anything,” Casey Johnson said, in tears. “This is going to change your way of life. Our 50 acres would be gone.”

Some speakers Monday, like Renee Dorman, said Parker should be recalled from public office by a vote of the people.

“He has betrayed this town,” Dorman said. “He is not a friend of Four Oaks. We cannot trust him to be on our side ... Our mayor intentionally falsely represented our community.”

Those attending Monday also blamed elected officials all the way up to the state level for “paying (CSX) to use eminent domain against us” by putting the hub at the top of the N.C. Department of Transportation’s list of projects which qualify for state funding. The CSX hub could get as much as $100 million from state coffers.

“I believe in this community and it deserves some answers,” Larry Wood said. “I think (Parker) owes us some answers.”

The Johnsons are one family of many making up more than 374 of the 450 acres for the proposed hub who have formally said they did not want to sell to the railroad giant. Owners of more than 1,300 acres overall have signed petitions against the hub.

Matt Sharpe said he he moved to Four Oaks to be far from the noise and disturbance of city life. He said the CSX hub would destroy that.

“I get to see deer grazing in the field,” he said. “I get to hear tree frogs at night ... This is a farming community – the lifeblood of America. Four Oaks is everything Raleigh isn’t, and that’s just fine with us.”

Bethany Allen’s family owns a generational farm in the path of the hub. Her sister’s family and her father already live on the farm. She was planning to build a house there. They want it to go to their children when they are gone.

“We do not want to live out the rest of our lives hearing what has been described as trucks falling out of the sky,” she said. “Our family land ... and our life that we live on it is sacred to us.”

Allen said she promised her grandmother on her deathbed that the family would preserve the farm for the next generations.

“I want our our local, county and state officials to understand that I do not take that promise lightly,” Allen said. “This community is overwhelmingly opposed to CSX coming ... Our elected officials need to take notice of this opposition ... If they do not listen to us as a community, they will have no choice but to listen to the wrath of disatisfied voters at the ballot box on Election Day.”

Members of the audience wiped their eyes and sniffed during a slideshow of pastoral landscapes, agricultural portraits, town pride, rainbows and sunsets, old barns and sprawling farmland, cattle and ancient trees, fishing holes and children and churches.

“Our small town and quiet, peaceful way of life would be destroyed,” Sharpe said. “Fight for your community ... Tell ‘em we don’t want it. Let them know these four things: Our peaceful way of life is not for sale; Our health is not for sale; Our safety and the safety of our children is not for sale. Our home – Four Oaks – is not for sale.”

This story was originally published April 19, 2016 at 12:20 AM with the headline "‘Four Oaks is not for sale’ residents tell CSX, politicians."