David Harvey failed to realize many members of the county chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People live in Roanoke Rapids as do many of the underprivileged citizens he purports the organization is trying to help.

Tuesday night's meeting in which city council voted to have the interim city manager and county manager work on the details of the proposal was not the place to be talking about the issue of school merger or consolidation.

The only conceivable issue he could have talked about was keeping the facility out of neighborhoods like the Radar Circle and Deep Creek Road communities.

Even that would be a stretch now since it seems both parties agree the county landfill site on Highway 48 in the Aurelian Springs community appears to be best suited for the facility.

The one site that would have been an appropriate venue for his arguments was the one on Hinson Street, which through the efforts of Florine Bell and the Lincoln Heights community, along with the UNC Center for Civil Rights, was nixed fairly early on from contention in the location debate.

Harvey's comments Tuesday should have been relegated to where they belonged on the agenda, the unscheduled public comments section of the meeting, but Mayor Emery Doughtie allowed him to speak following discussion of the transfer station issue.

While Harvey made one salient point Tuesday — the matter of Roanoke Rapids Graded School District lines — the transfer station issue and the school consolidation issue are two different topics.

We believe there has to be adjustment in the school district lines, not a wholesale adjustment, but tweaks that would allow Roanoke Rapids residents who live in the city limits but not in the school district to attend the Roanoke Rapids Graded School District.

Fair is fair there and to think otherwise is wrong. This is not a black and white issue but a fairness issue since many people make sacrifices to find housing inside the city school district so their children can go to school within those boundaries.

Roanoke Rapids has continued to extend its city limits beyond the school district but none of the leaders have yet to move to make the necessary adjustments that would allow these students to attend school inside the school district.

These district lines have been the same forever, back when there was no thought of desegregation, way before 1968.

Roanoke Rapids has grown past these lines and this is the issue we agree with Harvey on, that it is time for them to be adjusted.

We have yet to form an opinion on the issue of school consolidation or merger as we are still studying the matter. The one thing we do know is a forum on a solid waste transfer station, where the issue is cost savings for all taxpayers in Roanoke Rapids and Halifax County, is not the proper forum to discuss school issues.

We also know that if it is the opinion of the NAACP to unfairly want to saddle one set of taxpayers with a burden all should share in, then there needs to be some serious refining of goals and objectives within the organization — Editor