At a FedEx forum sponsored and moderated by the editorial staff of The Guilfordian, two sides stacked with highly qualified representatives debated the proposed hub and the myriad effects it would have on the local community.
A passionately opinionated crowd of about 200 filled the New Garden Friends Meeting, applauding often and with a hearty enthusiasm. The audience contained a fairly even representation of opponents and proponents of the issue, differing from the one hosted by the Greensboro Jaycees last month, which was filled predominantly with those against it.
The pre-arranged format, strictly adhered to, allowed each side 25 minutes to present their main arguments and 10 minutes to rebut, and concluded with about 40 minutes of questions from the audience.The two sides made many of the same arguments that have been disputed since the hub was proposed exactly three years ago today.

The opponents warned of the prospects of unbearable amounts of noise pollution, occurring most predominantly from midnight to 2 a.m., and from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m.
The proponents of the hub, represented by the Greensboro Area Chamber of Commerce, focused on the number of new full- and part-time jobs, replete with employee benefits, that would be created.

Don Kirkman, president of Piedmont Triad Partnership, which solicits corporate influx to the area, gave most of the pro-hub presentation. He answered the opponents’ noise pollution concern by maintaining that 90 percent of FedEx flights would pass over the area southwest of the airport, “predominantly an industrial area with relatively few residents.”

The opponents, led by Mark Warren, executive director of Alliance for Legal Action, focused their arguments on the noise pollution and the monetary cost to the community, saying it might cost upwards of $1 billion, none of which would be financed by FedEx. “What do we get out of it? Nothing,” Warren said. “There is no evidence we will get any benefit from it.”

The questions from the audience were varied and explicit. One local resident asked, “What is the airport authority doing to guarantee no damage to us neighbors? We have a right to live there. You zoned it as residential.”
Kirkman said, “You assume some risk of living next to an airport.”

Also speaking on behalf of the proponents was former Greensboro mayor Carolyn Allen. She offered what was perhaps the most holistic view of the whole debate. “New jobs, whether part- or full-time, that provide benefits are essential,” she said. But she was the first proponent to concede that “this project does have problems, but they are manageable.”

Laura Pollak, the vice president of the anti-hub Piedmont Quality of Life Coalition, also represented the opponents. She emphasized her arguments by reminding the audience that she, too, is a local resident and has gone to similar hubs throughout the nation, and spoken with those directly affected there. “Don [Kirkman] is paid to say what he says. I live here,” she said.

Pollak also said the installation of a hub would ignore the “fundamental human rights” of residents, including health.
The FedEx hub, to open by 2005, would handle much of their shipping between cities in the eastern third of the country.