March 6, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Francis De Luca (919) 834-2099
Francis.DeLuca@NCCivitas.org
RALEIGH – Civitas has honored grassroots activist Cathy Heath for her successful drive to reform municipal annexation law in North Carolina.
She received the second annual Civitas Audentia Award at the non-profit organization’s recent Conservative Leadership Conference in Raleigh. The award was given in recognition of her decade-long crusade against North Carolina’s forced-annexation law that gave cities virtually total power to annex land whether the property owners wanted to join the city or not.
“Audentia means ‘courage’ and ‘boldness,’ and Cathy Heath displayed real courage in fighting back against rapacious cities that wanted to grab the property of unwilling people,” said Civitas President Francis X. De Luca.
Award presenter Chris Farr, Deputy State Director of Americans for Prosperity NC, added, “In looking up ‘audentia’ I learned that another definition is ‘spunk,’ which also aptly describes Cathy Heath and her determination to reform annexation law in North Carolina.”
She was drawn into the fight in 2001 when the city of Cary tried to annex the subdivision where Cathy and her husband, Mike, lived. Having learned how cities were taking over communities without residents’ consent, she launched a statewide grassroots effort to revise annexation law. Her dedication was rewarded in May 2012 with the final passage of a new state law mandating that annexation plans had to go to a referendum to be approved.
“At our Conservative Leadership Conference, many speakers noted that it’s the people who must be the vanguard of reform and renewal in North Carolina,” De Luca said. “Cathy Heath is a perfect example of what citizens can do to make our state a better place.”
More information on the Civitas Institute is available at www.nccivitas.org, or contact Communications Director Jim Tynen at james.tynen@nccivitas.org or (919) 834-2099.
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