Candidate forums start tonight

The forum is finally on cable channel 18 in Carrboro.

Final question from the moderator (before audience questions): What have you done for the environment that sets you apart? (That's a paraphrase, as is most of what follows.)

Lavelle: Has worked with neighborhoods on building and integrating greenways.

Chilton: Experience as cochair (the first?) of the Tarheel recycling program, which he helped design and implement in the early 1990s while a student at the university.

Broun: Proud of working with the Board to purchase property for new parks -- Adams tract, MLK Park; and continues opposition to the location of the waste transfer station.

Coleman: Worked on a Sierra club committee to develop principles for development of Carolina North, which were shared with the towns and the university; worked with others in early 1990s to bring the community together to discuss a vision for Carolina North that he continues to advocate today.

Morton: Has worked with the Triangle Land Conservancy; makes personal decisions about his own impact on the environment.

Cook: (1) Grassroots effort to avoid busing schoolchildren short distances because of unsafe roads; (2) advocacy for Rogers Road neighborhood regarding the landfill, including advocating moving the transfer station; and (3) member of Friends of Bolin Creek, advocates for "natural division between the towns."

Ryan: Is an avid gardener; and "in our yard, if you don't eat it, you don't water it." Has advocated for Rogers Road community. And is starting a "downtown walkable business" on Franklin Street using environmentally sustainable measures.

Final statements:

Coleman paid homage to Aldo Leopold and discussed the importance of continuing Carrboro's advocacy for our biotic community.

Chilton cited his many years in local politics and advocacy for the environment.

Ryan criticized the Board for not standing up for the Rogers Road neighborhood regarding the waste transfer station. She said she will continue working to move the transfer station.

Lavelle noted that she is a relative newcomer but has great desire and interest in the issues, does her homework, looks at all sides, and wants to do what's best for the community.

Broun is seeking reelection to continue her stewardship of the town's finances and environment. She cited new park land, walkability, and fare-free buses and said that operating the town efficiently has allowed the town to do these kinds of things.

Cook says the town faces difficult choices, including the fate of the Rogers Road neighborhood. She asks everyone to stand behind the neighborhood and says she will continue to advocate for moving the transfer station.

Morton thanked the Sierra Club and plugged his Web site.

Any chance this will be on the 'net?

Ruby, considering how long the Rogers Road issue has festered, the increasing economic pressures on that community, the siting process (a bit of stretch there) of the transfer station, the softening up going on prior to what I think is a near term proposal to annex, I think it is quite appropriate to question where our current leadership has been these last couple decades.

I believe we'll get a bellyful of rhetoric on Rogers Road this election cycle but no specific commitments to make it right.

When Bill Strom showed up for the first round of the Small Area Task Force meetings I recalled how I watched him whinge on about the sewer crisis many years before and that nothing substantive had been done to address that issue.

It doesn't surprise me that folks who live near or in that community who now have some potential political power want to finally take that bull by the horns and finally bring some relief.

What, beyond acknowledging the contribution the Rogers Road community - our neighbors - have made to date, would I do differently?

First, reaffirm their right to determine their future. From what I've heard, the community is not currently interested in annexation.

They fear, I believe with fair acumen, that the current Town process has less to do with protecting their interest than with softening their neighborhood up for future redevelopment.

If redevelopment is to happen, let it happen in a way that this long suffering community can manage. Whether that is maximizing the return on their property or trying to retain the core of their neighborhood, it is for them to set the agenda.

Second, Chapel Hill does have to engage with this community within a planning process. The community's concerns with the motives behind and the process of the Rogers Road Small Area Task Force have to addressed in an open, transparent manner.

Thirdly, to resolve some of the issues will require engagement between four different groups - the Rogers Road community, Carrboro, Chapel Hill and, most importantly right now, Orange County.

Again, eight years in office and the best someone like Bill can do is throw up his arms when asked to engage the BOC on a joint issue. Engage doesn't mean have a war of rhetoric or rolling ones eyes at a Council meeting. It is Chapel Hill's responsibility, maybe complete responsibility in a leadership vacuum, to create a framework for positive, pragmatic progress.

This isn't about laying out economic development districts or parceling out the last large chunk of undeveloped land within our planning district, this is about addressing a punch list of items - some 3 decades old.

If the BOC does not want to put the resources into resolving these issues, let Chapel Hill at least research solutions, put together its own punch list of issues it can resolve, find out how we resolve the others - including who is responsible and work the list.

You and I have seen this going on for years. I believe the first meeting Council meeting I attended on my streetlight problem featured a reprise of the then 6 years of effort trying to resolve some key problems.

Bill, Jim and company harrumphed, here-here'd, that's so terrible'd but, in the end were, at least by the Rogers Road community's standards, incompetent in "working the list".

Back to "no-one else cares and as if no-one else had ever done anything about it ".

I know, by direct observation, some of our elected folks are aware of the specifics. I'm sure they're all "sensitive" to the plight of our neighbors YET KEY ISSUES REMAIN UNRESOLVED.

Specific, measurable progress - 4 or 8 years into being on Council, in either case, why not only the dearth of progress but the lack of leadership?

Deeds, not words is what our neighbors have pleaded for - when and who will provide them?