Keep your eyes on the Board of Elections website starting at noon today. Since there are a number of candidates that have already declared to the media, I expect them to come out strong and try to scare off potential competitors quickly. It will be interesting to see in which districts some of them choose to run, especially incumbent Valerie Foushee.
I am going to be very busy with work (again, ug) so please post any new additions to that page in the comments here. Links to candidate websites are especially appreciated. :-)
In the initial news reports Buckhorn was touted as “a center like The Streets at Southpoint” (N&O, Jan 12). Over a million square feet of retail, hotel & movie theater uses are proposed on 128 acres at the intersection of Buckhorn Road and I40/I85. At the west end of one of the County’s Economic Development Districts (EDDs), this was for many years the site of a thriving flea market. Some of the materials submitted by the developers hint at the inclusion of residential and office uses, but most of their documents and statements to the press indicate that their interest in these is very low. They estimate the County would realize $7.2 million a year in sales & property tax revenues. But what might these revenues cost us?
That a development of such magnitude is being considered for the County raises questions like these:
Philip Duchastel has a searing column about Carolina North in yesterday's Chapel Hill News. I think he raises some good points, although he also seems to look at the issue as if no conversation or process has come before. I certainly don't agree when he says that "all assume building Carolina North is good." And I also wish he would propose some kind of better way forward instaed of just predicting Chapel Hill's doom.
...the big questions have gone unspoken. The behemoth of those is growth. It seems assumed by all that growth is desirable, and of course that growth is possible. I beg to differ.
The News of Orange reminds us today that is also a judicial race on the ballot this year as well as the County Commissioners, County School Board, State House Reps & Senators, and Congressional seat. Candidate filing for all of the above starts Monday, and there are already three judicial challengers announced. (I didn't know that!)
Props to candidates Glenn Gerding and Page Vernon, they've already got web sites up.
Four district court judge seats will also be put to a vote this fall, with M. Patricia DeVine retiring and Beverly Scarlett running for her first elected term since being appointed to the seat in 2007. Judges Lonnie Coleman and Charles Anderson are also up for re-election.
Because judgeships are non-partisan positions, the primary vote will only be held if more than two candidates seek one seat. Judgeship candidates must declare the seat for which they intend to run.
[Cross-posting a good story about push-polling on the Transfer Tax (which the commissioners discuss tonight)at BlueNC by Greg Flynn.]
Orange County residents have been on the receiving end of dubious push poll telephone calls recently, described by one recipient as:
...what may very well be the most egregious violation of research ethics I have every experienced. The questions were all about transfer tax in Orange County and it was sleazy. The company was named TDM Research in Birmingham
TDM Research, associated with Democratic political consulting firm The Tyson Organization, whose clients include Bob Etheridge, has been responsible for other dubious push polls in Florida and Virginia in the past.
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