Chamber of Commerce

Why do we do Inter-City Visits?

After getting my haircut this week (at the same place since my junior year of college), I ran into Al Bowers of Al’s Burger Shack. I wished him a happy one-year-in-business birthday and he asked me what I was up to.  I told him we were about to take a hundred people to Athens, Georgia.  And he asked, why were we going to do that? Good question, Al. 

In 1985, a group of engaged community leaders called the Public Private Partnership (PPP), organized our community’s first Inter-City Visit to Lexington, Kentucky, spurred by a visit from leadership from the Bluegrass State the previous year. Since that first trip to Lexington, our community has traveled to eight other college communities, including Boulder, Princeton, Champaign-Urbana, Madison, and Ann Arbor.

Let's increase the ROI on Inter-city Visits

I've long been skeptical of the bi-annual Inter-city Visits organized by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, err sorry, that's actually the Chamber-owned Partnership for a Sustainable Community. The intention to visit a community and learn from their successess and failures is a good one. But the reality of an expensive trip with the wealthy and powerful of Chapel Hill - where the learning stops when the return flight touches down at RDU - is a little different.

Pricing out Food Trucks is Protectionism

I support environmental protection and the mitigation of global climate change. I do not believe that every business should be allowed to do what they what. But there are times when government is in the wrong and shouldn’t kowtow to existing businesses and their supporting organizations at the cost of new business. So to kick this post off I’m going to reclaim a bit of conservative rhetoric. Because it applies in this situation.

It should not be the job of the Town of Chapel Hill to pick which business succeeds and which fails. But this is what they are doing by aggressively regulating food trucks away from the streets of Chapel Hill. It’s called protectionism. The result of the Town of Chapel Hill food truck ordinance is protecting existing brick and motar businesses from competition with food trucks. This is accomplished by charging a fee that is unaffordable to food trucks. The fact that almost no food truck owners will pay the Town fee to provide services in our Town is evidence of that.

Downtown Partnership Shares Its Views on Chapel Hill 2020

On Monday, the Downtown Partnership posted its vision for Chapel Hill on 2020 Buzz, the official blog of the Chapel Hill 2020 process. The vision apparently stems from a meeting that the Chapel Hill 2020 Outreach Committee had with members of the Chamber of Commerce and the business community before Thanksgiving. 

The vision isn’t so much a vision as it as wish list. It calls on the town to expedite the review process for development downtown and provide for a whole host of a uses-by-right in the area so that new development downtown wouldn’t need any approval on top of building permits, zoning complains and certificates of occupancy. It also talks about building some new streets (especially in the north-south direction) downtown, making some changes to the way Chapel Hill does it zoning and ensuring regional transit is centered in the area.

Why doesn't Chapel Hill get food trucks?

[carne asada is not a crime, saveourtacotrucks.org]Last night while much of OP was intently watching our live online candidate forum for aspiring Aldermen, the Chapel Hill Town Council was discussing proposed new foodtruck regulations. To me they sound very limiting, including provisions that they cannot operate within 100 feet of an open restaurant, that they can only be located on private property, and that the truck and property must both get permits from the Town. Even with these restrictions, WCHL's Elizabeth Friend reported that the Chapel Hill Chamber of Commerce and the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership opposed the change.

This makes it pretty clear to me that the perceived interests of their members is more important to the Chamber of Commerce than the success and sustainability of our local economy.

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