Welcome to the open thread for the Orange County Board of Commissioners candidate forum happening on April 8, 2018, at 7:00 pm. Comments on this page are now open. The candidates are:

• District 1: Jamezetta Bedford
• District 2: Earl McKee, Tommy McNeill
• At Large: Brian Crawford, Sally Greene, Noah Oswald

The forum itself is happening here:
https://orangepolitics.org/elections-2018/forums/bocc.

We hope you'll use this open thread to post your thoughts and reactions, or to propose additional discussion topics. The forum moderator will have final say in question selection.

The Orange-Chatham group of the North Carolina Sierra Club is proud to announce the endorsement of Sally Greene for the at-large seat on the Orange County Board of Commissioners.  The NC Sierra Club supports candidates with demonstrated knowledge of local environmental issues who will provide strong leadership on matters including conservation, growth, and transportation.

It’s smart to plan ahead before making a big purchase. Chapel Hill didn’t do that when it decided to buy the American Legion property for $7.9 million, and now Chapel Hill taxpayers are paying the price. The parks and recreation facilities we thought we were getting when we voted for bonds in November 2015 will be postponed indefinitely, sacrificed for the purchase of the American Legion property.

Flush with $3.6 million in surplus in fall 2016, Town Council decided to rush ahead with the purchase of the longtime home of American Legion Post 6, a 35-acre piece of property. Post 6 had an option with a private developer, who planned to put housing on part of the site and agreed to work with the Town to program part of the site as a public park. (Use of part of the site to expand the adjoining Ephesus Park is a long-time Town goal.) However, even more housing near what is now called the “Blue Hill District” was too much for some Councilmembers. Instead, Town Council decided, it made sense to buy the property.