January 2004
An effort to tally the number of homeless people in Orange County came up with the magic number of 236. While it's certainly a good idea to measure this, the methodology sounds pretty weak to me. Law enforcement literally went around and counted people. How can they possibly have seen and talked to every one? According to the Chapel Hill News:
The Chapel Hill police found six people without any shelter and 20 in doubled-up housing. Carrboro police found 24 with no shelter, Hillsborough police 10, and UNC police 10. The count also found one homeless person sheltered at Club Nova, a psychiatric rehabilitation center, 143 at the IFC's Community House, and 42 at the IFC's HomeStart facility.
With the state redistricting in limbo, the NC Dem Party has posted a contingency plan just in case the primaries can't be held on time www.ncdp.org. Everyone needs to check out this plan and comment before the public review process is over. If the primaries don't happen (likely at this point) then caucuses would be held by county. Since the caucuses are county caucuses and the final delegate selection is by senate district (I think), then Orange and Durham votes will be added to create a grand total for the 4th district. This makes it important that Dems (registered independents won't be able to vote) show up for the caucuses if they are held. Whichever candidate -Dean- turns out the people -Dean- will win the nomi-Dean-nation.
Any thoughts on the contingency plan and its effects on our local input into the process?
Better late than never, TTA has developed a website, GoTriangle.org, that will help a user get from any spot to any other spot in the Triangle using the wide array of transit systems we have here.
I was skeptical it would work, but I entered my home address (on a street not served by transit), and it asked me a few more questions and was eventually able to figure out where I was. It even offered two routes, one with less transfers and the other presumably faster. It even tells you what the fare will be, which is useful with multiple systems.
The interface could be a bit smoother and the software is a bit buggy, but I'm quite impressed with the features. You can jump to an earlier or later itinerary, and save locations and connections. There's even a version for mobile handheld computers (how many transit riders have these?). I wonder how well it prints.
Some of you may recall the news from almost a year ago when four people ran out onto to the court with anti-war signs during a break in a game at the Dean Dome. All four were arrested, but two were later acquitted. One of the two who was found guilty is Andrew Pearson. Andrew has been an asset to the community since his days as a UNC student organizing around environmental amd social justice issues about ten years ago.
This case is an opportunity for our community to send a message about the preservation of the free speech that is absolutely fundamental to the functioning of our democratic system of government. Here are excerpts of a letter he just sent out to the local peace and justice community:
The Chapel Hill Herald reports that our local Martin Luther King Day festivies this year will focus on voting. The timing couldn't be better.
"If all we do is get together and talk big in January, all the work of Dr. King and those of us who worked with him will be in vain," said Fred Battle, the president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in a statement. "We must visit our neighbors with registration forms. After they register, we must make sure they know which politicians will do something about our problems -- not just talk big before elections.
"I plan to celebrate Dr. King's birthday twice this year; first in January and again in November on Election Day," he said.
It's not up on the Town website yet, but here's the press coverage: Chapel Hill Herald, News & Observer, and Daily Tarheel.
And here's the text of my petition on red-light cameras that is on the Town Council agenda for Monday:
To: Town Council Members
From: Council Member Kleinschmidt
Re: Petition to terminate the Town of Chapel Hill contract with ACS, Inc.
Date: January 12, 2004
Yesterday, the John Locke Foundation sponsored a conference whose aim was apparently to trash rail plans for the Triangle. You can read about it in the Herald.
Some interesting excerpts:
The American dream is being challenged by "misguided planning policies" and doctrines "that call for greater government control over development, housing, transportation and consumer choice."
"mass-transit is a dollar-gulping failure"
"the cost of each passenger mile in an average car was 20 cents, compared to 60 cents for each mass-transit passenger mile. In most U.S. locations, each new rider could be provided with a leased car for his or her entire lifetime for the cost of building a mass-transit system,"
It sounds like this conference could just as well have been planned by the highway industry. The comments above reflect a glaring failure to understand federal and state transportation subsidies, the incredible success of transit in many major cities in the US and around the world, and American history.
Lots of conversations naturally stray off of the original topic. We have a problem when people intentionally try to disrupt conversations, incite flame wars, or generally aggravate readers. These people are trolls. Personally, I try to ignore posts if they're not on-topic or at least interesting. I encourage others to do the same. This is the best way to fight trolls.
In my continuing effort to improve the quality of discourse at this site, I am experimenting with a system to test the addresses of people who post comments. If the address given is fake, the post will be removed. Your addresses will not be used for any other purpose, in fact they will not even be stored anywhere.
In addition to a number of other good ideas on the Chapel Hill Town Council's agenda, I'm told they will hear a proposal tonight to rename Airport Road to Martin Luther King Boulevard. When I was first exposed to this idea (at a candidate forum last fall), I was taken aback. I've known that road for a long time by only one name.
But actually, it makes a lot more sense to me than naming the road after an aiport that hardly anyone uses, and most people expect to be closed within a few years. And It's especially appropriate that the street that will be the future grand entrance to Carolina North should be named after such a great American. I hope it will serve as a daily reminder to all of us to do whatever we can to live up to the moral challenges of our times (of which there are many).
With permission of the Daily Tarheel, we are reprinting a collection of viewpoints they published yesterday about Carolina North. The final essay was by me, and I am including my original, undedited version. The collection also included am editorial cartoon featuring a statue of "Silent Cam."
Carolina North -Elliott Dube, Editorial Page Editor
Another stage has begun in the long history of relations between UNC and the two towns that co-exist with the University. At the center of the action is the Horace Williams tract, a significant portion of which has been earmarked as the foundation for Carolina North: UNC's future satellite campus. From a University standpoint, Carolina North represents progress. It is a giant, 240-acre symbol of UNC's drive to expand its academic...
I couldn't be happier to see students energetically pursuing more involvement in local government, and to see the Town Council welcoming them with open arms. There is clearly a need for more students to serve on Town advisory boards. But I have to ask: Where you been, students?
Student voter turnout in local elections seems to be getting worse, in spite of the fact that there have been candiates that were under 30 in the last 3 municipal elections, and an actual real-live student in the 2003 race! In fact, I campaigned on these issues myself in 1999, but got no traction with students.
So now they are asking for reserved seating on the Planning Board and boards. Students might want to try applying for it like every one else does.
Big meetings tonight:
I don't have time to write all that I want to say aboust these right now, but I'll try to post an update later...
At last Monday's Chapel Hill Town Council meeting, a group of neighborhood activists proposed to shed some light on relations between Council members and high-ranking UNC administrators.
Point:
The coalition's petition called on the council to immediately cease all individual meetings with UNC officials, even though they're legally allowed, and to "recognize that those UNC officials participating in this effort are acting as paid lobbyists and that the town should adopt a regulation requiring registration of lobbyists and the disclosure of their activity." Chapel Hill Herald, 1/15/04
Counterpoint:
Nancy Suttenfield, UNC vice chancellor of finance and administration, said last week that the university recently adopted a policy of pairing top-level administrators and trustees with individual council members.
I say "part II", because readers should be aware that Mark Marcoplos was for many years a columnist for the Chapel Hill Herald and was dropped (fired?) for being too politically active (as I understand it).
On December 27, the Herald editorialized: consider the example of Mark marcoplos, longtime spokesman for the Orange County Greens and the chairman of the Orange Water and Sewer Authority. In recent weeks, marcoplos has used a variety of forums to argue that compulsory schooling at the K-12 level is little more than a day care system, part of a capitalist ploy to depress wages. That's right. "If children weren't forced to go to school, then both parents couldn't take jobs outside the home and there would be great pressure to pay people more," he wrote in one newspaper column. I recommend reading the whole editorial to get the context.
Mark has responded to this editorial on orangepolitics and with his own op-ed
Apart from the issues of education raised and covered here on another thread, this spat raises serious questions of the mis-use and abuse of public figures by the press.
Tomorrow (1/21/03) the Chapel Hill Town Council will hold public hearings on some major (and some minor) zoning changes. On the table are the creation of the town's first-ever Neighborhood Conservation District (NCD). This NCD would apply to Northside (where I live), and I was on the commitee that developed the proposal. The biggest change is the banning of duplexes (which I opposed). That is probably what most peope will speak about at the hearing, although there are also concerns about the proposed cap of 2,000 square feet per dwelling (which I supported). I think the NCD is sorely needed, and this is a good step. But it doesn't really confront the problems that face our downtown, working-class, near-campus neighborhood. Some people don't think it can address those things. I think it could have... but anyway.
I'm excited about this event for so many reasons. For more info and to sign up for the march, visit this page I made about the March for Women's Lives.
Local musicians will play Thursday for "Rock 'n' Roe," a concert to benefit the Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina Action Fund and the 2004 March for Women's Lives.
The concert will take place in Cat's Cradle, 300 E. Main St., Carrboro, and feature performers Glory Fountain, Shannon O'Connor, Regina Hexaphone, Ameliorate, Destroyed by Kittens, and Lise Uyanik and the Mobile City Band. The doors will open at 7 p.m.
The March for Women's Lives, organized by a coalition of national women's organizations, will occur on April 25 in Washington.
Tickets for Thursday's concert cost $10.
(Chapel Hill Herald, 1/21/04)
The Chatham County political scene's decay means more than most of us want to admit. We've depended upon that large forested county to stay large, unpopulated, and forested so that we can uphold our own quality of life in southern Orange County. Part of the allure of living in the western edge of the Triangle here is that we can go north, south, or west and hit farmland and rivers and general pastoral ambiance and breathe. That's all about to change in a big way now that the Chatham board of commissioners is firmly under the control of uber-pro-development forces. The county is poised to add a LOT of people over the next 10 years, further clogging all the southern routes into and out of Chapel Hill and creating larger car and water pollution problems for the area in general. And next year's election in Chatham will only decide two seats, both of the seats currently held by those perceived to be least pro-development. It don't look good.
I guess this story continues our on-going documentation of the lazyness of professional journalists. You have to wonder about NBC 17 when they decided to do a story about blogs without talking to anyone but Todd Melet and Henry Copeland. They must have picked up on Todd's spokesperson status from his WCHL editorial calling 2004 "The year of the Blog" a few weeks ago.
Here is how NBC 17 introduced their story: "If you are so inclined, you can snoop inside someone's online diary... It's also an opportunity for local businesses to make more money." That pretty much sums up their story. Yep, voyeurism and capitalism, that's blogging.
Guest post by Nick Eberlein
Once the brouhaha over November's council race and the implications it would have for the town - and more pointedly, for town-UNC relations - died down weeks afterward, we have seen very little in the press about what we may expect in the coming months, years, etc. between the two parties. But when I was made aware of Bob Burtman's fresh column in this week's Indy, it seems that a whole new round of mud-slinging, compromising, controversy, stonewalling, or stalemate could easily begin very soon.
The article, I think anyway, does a good job of weaving a synthesis between the successful advocacy candidates, the gearing up of Carolina North negotiations, the matching of university powerbrokers with elected officials to shoot the bull over common issues, and the ensuing lobbying petition that has resulted. What makes this article interesting is it sourced entirely with anonymous quotes (e.g., "a council member," "a student enrolled in Jonathan Howes' class") and makes some pretty damning allegations.
I was about to post about the big decision on Monday about Red Light Cameras, but I am once again stopped in my tracks by the Town of Chapel Hill's website, which is so haphazardly cobbled together that instead of seeing the front page I am seeing this:
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
What the heck is going on? Can someone (Terri?, Paul?) tell me why there isn't room in Chapel Hill's multi-million-dollar town budget for one qualified, full-time webmaster and a consultant to redesign the site and make it useable?
We're covered in ice and snow yet again! Why couldn't we get storms like this when I was a kid and longed for them? Now I am a telecommuter so as long as the power is on, I don't get snow days. :(
Feel free to share your snow stories here in this open thread. Anyone know if the Chapel Hill Town Council is still meeting tonight? Their website is still down!
Here is my recap of tonight's Council meeting. There were jillions of people speaking on Red Light Cameras (RLCs), mostly in favor, including the paid and volunteer lobbyists from the ACS family. Many Council members made a point of saying how glad they were to be able to discuss this heated issue in a reasonable way in the past few weeks. Then after about two hours of hearing citizens and making speeches, they voted in favor of Mark Kleinschmidt's petition to terminate the RLC contract!
I would like to present the following awards:
Most righteous indignation: Edith Wiggins (Red Light Cameras, agenda item # 7)
Runners-up: Dorothy Verkerk, Mark Kleinschmidt, Jim Ward (in that order) .
Why does Edith seem to feel that this issue is such a personal affront to her? She & Cam Hill didn't impress by reading from prepared statements. This let the citizens who took the time to contact them or to come to the meeting in the snow know that their input was not a part of their decision-making process. (Although that was actually the case for the entire Council anyway.)
This week in the News of Orange, columnist Paul Newton invents a new word to describe Hillsborough politics:
NIM-BY-cron-ism (N) (2004): partiality to cronies by elected officials esp. as evidenced through the rejection of development applications without regard to the general welfare and common good of the citizenry who elected them.
I'll admit, my casual following of the debate over siting a new alternative school in Hillsborough's historic district has made the detractors sound pretty bad and made the school into a political ping pong ball. You know that can't be good.
But I don't know much about what's behind this, and Paul's got his own (good) reasons to gripe. Anyone care to enlighten me/us further?
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