January 2005
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday, January 22, 2005
Two weeks ago, I wrote of the importance of valuing, using and protecting our local water supply. Although the OWASA system provides an abundance of fresh, high-quality water, its vulnerability was apparent during the drought of 2002 when water supplies fell to a harrowing 30 percent of reservoir capacity.
Spurred in part by that experience, OWASA and UNC last year began planning for a water reuse system to meet a significant part of the university's nonpotable water needs. This will involve the reclamation and reuse of highly treated wastewater from the Mason Farm Wastewater Treatment Plant. Much of that water will be channeled toward the university's chiller plants and perhaps ultimately to the cogeneration plant.
When the project comes online in 2007, it will initially reduce water demand by 10 percent. At build-out, the reduction will be 15 percent. This is equivalent to expanding the water supply that much.
Guest Post by George Entenman
Orange Politics folks would should be very interested in a project sponsored by the Orange County Democratic Women to get women on local boards and commissions. Read on...
Orange County Democratic Women announce an important public meeting
topic:Opportunities for women to serve on boards and commissions
guest speaker: Elaine Marshall, N.C. Secretary of State
date: Thursday, February 3, 2005
time: 7:30 pm
place:The Exchange at Meadowmont, Chapel Hill
About 5 months ago, the Orange County Democratic Women decided that it would launch a new initiative, the Boards and Commissions Project. Our goal would be to increase the number of women serving in a policy-making role in county government.
Today's Herald reported that a group from rural Orange County led by farmer Bob Strayhorn and state Rep. Bill Faison is pushing the BOCC to consider district representation. They point out that a large segment of Orange County voters feels that they are not represented under the current system. A petition to that effect with 1252 signatures was delivered to the commissioners.
This has been raised before but the commissioners were unwilling to act. My own thinking is that we should provide voting and representation systems that allow maximum representation of points of view while maintaining one-person/one-vote and effective government.
Cumulative voting could be another option to attain the same ends. Cumulative voting would allow a variety of constituencies to identify themselves and seek better representation. But there are problems with it.
This from the Common Sense Foundation:
On Wednesday at noon, history was made in North Carolina. The General Assembly began its 2005-06 session with an out lesbian as one of its elected members for the first time.
Julia Boseman defeated a Republican incumbent in a conservative Wilmington district to earn her seat in the state Senate. She survived slurs against her sexual orientation during the campaign to win the seat.
Yet while the whole state has reason to celebrate the diversity and equality symbolized by Boseman's election, not all is well for the GLBT community in North Carolina.
Just minutes after Boseman and the rest of the legislature were sworn in, a new constitutional amendment was filed to attack gay marriage and even gay relationships.
The events of this week show both profound encouragement in the struggle for GLBT equality, as well as how many difficulties that struggle still faces.
People in our community should celebrate Boseman's victory as an outgrowth of landmark events in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the election of Joe Herzenberg to the Town Council and of Mike Nelson as Mayor.
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday, January 29, 2005
Aided and abetted by the Federal Communications Commission, an ever-shrinking number of corporations control an ever-larger proportion of the media. This has prompted media critic Robert Mc-Chesney to label media reform our most pressing issue, linking the corporate media to misplaced government priorities, a variety of corporate scandals and our troubled campaign finance system.
Recently, McChesney reported optimistically that "the movement to fix our badly broken media system is gathering momentum." He includes in this movement, efforts "to strengthen alternative, independent and non-commercial media." Our area is home to a number of those initiatives, most recently WCOM community radio.
In January 2000, the FCC authorized the licensing of Low Power FM radio stations (LPFM). This opened the door for community and alternative radio, previously pretty much confined to large metropolitan areas, to spring up in small towns across the country.
I joined about 100 other self-identified "progressives" on campus this evening for an event focused on how to win more arguments, and therefore more elections, for the causes we believe in. The gathering was focused on the teachings of linguist George Lakoff, of whom I am admittedly a fan. He is on a mission to help the left catch up with the billions of dollars spent developing right-wing think tanks and media outlets over the past 30 years.
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