February 2008

Registration books close for Primary

Date: 

Friday, April 11, 2008 - 1:00pm

Push poll anyone?

[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.

NC Primary Day

Date: 

Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - 2:30am to 3:30pm

OrangePolitics' birthday

Date: 

Saturday, September 27, 2008 - 2:00am

Sierra Club Orange County Commissioner Candidates Forum

More information forthcoming...

Date: 

Monday, March 17, 2008 - 3:00pm to 5:00pm

Location: 

Carrboro Town Hall

Don't forget the judges

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.

Duchastel sounds the alarm on UNC growth

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.

Book Discussion: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond

Join our discussion of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. This geographer recounts why past societies have failed and what we need to do to keep our society going. The Seattle Times writes, “Diamond’s most influential gift may be his ability to write about geopolitical and environmental systems in ways that don’t just educate and provoke, but entertain.”

Book Description:

Using a vast historical and geographical perspective ranging from Easter Island and the Maya to Viking Greenland and modern Montana, Diamond traces a fundamental pattern of environmental catastrophe—one whose warning signs can be seen in our modern world and that we ignore at our peril. Blending the most recent scientific advances into a narrative that is impossible to put down, Collapse exposes the deepest mysteries of the past even as it offers hope for the future.

Date: 

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 - 2:00pm to 3:00pm

Location: 

Carrboro Cybrary, 100 N. Greensboro St., Carrboro

Buckhorn Village: “Business as Usual” or sensible economic development?

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:

Energy week

(cross posted from Exile and BlueNC)
This week the Emerging Issues forum is taking a long, intense look at energy and the future of North Carolina with respect to climate change, greater energy efficiency and self-sufficiency and so on.
While there is a lot of emphasis on green and alternatives, there's also going to be a heavy focus on the corporate sector including a panel with both Bill Johnson of Progress Energy and Jim Rodgers of Duke Energy and another panel on "converting Green to Green" with Jeff Immelt, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, General Electric Corporation.
The whole things starts off with Thomas Friedman who will dutifully remind policy makers that only the free market can save us.
People who are honestly trying to change our energy structure know that getting corporate buy-in to new laws and regulations has to happen to get the bills passed and policy shifts started. But this is like riding a tiger. Eventually, the tiger gets hungry.

Here's the agenda for the event:

2008 Annual Emerging Issues Forum

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