November 2008

Via e-mail announcement:

Dear NRG neighbors and supporters:

Mark your calendars for December 10, 2008!  Chapel Hill 2020:  where are we headed?

Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth will hold a public forum on growth, density, and the future vision for our community on the evening of Wednesday, December 10, 2008, in the Chapel Hill Town Council Chambers, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

As our community has grown, the need for a community-wide discussion on how we want our town to look has become acute. More and more citizens are expressing uncertainty and concern about what degree of density is most appropriate for our community, and where the best locations for it might be.

NRG believes that our region will develop best if it develops based on a comprehensive vision that is understood and endorsed by informed citizens. The goal of this forum is to kick off a community-wide discussion of these issues.  NRG will be broadcasting more information as the agenda and speaker list firms up. But for now:

-  Mark your calendar for this event

-  Please forward this e-mail to any and all potentially interested friends and neighbors

-    Please send any questions to NRG by return response to info@nrg-nc.net

 

    Thank you, and please watch for more details on this important event!

 

Julie McClintock and Kristina Peterson

Co-Chairs, NRG

www.nrg-nc.net
info@nrg-nc.net

Rock for Reproductive Rights

On Saturday, December 6th, Ipas will show its holiday spirit with the fifth annual Rock for Reproductive Rights benefit concert!

We're particularly excited about the 2008 lineup. The evening will begin with the incomparable Caitlin Cary. "Rock, country, soul and folk smoothly blend together with Cary's gorgeous vocals serving as the unifying force," says entertainment reviewer Michael Berick. Caitlin is a founding member of the band Tres Chicas, and has recorded several tantalizing duets with Thad Cockerell. This will be the second time Caitlin has leant her voice to Ipas's cause – Tres Chicas mesmerized the audience during the 2005 Rock for Reproductive Rights.

Next we'll break out our Mardi Gras beads and our best swamp dancin' shoes for the Savoy Doucet Cajun Band, featuring Michael Doucet, the Grammy award-winning lead singer and fiddler from Beausoleil, and Ann and Marc Savoy, both Louisiana musicians. In 2005, Doucet was one of 12 recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA award, which recognizes artistic excellence, cultural authenticity and an artist's contributions, is the highest honor in U.S. folk and traditional arts. OffBeat magazine has described Ann Savoy as "cajun music's cultural ambassador." She plays cajun music in the movie, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and produced a Grammy-nominated recording of cajun music that includes performances by Linda Ronstadt and John Fogerty. Ann and accordionist-husband Marc — also an NEA Heritage Fellow— perform around the world. Marc's performances include three presidential inaugurations and shows at the John F. Kennedy Center, the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and the Newport Folk Festival. He also appeared in the PBS documentary, "American Roots."

Ipas works around the globe to increase women's reproductive rights and to save women's lives in places where abortion is illegal or inaccessible. With local, national and global partners, Ipas strives to ensure that women can obtain safe, respectful and comprehensive abortion care, including counseling and family-planning services. Ipas trains health-care providers to improve health services, promotes appropriate technologies and works with policymakers and advocates to improve health policies and practices.

We hold the concert each year to raise money for our work and to educate the local community about unsafe abortion and the toll it takes on women and on their families and communities. The World Health Organization estimates that almost 70,000 women die from unsafe abortions each year, and five million are injured.

Tickets can be purchased by calling the ArtsCenter at (919)929-2787 or online at the ArtsCenter website.

You can support Ipas by sponsoring the concert with a tax deductible contribution. Concert sponsors who donate $50 or more will receive two complimentary tickets to the concert. We appreciate your support. Click here to make a donation.

Receuved via e-mail:

"Why Stories Matter: An evening of performance and discussion about development and gentrification in Chapel Hill-Carrboro."
>
> Tuesday, Nov 11
> 8:00 PM
> Bingham 103

Join us as we watch sections of a promotional DVD put together by Greenbridge developers during their plans to build ten story building adjacent to Northside.  We will watch the film in sections, with group discussion and performances by Spoken Word artists and others in between.

-Come out and learn how Chapel Hill and the University are caught up in the globalizing force of development, and the discourse that produces certain understandings of progress and progressive.

-Come out and see the amazing power of performance as an intervention in oppressive discourses and practices.

-Come out and help us think about how the stories we tell about ourselves and others have material and real impacts on humans and communities, how contested definitions of sustainability and community come out of different histories.

Greenbridge is a $50 million mixed-use project going up on the Graham, Rosemary and Merritt Mill Road block of Chapel Hill, bordering the Northside neighborhood, one of the few historically African-American communities in Chapel Hill.  The building will be 10 stories high, more than three times as tall as any surrounding building.  As the group started working on their application for a Special Use Permit from the Town Council for their project, they produced a "documentary" of the history of the community, weaving stories of elderly residents in the area and their vision of "sustainability" in the LEED certified building.

Northside, one of Chapel Hill's most historic neighborhoods, has been a community of  African American families for more than a hundred years. It was an active site of Civil Rights activism, a pioneer in public education for African-Americans in the South, and a place known for vital church communities.  In the 90s there was a community push to clean up the neighborhood, which also made it more lucrative for development.  Now student renters and bigger developments like Greenbridge threaten to price out people on fixed income, long-term residents and keep out families from moving to the area.
 

Notice via Facebook:

Hey all! Our next meeting will be November 12 at The Station, 7:00 pm. Come on out, we can share stories from the 4th, talk about where to go from here, and fight for jobs in the Obama administration.

See everyone there!

Via e-mail announcment:

CAROLINA NORTH

Public Education Session Nov. 19
Chapel Hill Development Proposal

7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 19 * Chapel Hill Town Hall * 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

A Public Educational Session on Carolina North will be held in the Chapel Hill Town Council Chambers at 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.  At the meeting, a Town representative will explain the review process, and a UNC-Chapel Hill representative will provide an overview of its development proposal and answer questions about its proposal for developing an academic, mixed-use campus.  Upon request, with 5 days notice, the Communications and Public Affairs Department (968-2743) will provide an interpreter for the hearing impaired or any other needed type of auxiliary aid.

Carolina North is expected to cover about 250 acres of the Horace Williams Tract’s 1,000 acres and be built in phases over the next 50 years, as proposed. The property lies just to the north of Estes Drive adjacent to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The Nov. 19 session will focus on providing information about the regulatory tool that has been endorsed by the Town Council and University representatives as the preferred tool for guiding development at Carolina North: establishment of a Development Agreement with a base zoning district. The session is intended to provide information about the anticipated process to negotiate a Development Agreement and base zone, as well as the timeframe for those discussions.  In addition, the University will present information about the Oct. 31, 2008, Carolina North Submission.

For more information, contact the Town of Chapel Hill Planning Department at (919) 968-2728 or

planning@townofchapelhill.org. Additional material is posted online at www.townofchapelhill.org/carolinanorth.

From the Jaycees' web site:

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Holiday Parade is scheduled for Saturday, December 13, 2008 from 10:00 a.m. until approximately 12:00 noon. Presented by the Chapel Hill Jaycees, the parade this year promises to be a celebration of our community spirit.

We encourage all entries to have a holiday theme and awards will be given for Best of Parade, Most Original, Best Holiday Theme, Most Creative, Best Scout Troop. Our winners put a lot of thought and creativity in their entries and that is what makes this holiday parade so special!