November 2009
I voted early on Saturday. No other early voting was convenient for me and in fact the Tuesday voting hours weren't very convenient either. It'd be nice if early voting was held on more than just one Saturday but perhaps that's not feasible in local elections where turnout is low.
I drove there (Morehead Plane-aruim) because it might have been close timewise if I walked and that day was my only chance to vote. 9 am-1pm? Hey, some of use like to sleep on Saturday morning and then get our day going leisurely. I guess I'm out of step with the rest of the world, again. But at least they had reserved the parking spaces for voters so I got right in and parked easily.
I would like to thank everyone currently serving on the Town Council and the School Board, as well as those running for office. The positions are largely thankless and require a huge amount of effort and patience, and I'm sure everyone has what's best for Chapel Hill at heart. So, regardless of wether I voted for you or not, thanks for your efforts, I appreciate it.
I'm sad to see that in a community facing accusations of racism because of Greenbridge and a potential waste transfer site, we managed to vote out our only African-American Council Member. If I'm not mistaken, since Merritt declined to apply, there are no potential African-American candidates from Strom's seat either, right?
Oh well, this should make for a couple of years of fun reading in the Chapel Hill News and Chapel Hill Herald.
I want to thank everyone for their help and support. I appreciated the opportunity to join your discussions and learn from you. I congratulate the winners for school board and offer them my best wishes. One of the best parts of the campaign was getting to know more people, make new friends and meet voters. I promise to continue working for children in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro public schools.
With the election mercifully in the rear view mirror Chapel Hill political observers will now shift their focus to the appointment of a replacement for Bill Strom.
Our poll found voters in town evenly divided on whether one of the losing candidates in yesterday's election should be appointed to fill the Strom seat- 38% in favor, 38% opposed, and 24% unsure.
Trumping that finding with the loss of Jim Merritt though is probably the question we asked about whether Chapel Hillians thought it was important to have an African American on the Town Council. 57% of voters said yes to that with just 28% dissenting, and I imagine given the strong support from the community that's the direction the Council will now go in with the appointment.
Two other key findings from the poll, neither of which is particularly surprising given the returns. 51% of Chapel Hill voters support publicly financed elections with only 31% opposed. Given Mark Kleinschmidt's win and Penny Rich's first place finish it's clear there was no backlash from that and it's even possible the opposite was true.
I was a little worried that the polling in Chapel Hill would screw up the annual Pundit of the Year contest, but since PPP Polls had Penny in 6th and she actually came in 1st, I think we can safely say that pundits had to rely on their own intuition. No-one (not even Penny) predicted Penny would come first in Chapel Hill so no contestants won on the order.
The following people did predict the winners correctly in all of the races though, and most of them put their entries in before Tom Jensen announced the PPP figures anyway:
Jason Baker, Penny Rich, Mark Chilton, Erin Crouse, and Greg Bell! Each of them will get a gift certificate for OP's Zazzle print-on-demand store.
In averaged results, the contestants as a whole picked the winners in every race except for School Board. However, we got the order wrong on the Chapel Hill Town Council and Carrboro Board of Aldermen due to the success of challengers Penny Rich and Sammy Slade. Read on for aggregated predictions...
A day after the elections for city-wide offices in Durham, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough several of our elected officials joined advocates for transit to publicly launch "DO Transit" - Durham Orange Friends of Transit. Thanks to Gerry Cohen for posting info about the kick-off meeting here on OP and for being there last night to help explain House Bill 148. The newly enacted legislation establishes the Congestion Relief and Intermodal Transportation 21st Century Fund, providing the Triangle with an unprecedented opportunity to build a robust transit system.
Does the town of Chapel Hill have a code of ethics? For my ethics class in my Public Administration program I need to extensively review a public or non-profit's code of ethics. I've found this below, but I need something a little more substantive than 3 paragraphs.. at least a full page or two or more. I've been search the Town of Chapel Hill website to no avail, but I figure maybe some other OPers might have more experience using the (semi-recently redesigned) website and could point me in the right direction. Thanks for any help anyone can provide!
The Durham-Orange Friends of Transit had its first organizational meeting last night. I had received no fewer than NINE separate invitations to go, so I figured I'd show up, especially since two of them were from completely separate elected officials, and personally extended to me directly (Ed Harrison and Alice Gordon).
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