September 2010

Has Anyone Seen Augustus Cho Lately?

Sierra Club screening "Fresh"

Screening of Fresh

Wednesday, October 13, 7-9 p.m.

Chapel Hill Public Library (100 Library Dr.; directions)

We've learned a lot about what's wrong with the American food system--fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides made out of fossil fuels, polluted water, poisoned produce, and don't even mention processed foods loaded with fat and sugar. Fresh is an up-beat look at how we can grow and distribute food that's better for human heath and the health of the planet. NYU nutrition professor Marion Nestle says "It's a must see for everyone who eats." Please join us for a screening and discussion. (Official movie website.)

Date:

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - 3:00pm

Location:

Chapel Hill Public LIbrary, 100 Library Drive

More Information:

http://nc.sierraclub.org/ocg/Newsletters/OCG2010Sept.html

Environment

Carolina North Public Information Meeting

A public information meeting will be held at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 29, to receive comments and feedback on the UNC-Chapel Hill 2010 Carolina North Annual Report to the Town of Chapel Hill. The meeting will be held in the Council Chamber of Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Carolina North is envisioned as a mixed-use academic campus on university-owned property along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, two miles north of the main campus. University and Town representatives signed a development agreement a year ago that covers the first 20 years of development on the site.

The report to be presented on Sept. 29 describes the activity on the Carolina North site in the past fiscal year (July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010). Most of those activities relate to the recreational uses that residents make of the Carolina North Forest. Read the report online: http://www.townofchapelhill.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=7540

The report is a requirement of the Carolina North Development Agreement, containing updates on various topics, including housing, parking, land use, greenways and construction activities. The Campus-to-Campus Connector Report, a one-time requirement of the Development Agreement, is included in Attachment VI of the report. While there has been a delay in construction at Carolina North, the report is part of the structure established by the Development Agreement for providing continued town-gown communication.

Town Manager Roger Stancil will review the report and the public input before reporting to the Town Council on his review of the development agreement and its requirements.

Send comments about the annual report or other issues related to Carolina North at any time to carolinanorth@townofchapelhill.org or write Town of Chapel Hill Planning Department, Carolina North, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Chapel Hill, NC 27514.

The 2010 Annual Report and other information can be found on the Town's website:

Carolina North Main Page - http://www.townofchapelhill.org/carolinanorth schedule of various activities and main news items, including the Annual Report
Public Participation - http://www.townofchapelhill.org/index.aspx?page=1355 detailed description of various communication and participation efforts in the past year
Campus to Campus - http://www.townofchapelhill.org/index.aspx?page=1356 background materials, public comments and community emails about the project
Minor Modifications - http://www.townofchapelhill.org/index.aspx?page=1453 description of the process and modification materials
FAQs - http://www.townofchapelhill.org/index.aspx?page=1352 answers many of the frequent questions about the Carolina North project and the agreement

Date:

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - 1:15pm

Location:

Chapel Hill Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Chapel Hill

More Information:

http://www.townofchapelhill.org/carolinanorth

Government

Town of Chapel Hill

Orange County Arts Commission Open House

The Orange County Arts Commission will welcome friends and visitors to its new location at the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau on Wednesday, September 8, 2010, from 3-6 pm.

Please stop by and say hello as the Arts Commission begins its work at its new home. Same board,same mission statement and same program director, Martha Shannon, but new digs that we’d love for you to see.

Food, cold refreshments, music and art.

Parking in the back of the Bentley Building

RSVP to Martha Shannon, Orange County Arts Commission

919/968-2011

501 West Franklin Street

Chapel Hill, NC 27516

www.artsorange.org

Date:

Wednesday, September 8, 2010 - 11:00am to 2:00pm

Location:

501 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

More Information:

http://www.artsorange.org

Arts & Culture

Triangle Regional Tranist Program Public Workshops - round 2 on Sept. 16

The regional transit workshops are continuing to happen and it's more important than ever that folks who care about the future of regional transit attend these workshops. You can stop by at any point during the event and talk to someone. No need to stat for the whole event.

This time, the workshop is being held in Carrboro at the Century Center! Emphasis will be placed on the technical analysis of the different corridor options displayed at the first meeting (back when they met at Chapel Hill town hall last month). How does Carrboro fit in? How will Carrboro benefit? Now is a really crucial time for folks who want to see West Chapel Hill and Carrboro included in a light rail plant, so stop by between 4 and 7PM on Sept. 16, 2010.

http://www.orangepolitics.org/events/public-workshop-on-regional-transit

Move to Cary?

J. Al Baldwin had an interesting letter in the CH News yesterday -- http://www.chapelhillnews.com/2010/09/12/59402/move-to-cary.html

However, I think he has a couple of points very wrong (and the N&O doesn't allow comments on CHNews stories, so you get my thoughts here. Sorry).

1) We're not going back to the "village" that CH was 30 years ago. While I remember that as a lovely place, the growth of the University and the quality of the schools has caused growth. The question now is how we change to handle that growth, not how do we stay the same as we were 30 years ago (actually, 33 for me).

Festifall

Every fall, 15,000 visitors flock to downtown Chapel Hill to experience Festifall, Orange County’s premier outdoor arts festival. The annual event always provides crowds an excellent opportunity to see and buy arts and crafts from a select group of regional artisans, and to witness some of the finest dance groups and bands around. But this year, event-goers will be able to engage with the arts with all their senses.

New attractions will give folks a chance to create individual and community works of art, sample fare from many of downtown’s nationally acclaimed restaurants, and experience the Kid’s Canvas, a family-friendly zone sure to please children of all ages.

Date:

Sunday, October 3, 2010 - 9:00am to 2:00pm

Location:

West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

More Information:

http://www.townofchapelhill.org/index.aspx?page=513

Government

Discuss Chapel Hill's emerging framework for downtown

Come to a public meeting to learn about the next step in the Town's radical/visionary new plans for downtown. I highly recommend checking out the presentation made by the consultants back in June. Link below, and blog coverage here.

The future of downtown Chapel Hill will be discussed during the presentation of the draft Downtown Development Framework and Action Plan to Town advisory boards and commissions on beginning at 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 16, in the Council Chamber of Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
The presentation will be made by Dan Douglas of Kling Stubbins, and questions will follow the presentation.
The Town of Chapel Hill created a master plan for downtown, the Downtown Small Area Plan, in 2000. The Town Council initiated a new Downtown Master Plan as one of its goals for 2009. In November 2009, the Town, in conjunction with the Downtown Partnership, issued an RFP, and Kling-Stubbins of Raleigh was selected to complete the Downtown Development Action Plan and Framework.
A planning team held two meetings in April 2010 for interested parties to share their opinions on development in downtown Chapel Hill. A first draft of findings was presented to the public during a planning charette on June 10. The June 10 presentation is available online: www.townofchapelhill.org/modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=6806
For more information, contact Dwight Bassett, Economic Development Officer for the Town of Chapel Hill, at 919-969-5010 or dbassett@townofchapelhill.org.

Date:

Thursday, September 16, 2010 - 1:00pm

Location:

Chapel Hill Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

More Information:

http://www.townofchapelhill.org/modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=6806

Government

Carrboro Music Festival

Our day long, free festival features music at various indoor and outdoor venues. The outdoor sites present music until dark, while some of the indoor venues go well into the evening.

The
13th annual Carrboro Music Festival
will take place on
Sunday, September 26th, 2010.

25 venues will be used to present all the music

Date:

Sunday, September 26, 2010 - 9:00am

Location:

All over Carrboro

More Information:

http://www.carrboromusicfestival.com/

Arts & Culture

Carrboro

Advocates for Carrboro Greenways presentation to Carrboro Greenways Commission

The Advocates for Carrboro Greenways will be making a 10 minute presentation to the Carrboro Greenways Commission on the development of Greenways that will provide safe off-road transportation; traffic/CO2 mitigation in Carrboro; access to natural areas for all citizens; and preservation/restoration of degraded areas.

Date:

Monday, September 20, 2010 - 2:00pm

Location:

Carrboro Town Hall, Alderman Meeting room

More Information:

http://advocatesforcarrborogreenways.org/

Environment

OP Brunch with author Deanna Zandt

On Saturday we'll be having a special OP Brunch (think: OP Happy Hour, but earlier) with Deanna Zandt. She's the author of the new book Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking. We'll have a discussion of how new media can be used for hyperlocal activism, how it IS used here in OC, and probably a variety of other interesting topics that are likely to come up in conversation with Deanna who is smart, funny, and has great politics and fun stories from many years of work for left-wing causes and personalities.

~~I'll update this post with a LOCATION and confirmation of the time as soon as possible. And I'll tweet it at @orangepolitics, natch.~~ We'll meet on the lawn at Weaver Street market.

Date:

Saturday, September 18, 2010 - 6:30am

Location:

Weaver Street Market lawn, Carrboro

More Information:

http://deannazandt.com/sharethischange

About This Web Site

The difference between a big idea and a big waste of time

When I first learned about the proposed framework for downtown, I was amazed to see such big, new ideas being proposed by the consultant hired by the Town of Chapel Hill and the Downtown Partnership. This proposal presents an opportunity for Chapel Hill to do something visionary and to once again have a thriving urban center that is the envy of other communities. But.

The only way that this Big Idea will evolve into a Good Idea is if Chapel Hill can make this vision our own. Not only that, but I also think this plan might have trouble being approved in Chapel Hill without generating significant community investment in its approach. Or, as I said in June:

Bring Afghan War $ Back Home to Orange County

Orange County has pressing local needs including education, infrastructure, social services, health, and small business support - just to name a few. We continually are forced to wrangle over restricted budgets which pit important local needs against one another. Meanwhile about $2600 per county citizen leaves Orange County annually for the national military budget. That's a total of about $351million.

Our current annual county budget is about $178 million. Imagine what we could accomplish for the citizens of Orange County if just 10% of our military contribution was retained at home for local needs? Another $35 million annually would make a world of difference for us.

Make no mistake, U.S. military spending - the U.S.

Chapel Hill government and social media

Ruby's recent post about the problems with the Town's communication strategy regarding the new Downtown Development Framework got me to think about the ways in which our town's government does not use social media to communicate with constituents. I'll have more to say about this hopefully in a future blog post, but this one item jumped out at me:

Women's Agenda Assembly

The Women's Agenda Assembly is a forum for women's issues in our county. Our objective is to discuss four main issues: access to health care, civic participation and equality, economic self-sufficiency, and violence against women. Please register to hear about these issues and discuss them with your peers!

A statewide nonprofit, NC Women United, drafts a general women's agenda with detailed policy proposals for each installment of the forums, and coordinators and committee members plan assemblies at the local level. We recommend that you take a look at the Draft Agenda prior to the assembly.

We are still looking for volunteers for this event! We have the following needs:

Facilitators: Guide discussion among groups of 10 (training provided!)
Scribes: Record discussion from small groups.
Registration: Help set up the event and check in participants.

Questions? Contact The Women's Center (919)968-4610

Date:

Thursday, October 28, 2010 - 2:00pm to 4:30pm

Location:

New Hope Camp and Conference Center, 4805 NC 86

More Information:

http://orangewaa2010.eventbrite.com/

Orange County

women's rights

Another chance at board appointment

Joe Green has resigned from the CHCCS School Board (not that you'll notice that in the lack of media around here)

But I doubt we'll get into another "5th place finisher" fight because I heard MaryAnne Gucciardi moved out of the district as well. But I'm sure there will be interesting questions about whether to appoint another African-American. Or why not a Hispanic- or Asian-American given the large populations (14 and 11% respectively)?

Family Friendly Fundraiser for Elaine Mashall

Family Friendly Fundraiser

to benefit

Elaine Marshall

for U.S. Senate

Please join us to meet Elaine Marshall and find out why she will make such an excellent Senator representing the state of North Carolina. Elaine has a long history of supporting North Carolina's families through her dedicated public service. If you still believe in HOPE and CHANGE, then Elaine needs your support. Join us for a fun afternoon and the chance to talk with Elaine about what she will do to make sure America remains a great place for our children.

Sunday, September 26

4:00-7:00 PM

At the home of Graig and Jennifer Meyer

9603 Leslie Drive

Chapel Hill NC 27516

People of all ages and family configurations are welcome to attend.

Plenty of Entertainment for All Ages:

Live music

Get a cheap, delicious dinner from Captain Poncho's Taco Truck!

Enjoy a local microbrew on tap.

Play Areas for the Kids

Please donate online to reserve your space.

Donations at any level are welcome.

Special Family Friendly Suggested Donation:

$50 for any family with kids.

Those Superstars who donate at the levels below will be recognized at the event.

$100

$250

$500

$2400 MAXOUT!!! This is the most you can donate under Federal campaign rules.

Date:

Sunday, September 26, 2010 - 12:00pm to 3:00pm

Location:

9603 Leslie Drive, Chapel Hill NC 27516

Events

NC Pride 2010 - PhotoBlog

Just got back from NC Pride a few hours ago. It was great fun. Saw friends, organizations, groups, and elected officials from across the triangle. Tons of Elaine Marshall signs around. Lots of pro-equality churches, and animal welfare/adoption tents. Here are some of my pictures of the grounds/tents/speeches and parade. Enjoy!

Okay, so I tried loading like 50 some photos with the photo thingy & they don't seem to show up in the preview window at all, so here is a link to where I put them up on BlueNC. (if I can figure out what went wrong I'll try editing to upload some of them again)

http://bluenc.com/nc-pride-sat-sept-25

BlogTogether Birthday Bash

I'll be there!

The BlogTogether Birthday Bash will be a free event open to writers and readers in North Carolina. Our goal: to celebrate all the bloggers in the Triangle — no matter how short or long you’ve been at it.
So come ready to meet your blogging heroes, introduce yourself to new friends, and enjoy the diversity of our regional blogging activities (education, politics, technology, food, faith, and so much more).

Date:

Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - 2:30pm

Location:

1007 West Main Street, Durham

More Information:

http://mistersugar.com/article/4640/the-blogtogether-birthday-bash-at-the-casbah…

Media

Meeting on proposed changes to Parent Organization Policy

Invitation to Presidents and Treasurers of Orange County Schools Parent Organizations

Presidents and Treasurers of Orange County Schools (OCS) Parent Organizations are invited to attend an informational meeting hosted by the OCS Finance Department. This meeting allows you to provide feedback on proposed changes to the School Board's Parent Organization Policy #5010 (http://www.orange.k12.nc.us/board_pages/board_agendas_and_attachments/agenda_archive/9-7-10/Policy_5010.pdf).

When: September 30, 2010

Time: 7 p.m. until 8 p.m.

Where: A.L. Stanback Library/Media Center

Date:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 - 3:00pm

Location:

A.L. Stanback Library/Media Center

More Information:

http://donnascoffeybreak.blogspot.com/2010/09/invitation-to-presidents-and-treas…

Education

Orange County Schools

Public Forum on 2010 Sidewalk Construction Program

Date:

Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 3:00pm

Location:

Chapel Hill Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Chapel Hill

Planning & Transportation

Local NAACP launch for national One Nation Working Together march

Eloise Hamilton

NAACP- Chapel Hill/Carrboro Chapter

(919) 682-4930

chapelhillcarrboronaacp@gmail.com

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 9/28/10

CHAPEL HILL/CARRBORO NAACP BRANCH TO HOST LAUNCH EVENT FOR MARCH ON WASHINGTON

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The Chapel Hill/Carrboro branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is hosting a launch event at Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe on Thursday, Sept. 30, 2010, at 6 p.m., to support participants of the One Nation Working Together March On Washington on Saturday October 2, 2010.

The NAACP hopes to bring together the social justice community in support of more than 50 local residents and 50 UNC students who will board buses in Chapel Hill and make the trek from Chapel Hill to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to fight for jobs, affordable housing and education.

The March on Washington is a symbolic representation of the historic march that occurred in 1963 where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in front of over 200,000 supporters advocating civil and economic rights for African-Americans. The goal of “One Nation Working Together” is to mobilize the nation as one to put Americans back to work, stimulate the economy, ensure the protection, civil rights, and liberties of all people, and invest in high-quality education for all youth.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend.

Buses are leaving the University Mall at 4 a.m. on Saturday and will return at 11 p.m. the same day. The cost to ride is $45/person and one meal is included.

-MORE-

NAACP LAUNCH EVENT/Page 2

To sign-up to ride the bus and participate in the March on Washington, contact Quintin Laws at 919-475-6403, or visithttp://www.chapelhill-carrboro-naacp.org for more information.

The launch event is open to the public; all members of the community are encouraged to attend. Members of the NAACP will be collecting donations for scholarships to send low-income residents to Washington, as well as for food and beverages on the trip.

For more information about the launch event, contact Michelle Laws at malaws007@gmail.com.

The mission of the NAACP is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights for all persons and to eliminate racial discrimination.

# # #

Date:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 - 2:00pm

Location:

Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe

Civil Liberties

NAACP

Main menu

September 2010

Screening of Fresh

Wednesday, October 13, 7-9 p.m.

Chapel Hill Public Library (100 Library Dr.; directions)

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