December 2012
Tonight at the Central Orange Senior Center (103 Meadowlands Drive, Hillsborough), three new members will be sworn in to the Orange County Board of Commissioners. A reception will take place at 6 pm with the business meeting starting at 7. Follow @orangepolitics for live tweets from the meeting.
After taking their new seats, the first item on the agenda (PDF) will be to elect a chair and vice-chair for the next year. New commissioners Renee Price, Penny Rich, and Mark Dorosin were elected in a primary in which voters seemed strongly intent on change (incumbents lost in both districts). They join a group with a strong record of environmentalism, and with good intentions on social justice and economic development. I'm looking forward to seeing what this new board of comissioners can accomplish together.
In a 5-2 vote, the Chapel Hill Town Council tonight reaffirmed Chapel Hill Transit (CHT)’s bus advertising policy with minor adjustments. The policy, which was technically a draft that had been erroneously enforced by staff, makes town buses a “limited public form,” and prohibits advertising that is “disparaging, disreputable or disrespectful.” The main debate of the evening centered around subjective terms like “disparaging” and “disrespectful” would be interpreted by staff. Council Members Eastrom and Czajkowski were the two dissenting votes. Council Member Pease was absent.
The Council also approved resolutions limiting the number of ads with the same message from the same source that can appear on a single bus and allowing staff to place disclaimers with bus ads stating that they do not represent the views of the town government.
Last night I stepped into the lion's den. In other words, I attended a Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) reditricting hearing. These meetings are legendary and this one did not disappoint.
See my tweets (and other people's responses) on Storify or below.
Leave it to Dan Coleman to finish on a strong note. Attending his last regular meeting as a member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, Coleman spoke about the dream of Carrboro, and he urged his colleagues and neighbors to seek out creative ways forward in a world of seemingly insurmountable challenges.
From the Town of Chapel Hill:
The Chapel Hill Town Council has established the process for filling the vacancy on the Council resulting from the resignation of former Council Member Penny Rich. The Town Charter provides that this vacancy be filled by appointment for the remainder of Council Member Rich's term of office, until December 2013. Residents of Chapel Hill who are registered voters and otherwise qualified to hold office are invited to apply to fill this vacant seat on the Town Council.
There is no official form for applications. Applications must include the name, residence address, and signature of the applicant. The original application with an original signature must be submitted and received by the Town Clerk by 5 p.m. Monday, Jan. 7, 2013. The Town Clerk's Office is located in the Communications and Public Affairs Department on the second floor of Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Chapel Hill, NC 27514.
Applicants may include information in support of the application if they wish and are encouraged to provide a written statement (500 words or less) outlining the applicant's view of issues facing the Town of Chapel Hill and interest in serving on the Town Council.
Applicants will have an opportunity to make brief remarks regarding their interest in serving on the Town Council at the special meeting of the Town Council at 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 14, 2013, in the Council Chamber at Town Hall. The Council will then consider making an appointment to fill the vacancy at a special meeting/public hearing on Jan. 23, 2013.
Information: 919-968-2743
Date:
Monday, January 7, 2013 - 5:00pm
Dan Coleman will be missed in Carrboro. I have a couple of sisters who lived in Australia. I've already written to Dan offering what help I can with his transition. But I know that he will enjoy his new adventure in Australia.
Which means. A vacancy will soon be opening on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen. And my mind turns to matters of political ‘establishment,’ the righteousness of challenge in a community, and what makes me itchy.
Now. Let's get clear. There is a political ‘establishment’ in Carrboro. This is not necessarily a bad thing. So, why the itch?
Well, I get itchy at any appearance of an 'establishment' coronation.
I get itchy at any sense that one has to be a part of an homogenous 'establishment' to make progress. That the primary attribute of a candidacy should be that one has worked one's way up the ladder of 'establishment,' allowing its members to get comfortable with one.
I get itchy at the suggestion that a community is, indeed, homogenous. When patently no community is homogenous.
Folks, it's almost here. Orange County Commissioners will hold mandatory public hearings on three items at 7 pm Tues 12/11 Southern Human Services Center Homestead Rd:
- 1/2% Durham/Orange sales tax,
- $7 annual Orange County vehicle registration fee, and
- $3 Durham/Orange vehicle registration fee.
Commissioners have all three items on the agenda right after the hearing. The Durham Commissioners had their hearing and final vote on the sales tax two weeks ago. If approved by Orange, then the TTA Board will vote on the sales tax Friday at 1 pm, and that will be final vote. Collections would begin 4/1/13.
It's time to implement the transit plan.
As Gerry Cohen noted in a recent post, on Tuesday of this week, the county commissioners will take up three resolutions to begin implementing the Orange County transit plan. The transit plan describes how investments will be made in public transit in Orange County and the funding sources for those investments—including a new half-cent sales tax levied by Triangle Transit, a new $7 vehicle registration fee levied by the county, and an additional $3 vehicle registration fee levied by Triangle Transit.
Date:
Sunday, December 16, 2012 - 2:00pm to 4:00pm
Location:
Tru Deli & Wine (114 Henderson Street, Chapel Hill)
Date:
Sunday, January 20, 2013 - 2:00pm to 4:00pm
Location:
Tiger Room (201 E. Main St. adjacent to the Station) in Carrboro
I love newspapers and news blogs. I love reporters. I used to be a reporter. I come from 150 years of men – and one grandmother, Cyrene Bakke Dear – who published local community newspapers from Jersey City to Sedalia, Mo.
In the '60s my mom and dad got a lot of late-night, threatening calls from the Klan in my hometown of Elizabeth City, NC for what my dad did through the Daily Advance. David Dear informed the community with courage. He was also an equal opportunity employer before the phrase existed and he got threats for that, too.
I miss reporters. We need reporters here in Orange County. And everywhere. But you know that.
What you may not know is that something really big just happened here, something that may grow in significance for our community for the rest of the century.
And you probably have not heard a thing about it.
Mark Dorosin - who is the managing director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights, a father of three, and a recently sworn-in in Orange County Commissioner - has written a letter to the Chapel Hill Carrboro School Board about the current school reassignment discussion. I couldn't agree with him more about the thinly veiled racism in the sudden clamor for "community schools." A term which is still fully tainted by the Republican takeover of the Wake County School Board, and rings hollow in suburban Chapel Hill where almost no schools are realistically walkable.
“Unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will learn to live together.” Thurgood Marshall
Dear Chairperson Brownstein and Members of the Board of Education:
As you begin to discuss the various redistricting options, I urge you to make racial and socio-economic diversity the highest priority in the redistricting criteria under consideration. As the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board, like its peers across the state, continues to work to improve student achievement and close the gap between white and minority students’ test scores, it is critical that every available resource be utilized. These resources include, in addition to technology, books and high quality teachers, students and families. Extensive social science research demonstrates that students learn from their peers, and that racial and socio-economic diversity among students enhances that learning. All students, regardless of their individual socio-economic status or race, achieve at higher levels in socio-economically diverse schools.
Over the years you may have read my posts here on OP about equal access to the Internet. It was my volunteering with AmeriCorp and the Town of Chapel Hill that really motivated me. Here is my donation letter I'm sending to friends about my latest effort. Please consider giving this holiday season to buy laptops for kids in Abbey Court (a.k.a. Collins Crossing).
Dear Friends,
Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton and Orange Networking are raising $3,000 to provide laptops for fifteen kids at Abbey Court. Can you help us? We want to close the digital divide for fifteen families who currently have no computer at home. Please give whatever you can by clicking here. If you prefer to donate via check please make it out to ‘Orange Networking’. (Let me know in the comments and I'll send you the address to mail a check to.)
As I wrote three months ago, OrangePolitics is overdue for a software upgrade. 5 years ago, you donated $1,000 to help move the site from WordPress to Drupal, and I think it was well worth the effort! Unfortunately, the software of the site has not seen a major update since that time. We need professional help again to upgrade the site from Drupal 5 to version 6 or 7, which will also allow us to move to cheaper web hosting. (I currently pay $35/month, but it could be a low as $10/month if we move the site.)
With the state of our local media ecosystem, OrangePolitics will only become more essential. And as Jeff wrote, we have added some great features such as live tweeting local government meetings and our own online candidate forums along with the always-informative blogging of your fellow community activists.
We're very grateful to the 15 people who already donated $500 last fall, and hope that a few more people can step up and get us the rest of the way to $800.
Starting tomorrow - just a few hours too late to help revellers tonight - you might actually want to take a cab in Chapel Hill! In the past, their fees were so exorbitant that cabs were only for the very desperate. But the Town Council has reformed the system in response to a request from UNC students. The change will also help regional commuters (like me) who can get a bus back from Durham or Raleigh after 7pm, but then are stuck walking the last mile to get home.
Someone please help me out if I'm missing some hidden value here, but it seems to me that Orange County has found a way to spend money on technology while serving a few residents as little as possible. According to a press release issued today (below) the county is installing monitors in three county buildings with the time, weather, traffic updates, and emergency alerts when they are available. Because, you know, when there is danger afoot the first thing I do is get in the car and drive to a government administrative building.
When I attended the presentation of the County's technology plan last fall, I heard a lot of technobabble about citizen engagement and delivery of services. I can't see how these glorified smart phones fit into the plan.
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