Jason Baker's blog

It’s about to get a lot harder to vote in Orange County, at least for some of us.

The Republican majority in the General Assembly clearly feels that the racist, anti-woman, anti-urban, and very anti-liberal redistricting which took place last year didn’t do enough to solidify their entrenched majority. Now they’re hard at work systematically disenfranchising people who are unlikely to vote for them. Stringent voter identification requirements, shortened early voting, and other impediments to voting have been proposed in the General Assembly and are all likely to pass.

But of particular note to us in Orange County is the aptly-numbered Senate Bill 666. The most significant change in SB 666 isn’t in chapter 163 which governs elections; rather, it’s a change to the tax code:

Or more to the point, put a night or two a month where your mouth is.  Spring is coming, and spring means many things: bird starting to return, daffodils and hellebores popping up in bloom, Bradford pears soon to be unleashing their terrible stench upon anywhere unlucky enough to have planted them.  But spring is also the time when, at least in Chapel Hill, most of the appointments are made to advisory boards and commissions.  According to the town's current vacancies page, there are almost 20 seats on various boards that are currently sitting empty.  But on top of that, since most board terms are three years long, about a third of current board members will be coming up for reappointment. While terms officially end June 30, most appointments are made in the Spring - last year, most of them in April or May. So, right now is a great time to get your application in.