Travis Crayton's blog
In case you missed last Thursday's Orange County Democratic Women Forum for candidates for Orange County Register of Deeds and Orange County Board of Commissioners, here's our Storify from the event.
UNC students have launched a petition against the Town of Chapel Hill's housing ordinance prohibiting more than four unrelated people from living in the same house.
The petition is an initiative of outgoing student body president Christy Lambden. The Lambden Administration is circulating the following blurb to students concerning the petition:
As many of you know in the past year many students have been evicted from their homes for violating The Town of Chapel Hill’s Occupancy Ordinance. This Ordinance states that no more that four unrelated persons can co-inhabit the same single-dwelling residence. We in the Executive Branch of Student Government are asking for your support in signing our petition to The Town of Chapel Hill. We ask that you please circulate this to the members of your respective organizations. Stand with Student Government, fight for students and Don’t Shut the Door on Four.
http://bit.ly/M7O4sU
Also, if you have opinions or experiences with the Ordinance, please let us know at:
https://neighborland.com/ideas/chapel-hill-to-hear-people-s-experien.
Signing up is very easy and can be done through your Facebook account!
Thanks for your support,
The Lambden Administration
In the fall, there were reports about students being kicked out of their homes for violating the ordinance. This petition appears to be a response to those actions.
However, not all students are supportive of repealing the ordinance. A cursory glance at the Neighborland page emailed out (and seeing intense discussion on many of my friends' Facebook pages) indicates that this is a multidimensional issue that our community continues to struggle with, students fully included.
Google just announced that it's inviting 34 cities to "explore what it would take to bring them Google Fiber." Carrboro and Chapel Hill are among those 34 cities as a part of the Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area. Other area cities invited as part of the metro area include Cary, Durham, Garner, Morrisville, and Raleigh.
Google Fiber is the next generation of Internet access — Internet that is up to 100 times faster that current basic broadband access.
From Google's official blog:
We aim to provide updates by the end of the year about which cities will be getting Google Fiber. Between now and then, we’ll work closely with each city’s leaders on a joint planning process that will not only map out a Google Fiber network in detail, but also assess what unique local challenges we might face. These are such big jobs that advance planning goes a long way toward helping us stick to schedules and minimize disruption for residents.
We’re going to work on a detailed study of local factors that could affect construction, like topography (e.g., hills, flood zones), housing density and the condition of local infrastructure. Meanwhile, cities will complete a checklist of items that will help them get ready for a project of this scale and speed. For example, they’ll provide us with maps of existing conduit, water, gas and electricity lines so that we can plan where to place fiber. They’ll also help us find ways to access existing infrastructure—like utility poles—so we don’t unnecessarily dig up streets or have to put up a new pole next to an existing one.
You can read more about what could potentially be coming to Carrboro and Chapel Hill at Google Fiber's website.
On Monday night, the UNC Young Democrats hosted one of the first candidate forums for this year’s crop of Student Body President hopefuls.
As is somewhat customary at the Young Democrats forums, one of the questions asked was about local politics here in Chapel Hill. All four candidates responded to that question by saying they supported Chapel Hill Town Councilmember Lee Storrow in 2013.
The problem with that answer is that Storrow wasn’t up for re-election in 2013. Elected in 2011, his term will be up in 2015.
It’s troubling that none of the SBP hopefuls knew that, and also troubling that they didn’t know the names of any of the other seven Town Council members. How can an SBP be an effective advocate for students without a basic understanding of the Town of Chapel Hill’s government?
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