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The Obey Creek Compass Committee, a 17-member committee formed by the Chapel Hill Town Council to assist in identifying key issues to be considered in the development of a concept plan for the Obey Creek property, unanimously approved its final report to the Chapel Hill Town Council at its last meeting on Monday.
The report is now available online here (PDF). You can review all of the materials from the committee, as well as videos of all committee meetings, on the town website here.
The report will be received by the Town Council at their January 13th meeting, where the Council will then consider next steps for the development agreement process.
(Full disclosure: I was a member of the Obey Creek Compass Committee.)
The U.S. Census Bureau released updated American Community Survey Data a few days ago, and there's some very noteworthy news out of Carrboro in the latest figures: Carrboro's transit commute mode share is now at 16.7%, the highest in all of North Carolina. Chapel Hill's transit mode share is 10.6%, as Carrboro Alderman Damon Seils helpfully pointed out on Twitter yesterday (see the Storify below).
(For any curious readers, you can access this data for all American cities, along with a host of other fascinating data from the American Community Survey, at the American FactFinder website. The data for commute mode share are in table B08301.)
After reading yet another article about the parking "problem" in downtown Carrboro/Chapel Hill, I thought it'd be worth revisiting solutions to this problem. (Or maybe non-problem, I've never had trouble parking in either town, so I don't really know what people are talking about, unless their definition of parking is parking within a 1/10th mile of the business/restaurant they wish to visit).
With the election of Mayor Lavelle and the re-election of Mayor Kleinschmidt, every news report I hear or read about them includes the terms "openly gay" or "openly lesbian." Having not gone through the experience of keeping key elements of myself private and then navigating the landscape of revealing these to family members, friends, coworkers and the like, I don't have the grounding necessary to comment. Nevertheless, the use of the word "openly" gives me some unease. It seems to suggest that the public still harkens back to some sort of unspoken compact with gay and lesbian polticians that the cost of being elected was silence.
As we in Chapel Hill and Carrboro strive to continue to lead in the progress toward a fairer and more tolerant society, maybe we can move from "openly gay mayor" and "openly lesbian mayor" to just "gay mayor" and "lesbian mayor". Then, who knows, maybe just "mayor."
There will be much talk over the coming days about the true legacy of Mandela. What it is, and what it isn't. And possibly whether or not it has any relevance to democracy and politics in Orange County.
First, Mandela himself, and his immediate legacy. For me, a middle-aged white Brit, of American parents, a former Thatcher groupie, but now more center-left, the lasting legacy of Mandela will be his achievement in creating the space which allowed South Africa to transition to black majority rule without massive bloodshed.
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