Blogs

The Chapel Hill Town Council decided last night to open the application process to fill the seat recently vacated. Applications are due April 22nd. 

The following information was sent out by the Town:

Applications Accepted for Vacant Council Seat

 

The Chapel Hill Town Council has established the process for filling the vacancy on the Council resulting from the resignation of former Council Member Matt Czajkowski. The Town Charter provides that this vacancy shall be filled by appointment for the remainder of Council Member Czajkowski’s term of office, until December 2015. 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.

[Cross-posted from damonseils.org.]

Today I took a tour of the Durham-Orange light rail transit (LRT) corridor, courtesy of Triangle Transit staff. We started at Triangle Transit headquarters in RTP, picked up a helpful if bulky set of maps and other materials, and made our way to the proposed western terminus of the LRT project in Chapel Hill. I used the event as opportunity to live-tweet the tour for local politics blog OrangePolitics (where this entry is cross-posted).

Below is an archive of my tweets from today's tour.

Do you have questions about the Durham-Orange LRT project? The next couple of public meetings will take place on June 4 (4:00-7:00 pm, Durham Station) and June 6 (2:00-5:00 pm, John Avery Boys & Girls Club). Attend a forum and/or find more information at ourtransitfuture.org.

On April 9, Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools will present an unprecedented living wage policy for full and part-time employees to the Orange County Board of Commissioners.

According to School Board Member James Barrett, the idea for a living wage policy emerged from a cost-savings discussion during the summer of 2014 to move some school janitors from district to contract-based employment. In doing this, the city would save money at the expense of a drop in wage for workers.

The unanimous board-approved wage decrease from about $11.50 to $9.50 an hour infuriated Barrett, who was not present for the vote.

“I raised a fuss about it,” he said. “I didn’t think it was acceptable to give our lowest paid employees a twenty-percent cut while at the same time giving our highest paid employees—our administrators—a three-percent raise.”

Later in September, Orange County Commissioner Mark Dorosin continued the discussion of a living wage for both employees and contractors in a joint meeting between the school board and the Orange County Board of Commissioners.