And the Applicants Are

It was mostly a joke.  I mean, we have a guy that resigns under suspicious circumstances and then another guy applies to replace him and lists on his resume that he held an internship named after the guy that resigned under suspicious circumstances?  It's a joke that practically writes itself.  Anyone that read Jason Baker's resume and saw the Bill Strom Internship mentioned must have noted the irony in his/her mind.  Although I think that the Bill Strom situation is bad and the paucity of negative reaction to it on here is worse, if it wasn't for the obvious setup provided by Jason Baker's resume I never would have said anything.  And as far as Bill Strom having "served" for eight years, I think people are distorting the meaning of the word "serve."  I know that people in political office are often called "public servants" but they're not servants.  Instead, they are people we elect to exercise power.  Exercise power.  They're not volunteering to go around picking up garbage in their free time, rather they are competing (hard) with many others to be the one selected that gets to exercise formal political power.  If all the candidates for CH/C public office dropped dead tonight a whole bunch of volunteers to take their place would crop up tomorrow.  It's not like if the people that run for office in CH/C didn't run then the job the do wouldn't get done.  It would still get done but it would get done differently.  The reason people run for office is that they want the job in the way they want it done.  That's what the whole election is about.  How do you want the job done?  One candidate says X and another says Y.  Which do you prefer? Candidates compete...compete...to get into office.  And then once they're in office they have the advantage of incumbency and name recognition and they usually use that to retain their position.  Bill Strom went even a step beyond that.  He didn't just use his incumbency to get himself re-elected, as most politicians do.  He also used his incumbency to try to determine who should select his replacement after he resigned midterm.  And of course, that advantage is perpetuated since whoever replaces him midterm will have the advantage of incumbency when the next election comes. 

And unless you can tell me that you've spent 8 years in public service to this community, as Bill Strom has, then your attempts at character denigration show a total lack of class.

You know my name so you can use a telephone book to verify I live in CH.  I think I live one street over from Joe Capowski.  (I mean, I know where I live, but I think he lives one street over from me.)  Back when I walked up and down Purefoy Rd to and from school each day I met Sammy Slade when he showed a movie in his yard.  And I think I once e-mailed Jason Baker regarding a column he wrote in the DTH, although I could be mistaken on that.  But both of those things were before I was ever on this board and I don't know either of those people (and I didn't even recognize Sammy Slade's recent picture for his run for office in Carrboro).  So those are the only two people on this board that I've ever had any kind of contact with AFAIK.  And I've never had any contact with any local politicians.  Other than the time I saw Joe Herzenberg trying to register voters at He's Not Here I've never even seen a local politician in person until I went to the mayoral debate on campus last week.  In fact, even though I've lived in CH for 19 years, I've never even voted in an election for TC or mayor.  But three years ago I bought a house for the first time.  It's funny what having to pay $4,789 in a year just to own a 1,050 square foot condominium and $155 more in a year just to own an eight year old Honda Accord can do.

A local governing board could go on and on without making a decision, you say . . . there might be some precedent for that.  I don't know.  ;)