Economy & Downtown
Chapel Hill's downtown has long benefited from its proximity to a captive audience of University students without cars. While downtowns around the country have been failing, ours has survived fairly well. However, we have seen an increase in the number of chain stores locating downtown, and instability in the Downtown Economic Development Corporation. In the near future, we will see new Town-directed development on two major parking lots have a big impact.
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Carrboro's downtown has also done better than many towns of comparable size, thanks largely to the presence of Weaver Street Market and progressive shoppers from the rest of the county. The Board of Aldermen has been addressing the evolution of the downtown, and have established a number of community resources in the downtown area including free wireless Internet access, and a low-power radio station.
I spent about 6 hours downtown yesterday participating in the kick-off of Occupy Chapel Hill/Carrboro (a.k.a. #occupyCHC). It was a great event with well over 100 people participating. I'm sure there would have been way more if not for the football traffic and parking situation.
At at 2:30 we held a very participatory consensus-based meeting called the General Assembly. This is part of the extensive organizational structure including organized working groups and decision-making processes developed at Occupy Wall Street in New York (a month old tomorrow!) and passed along to the massive diaspora of occupations including "over 1,500 cities globally and over
100 US cities." For now General Assemblies are scheduled for 6pm daily at Peace & Justice Plaza, although this could change.
Date:
Saturday, October 15, 2011 - 10:30am
Location:
Peace and Justice Plaza, Franklin St. Post Office, 179 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill
If you're not familiar with the recent or past history of Carr Mill Mall management's anti-Carrboro policies, catch up with us at http://orangepolitics.org/tags/carr-mill. I am so frustrated by the attitude that Carr Mill owes nothing to the community that has made them so successful.
A few days ago ago, Damon and I were looking for
a place to park in downtown Carrboro. We had a question and asked Hector (the security guard), he gave us a short answer and a slip of paper with the following printed on it (verbatim):
A committee to help pass the sales tax referendum has been created with representatives of the Orange County Board of Commissioners, the Chapel Hill Town Council, the Carrboro Board of Alderspersons, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools Board of Education, Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, The Partnership for Children, the Hillsborough/Orange County Chamber of Commerce, the Orange County Schools Board of Education, the Greater Chapel Hill Association of Realtor, and Orange County Justice United.
I am serving on the Campaign for Jobs and Schools committee as a representative from Orange County Justice United. Justice United discussed the referendum at one of it’s full meetings and voted to endorse it. We are supporting the sales tax because funds raised in this way will reduce the exorbitant sewer and water rates for our lower income neighbors in the north of the county and will also reduce the tax burden on county homeowners, while supporting our schools.
And for the second time this year we have an announcement about the County's hire of a new economic development director. Knowing nothing else about him, here's my favorite part so far: "[Steve] Brantley, who has lived in Orange County for the last 25 years..."
Brantley Named Director of Economic Development for Orange County
HILLSBOROUGH, NC – Frank Clifton, Orange County Manager, announced the appointment of Mark Steven (Steve) Brantley as Economic Development Director for Orange County starting September 19, 2011.
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