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.
Via e-mail:
Wednesday, July 16
starting at 6:15
Board meetings are held at Community Realty
on the corner of Weaver Street and Greensboro Street
You can find links to the minutes of our last meeting here.
As
an owner of Weaver Street Market you are always welcome to attend
meetings of the Board, and you are also welcome to make your thoughts
known on these and other issues in the open session at the beginning of
the meeting.
Date:
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - 2:15pm
Location:
Community Realty, corner of Weaver & Greensboro Streets, Carrboro
The calendar is counting down the days remaining to register to attend the Inter-City Visit and Leadership Conference, at least in terms of being able to get the cheapest tickets and to be eligible for scholarship funds. Ann Arbor was chosen as this year's destination because of its perceived similarities to Chapel Hill, in both the populace and the problems they face. Are any OP'ers planning on attending this year? For those of you who went to Madison two years ago, do you feel like any real progress is made on these trips, or would community leaders be better off with a staycation?
A few weeks ago I had the privilege of seeing Van Jones speak. He co-founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and is founder and president of Green For All. He spoke convincingly of a future of increased equality and how one of the roads to this future is green jobs. Green-collar jobs are employment in the environmental or agricultural sectors of the economy. [Source: Wikipedia] But they also include any work that will help transform our society into a more environmentally sustainable one.
One way our local government leaders could participate in this national movement is to sign the Green Jobs Pledge. Its goal is to "rebuild American competitiveness and environmental leadership by growing a green economy that fights global warming, pollution and poverty at the same time." Here are the five steps this pledge asks our leaders to agree to:
- Commit to Action
- Create a Green-collar Jobs Taskforce
- Identify Goals and Assess Opportunities
- Create a Local Action Plan
- Evaluate, Leverage and Grow
This is co-op owners' opportunity to hear from current and prospective board members. Voting on the board is open from 10/13/08 to 11/2/08.
Applications to run for a seat on the board are due by 9/7/08. Contact board@weaverstreetmarket.coop for more information.
Date:
Sunday, October 19, 2008 - 1:00pm to 3:00pm
![[hog day]](http://www.hogdays.com/logo%202008.jpg)
As a vegetarian, I don't personally endorse this enthusiastic celebration of eating pig, but it seems like a great community institution.I do appreciate their effort to reduce the amount of waste being generated this year.
Hillsborough Hog Day, now celebrating its 26th Year,
is a fun-filled family barbecue and entertainment festival,
presented by the Hillsborough/Orange
County Chamber of Commerce. Hillsborough Hog Day is
Orange County's largest festival, and a major fundraiser for
the Chamber of Commerce.
In 2008, Hillsborough
Hog Day is going ZERO WASTE! This will be Orange County's
first zero waste, trash free festival. We plan to recycle
everything that can be recycled, including forks, spoons,
food waste - even the music is going to be a mix of old favorites
and new stuff!
- http://www.hogdays.com/about.htm
If you're into that kind of thing, you should check it out!
Date:
Friday, June 20, 2008 - 2:00pm to Saturday, June 21, 2008 - 2:00pm
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