Democracy & Open Government

Over the two years, Chapel Hill has gone through an extensive process to restructure our advisory boards and commissions. The main focus of this work has been to simplify the development review process, and has led to the creation of four major boards that will review development proposals (Planning Commission, Transportation and Connectivity Advisory Board, Environmental Stewardship Advisory Board, and Housing Advisory Board). The town will be making appointments to these four boards this spring, and we need community members to step up and serve to help move our community forward. The town also has a number of vacancies on existing boards that may be filled this spring.

This piece originally ran in the Daily Tar Heel as a guest editorial on April 1st.  

I believe everyone should vote, and I believe voting should be easy and convenient. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the recent direction that we are going in North Carolina. Last year, the N.C. General Assembly severely restricted the ability of residents to vote. It cut the number of days of early voting, limited the ability of out-of-state students to cast ballots and did away with one-stop registration during early voting.