Orange County
Orange County is holding public meetings to discuss options for new, expanded and existing bus services outlined in the Orange County Bus and Rail Investment Plan. Bus routes to be brought for public input will include rural service routes, regional service routes, and the Hillsborough Circulator. The purpose of the outreach is to obtain information regarding community bus service needs and assist in the design of future services.
As the meetings will be conducted primarily in an “open house” format, feel free to come when you can. A presentation may be given a couple of times during the course of the evening to best accommodate attendees.
Date:
Monday, August 5, 2013 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm
Location:
Fairview Community Policing Center, Fairview Park, 501 Rainey Avenue, Hillsborough
Last week, Chapelboro's Elizabeth Friend took a look into how Orange County agencies are (not) enforcing the countywide smoking ban (PDF) enacted by the Orange County Board of Health last October. I think this piece raises a few concerns worth discussion. For context, the ban officially took effect on January 1, 2013, but enforcement measures were not scheduled to begin until a few weeks ago on July 1.
I was happy to see the county enact a smoking ban back in October. This policy decision to promote better public health for all of Orange County's citizens is one that should be applauded -- I just wish the enforcement efforts were worthy of applause, too.
Just one more thing, I know, but this hits close to home for me from my past Justice United work and the great cooperation we received from governments in OC.
PROHIBIT CERTAIN CONTRACT REQUIREMENTS BY LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
SECTION 5.(a) G.S. 153A‑449 reads as rewritten:
"§ 153A‑449. Contracts with private entities.
A county may contract with and appropriate money to any person, association, or corporation, in order to carry out any public purpose that the county is authorized by law to engage in. A county may not require a private contractor under this section to abide by any restriction that the county could not impose on all employers in the county, such as paying minimum wage or providing paid sick leave to its employees, as a condition of bidding on a contract."
SECTION 5.(b) G.S. 160A‑20.1 reads as rewritten:
"§ 160A‑20.1. Contracts with private entities.
We've had several discussions lately about what some of us would like to see from county government in terms of communications and information technology. Perhaps the county naming a new Chief Information Officer will be an opportunity for a new focus in the county on open data, open standards, and information access. What do you think? The first item on my wishlist (half jokingly) would be to have him work with Public Affairs to find a better solution than using Microsoft Office to format emailed press releases. Why? Because Microsoft's use of proprietary stylesheets makes the formatting of documents break when text is copied into other programs, unless I go through and manually edit the code.
I know the folks in county government are hard working people with a lot on their plate, so I hope any suggestion is given (and received, too) as well-meaning constructive feedback. From an Orange County press release:
As you might have noticed about a month ago on June 3, Orange County (finally!) joined Twitter and Facebook in an attempt to enhance their social media presence and public engagement/outreach.
I say in an attempt because if you've been following the County's Twitter or Facebook, you've probably realized just how awful the tweets and updates from the County have been.
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