Orange County

I thought for a while about whether to post this, but I think people should know that fear and homophobia are unfortunately alive and well in Orange County. In his e-mail newsletter last week Orange County Commission candidate Mike Nelson wrote:

Apparently, a representative of the Orange County Democratic Party leadership attended a recent precinct meeting and told folks that a vote for me would be a "wasted" vote. His contention, apparently, was that if I win the primary it will make it easier for the Republican candidate to win in November.

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The same arguments this gentleman made---that voting for me would be handing a seat to the Republicans because of the perceived anti-gay vote in Northern Orange--these same arguments used to be made about African-American and women candidates. If people had listened to this kind of doom-and-gloom mess 20-30-40 years ago, we'd never have elected African Americans or women to office around here.

The Sierra Club is kicking off this spring's County Commissioner forum season on Wednesday night from 7-8:30 at Carrboro Town Hall. You can also tune in and watch it on channel 18. We'll try to get it reshown throughout the campaign on the People's Channel as well.

Each candidate will have a two minute introduction and conclusion and there will be about 20 minutes for audience questions (in addition to 40 minutes of prewritten questions submitted by Executive and Political Committee members.) If you'd like to submit one you can do it right here and I'll put it in the stack (they should be strictly focused on environmental issues.)

The forum along with candidate interviews and their prior record on environmental issues will be used to evaluate the candidates for the Sierra Club endorsement, which will be announced in early April.

Hope to see a lot of you out there on Wednesday night!

After much discussion, the County Commissioners have settled on a proposal that we the voters will get to decide on this fall. They suggest leaving the board at 5 members, with 2 elected at-large (as all five are right now), 2 elected from the Chapel Hill "Township" (which includes Carrboro), and 1 elcted from the rest of the county.

The Board of Commissioners tentatively agreed Thursday on an election map that would require three of the five commissioners to live in newly created districts. Although the board is adding this residential requirement, all county residents will vote on all seats in the primaries and general election.

Voters will decide yea or nay on the plan in a referendum in November...