Carolina North

I have been so incredibly upset since I heard about the Chapel Hill Town Council's swift decision to retire the Technology Advisory Board and the Horace Williams Citizens Committee last week, that I couldn't even write about it. I have been waiting to cool down, but the more I think and the more people I talk to about it, the madder I get.

So I will let Jason Baker do the talking for me (from his blog):

Last week, the Chapel Hill Town Council opted to end the service of both the Horace Williams citizens' committee and the technology committee.

Doing so was a mistake. With her sole dissenting vote, apparently only former citizens' committee member Laurin Easthom saw the value of the hard work and diversity of perspectives those folks would bring to the town in the years to come.

As a town, we're far behind where we ought to be in the technology realm, and disbanding our technology committee without a thoughtful replacement is only going to put us farther back.

Here's an update that I just got from the town on the Leadership Advisory Committee's first meeting this Thursday. Contrary to what you may have read in the paper, I am not a member of this committee. And now that it's going to be broadcast live, I don't even have to drive down to The Friday Center to stay in the loop.

I don't do this often, but here's UNC's press release in it's entirety:

New Carolina North Leadership Advisory Committee to meet March 2

CHAPEL HILL – A new Leadership Advisory Committee for Carolina North will meet for the first time Thursday (March 2) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The meeting will be held at 5 p.m. in the Redbud Room – a change from the previously announced Dogwood Room – of the William and Ida Friday Continuing Education Center.

Why are the University's community relations people so tight-lipped about their new Carolina North committee? The town's Horace Williams Citizens Committee (HWCC) first learned about it in the paper in October. But at our last several meetings we have asked our University representative, Linda Convissor (UNC Director of Local Relations) for any news and she had none. When I ran into Jonathan Howes (UNC Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Local Affairs) he asked me why we keep hounding Linda for information.

Perhaps it's because we can't collaborate with a partner that doesn't share critical information? It's also because "UNC news" is a standing item on the HWCC's agenda, and we can't do much of anything without it.

The chairman of a new "leadership advisory committee" being set up by UNC to get input on Carolina North planning will be Kenneth Broun, a former mayor of Chapel Hill and former dean of the UNC School of Law.