[At the March 1, 2011, meeting of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, in response to a request from the OWASA Board of Directors to facilitate greater access to water from Jordan Lake, Mayor Mark Chilton made the following remarks. The Editors of OP asked if we could publish his comments here as a blog post, and he agreed. -Ed.] 

What the evidence that was just laid out before you clearly shows is that our community is capable of living with the water supply we have now, that the water supply now is very substantial, is scheduled to grow significantly in 2035, and that water conservation efforts have proved to be more effective than—I think they've really proved to be more effective than anybody would have guessed 10 years ago, than the most wild-eyed optimists would have believed 10 years ago. We've been more successful than that. We have not even exhausted the water conservation and water efficiency technologies and policies and procedures that even possibly could be implemented within our community.

So at this point there’s been much discussion as to what a theme is, who will make up a theme working group, what these working group will do and how they will do it. The town has answered these questions in series of blog on the 2020 Buzz site, but there’s a good deal of information to wade through, so I’ve tried to succinctly summarize them below in a Q&A format:

What is a theme? The town calls the themes the building blocks of the plan. They’re not necessarily value-laden; instead they’re areas that the plan will focus on. Currently there are six themes. You can find a list of the current themes here.

... yours!  The most influential endorsements of all are the opinions of people you know and trust.  This is our annual special-rules post to share YOUR favorites on this year's ballots. Here's OP's 2011 candidate list including links to all of their websites.

The rules: only write who you are voting for (and why, if you like). You can also list the people you would vote for if you lived in their districts. Do not refer (by name or specific description) to any candidates that you are not voting for or publicly supporting. If you do not follow the rules, your comments will be removed. In other words: keep it positive please.

[Note: I published this post and then took it down about a week ago. I got the sense that some folks wanted to wait until after more forums, especially OP's, were concluded to make final recommendation. I hope you're ready to go now!]