In 1982, five Orange County women who believed that every child born should be loved and wanted, founded a local chapter of Planned Parenthood. This year, we celebrate 25 years of reaching out, growing strong, and meeting the needs of the community.

We've grown from a small storefront operation that could only dispense education and contraceptives to a powerful organization that helped 18,889 people last year alone.

In addition to our health centers, we have reached countless people through our peer education and through our advocacy for good public policy. During the last legislative session we supported a bill that would provide emergency contraception to victims of sexual assault; one that would repair NC's Sex Ed curriculum, one that would expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program and another that provided information about the HPV vaccine to parents.

Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth (NRG) has again decided against officially endorsing any candidates in this cycle. However, we're very interested in helping citizens to understand the positions of the candidates on issues we care about.

NRG presented all candidates with a short questionnaire, and the candidate responses are posted to our website. We invite all interested citizens to browse the answers at NRG's Chapel Hill Elections 2007 page.

The questions we asked were:

On density and growth

1. In its Comprehensive Plan, Chapel Hill is committed both to denser urban development and to protection of existing neighborhoods. Do you see any conflict between these goals, and what do you feel is the best way to achieve them?

On environmental protection

2. Please describe at least three ways you feel the Town could do a better job protecting creeks and other environmentally sensitive habitats.

On cooperation of local governments

3. What suggestions do you have for better ways for the local governments in the Orange County area to work together?

I just drove across University Lake at Jones Ferry Road. I reckon we have all noticed the grass growing on the bare bottom of the Northe nd of the reservoir, but it looked jsut now like the grass was starting to turn brown . . . Anyway, so the OWASA Board of Directors will be meeting this Thursday at 7:30 PM to consider whether to declare a Stage Two water shortage.

Here's hoping OWASA will proceed to stage two. It looks like we have about 5 and a half months of water left if we keep consuming the way we have been.

Stage Two (2) Water Shortage

. . . Upon OWASA's declaration of a Stage Two Water Shortage, the following actions shall be taken with the goal of reducing overall water demand by fifteen (15) percent:

Water use by individually metered residential customer accounts and by individually metered single-family residential irrigation-only accounts shall be limited to no more than an average of 800 gallons per day during any monthly billing cycle beginning after the declaration of a Water Supply Shortage or Water Supply Emergency and ending while such restrictions are still in effect.