At a recent council meeting the Chapel Hill IT Director presented information about a WiFi pilot project. One council member asked How will citizens know where it is? How will we know when its up? The Mayor asked the IT Director to work with the Town Information Officer. A good first step. I subscribe to the Chapel Hill eNews. (A email list.) I wonder what percentage of Chapel Hillians do?
For this pilot project to work not only do the WiFi hot spots need to be where people will be but the Town needs to tell people where they are. A press release will help but it won't be enough to encourage full participation.
Here are a few ideas for getting the word out. I hope that if the Town is really interested in the success of this pilot that they'll consider these options. What ideas do you have? Please leave them in the comments.
Many members of the Chapel Hill community have been working for years to increase voting awareness and participation among students. All that effort might be for naught if the Orange County Board of Elections decides to move the one-stop early voting site to the new Robert and Pearl Seymour Senior Center on Homestead Road. According to the News & Observer, Morehead Planetarium will be under construction and will not be able to host the voting site.
The news of the potential relocation of the voting site to the Senior Center, a location that is not within walking distance for students, is especially disheartening after the recent passage of the same-day voter registration bill, which many believe will help increase voter turnout among students. If we want to encourage students to take an interest or an active role in their community, we should not relocate polls to a center that is out of reach for most students.
A few months ago, Chapel Hill invited volunteers to appear in a student-produced video aimed at recruiting more participants for town boards and commissions. Here is the result:
Click here to play if you do not see a video above.
Next month I'll be sharing housing in Chapel Hill with a few other low-income folks. The place is nice and recent energy bills have been fairly low. But the place is fairly old, and there is at least one major problem--a very hot attic--so I'd be interested in getting an energy audit if we could afford it. Pointers to providers would be appreciated. Apologies if this is a FAQ, but casual googling and a look at the OC extension service website found nothing. (And apologies if you find this OT, but I disagree: while the personal is not always political, these days personal energy use is very political. But feel free to point to other venues.)
Update: This meeting is not open to the public. Apologies for the error.
This afternoon, UNC is hosting an informational meeting about Carolina Commons at 3:30 pm. This is a development on Homestead Road with a number of housing units for UNC faculty. This proposed development will go through Carrboro's review process. I urge anyone interested in the Carolina North development to attend.
Carolina Commons is an attempt to provide housing close to the University so faculty won't have to drive so far. I'm encouraged that they're at least starting to address the widespread concern about future traffic and congestion problems. It's only a start though - there will be lots of University staff and workers at CN that won't live in this new development.
Meeting location – the Global Cup Cafe in the new Fed Ex Global Education Center. The Center is located on the corner of Pittsboro and McCauley St. in Chapel Hill. It is next door to the School of Social Work and behind the Pharmacy School. Directions below.
Chancellor James Moeser described some of UNC's vision in a Sept 2005 posting on UNC's Community pages:
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