Ran into Bob Avery, the Town's IT Director, on Franklin St. today. Turns out he's surveying Downtown with an eye towards deploying a small pilot program of free Internet hot spots in the near future. The pilot would use Clearwire as the high-speed wireless backhaul. The only resources needed are power and location.
I cautioned Bob not to limit his planning to publicly owned infrastructure like the old Townhall. Over the last four years I've spoken with more than a few Downtown business and building owners willing to provide a small chunk of space and the minimal juice for access point deployments. BrianR and I have explored using solar-powered, weather-hardened rigs, strategically meshed to cover a wide area. If the Town used this environmentally sound and quite economical approach, the only remaining requirement is a decent position to throw signal.
Randee Haven-O'Donnell and I have a guest column in today's Chapel Hill News on Carrboro's efforts to actualize sustainability through locally-based economic development. Our approach is based largely on the thinking of Michael Shuman, author of "The Small-Mart Revolution," who served as a resource during the Board of Aldermen retreat back in January.
To read the column, go here. You can also read and comment on the N&O's OrangeChat.
Let me add to what is in the column that many of the ideas are not new to our area. Some of our most heralded economic success stories -- Weaver Street Market, Carrboro's Revolving Loan Fund, the Farmer's Market, Piedmont Biofuels -- are along the lines of the local living economy model. The recent Culture Shock initiative is also very much along these lines.
Fiona Morgan has an article in last week's Independent Weekly about the much-discussed rumor that The Herald-Sun is considering ending publication of The Chapel Hill Herald as a separate paper.
Herald-Sun Editor Robert Ashley confirms that the paper is considering such a move, but he said that news of The Chapel Hill Herald's demise is "premature."
- Independent Weekly: News: Orange: Herald-Sun owners weighing fate of The Chapel Hill Herald, 5/2/07
Fiona always does a good job covering media ownership issues, which is why I was surprised that she didn't mention the Carrboro Citizen in her listing of other media that covers southern Orange County. True, it's not daily, but it is the local antidote to mega media chains like Paxton which bought the Herald-Sun in late 2004 and proceeded to slash and burn, firing 80 of 351 employees and making themselves more enemies in this already competitive market.
I've heard some folks call them the David Price Six, which has a nice ring to it. But it's also notable that Representative Price has requested to drop the charges against the six protesters who occupied his office in an effort to get him to more vigorously oppose the war.
Six local protesters go on trial this afternoon on trespassing charges in connection with an anti-war demonstration in U.S. Rep. David Price's office in February.
On March 26, the six -- Laura Bickford, Ben Carroll, Alisan Fathalizadeh, Sara Joseph, Dante Strobino, Tamara Tal -- pleaded not guilty to the charges. They had called on Price to oppose all further funding for the war and to seek an immediate withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq.
Since then, Price has written a letter to District Attorney Jim Woodall asking him to drop the charges against the six, protester Carroll said in a release.
In this weeks Carrboro Citizen you'll find the Charter of the Town of Carrboro. You may wonder who besides a politician or bureaucrat would enjoy reading this document? Well me for one.
Why? Because within this ancient legalese lies answers to why things happen in Carrboro. Time and time again here on OP people ask why a Town does this or that. Most, but not all, answers to these questions can be found in this document. Barring interpretation and enforcement of-course.
Now I may not sit down and read the whole thing at once. But I will digest this document in small chunks. Plus I'll use it as a reference. Its so much easier to read a big paper folded long ways like a city bus rider than a 8 1/2 x 11 PDF IMHO.
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