I keep hearing that there will be engagement with the entire community about UNC's Master Plan, but the public hasn't been invited to any accessible (ie: off-campus) meetings about it. The the last two "community workshops" (November 2004 and May 2005) were held in the middle of central campus (and were not well-attended in the previous round).

I would think UNC would use a space either near downtown or near parking if they actually wanted the community to attend. Or as I suggested last May, enable feedback by giving the community more than one meeting to look at, process, and give feedback on the plan:

This just in from OWASA:

The Cane Creek Reservoir and University Lake are 68 percent full despite dry weather in recent months. As of Monday morning, the water stored in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community's two reservoirs totaled 2.3 billion gallons, and water use in the last week has averaged about 10.3 million gallons per day.

Although the dry weather in recent months has affected some reservoirs in the region more significantly, OWASA's lake levels are about normal for this time of year. University Lake and the Cane Creek Reservoir have more than twice as much water as they did at this time in 2002 during the area's worst drought on record.

OWASA officials do not foresee a need for additional mandatory water use restrictions this fall or winter, but additional conservation measures could be necessary if the lakes do not refill by spring. (Since operation of the Cane Creek Reservoir began in 1989, the only year when both lakes were not full by early spring was in the severe drought of 2002.)

John Herrera made two interesting comments in his interview in today's Herald:

We need to ask ourselves, who value diversity, why is it that single moms are not on the board? Or people of color. It is so hard to recruit them. They don't have the time, the money, the what it takes sometimes to run a campaign.

Something I have been pushing for but it got shut down, is reducing the amount of meetings. Bigger municipalities... don't meet every Tuesday.

We all know there are obstacles along the lines John describes. Most of them would be difficult for local government to overcome. It would be great for the town to provide a childcare fund which might cost up to $2000/year for a single parent (that's on top of the alderman pay which I think is around $5000) and much less for parents with partners or joint custody - an idea worth exploring.