There are three days left to file for office, and so far the School Board, Hillsborough Town Board, and Chapel Hill Mayor are all running unopposed! Where are the challengers?
By the way, a geek who is watching the Orange County candidate filings page closely noted that OP reader Katrina Ryan filed for Carrboro Board of Aldermen today!
All of this and more can be gleaned from the new OrangePolitics Elections 2005 page!
This page will be the place to get information about all the races in Orange County. Please share it with your friends. Lots more info will be added as the race progresses. What would you like to see there? What info would you need if you knew nothing about local politics?
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday July 30, 2005
The prospect of a Wal-Mart in northern Chatham County provides an opportunity to reflect on questions of economics, workers rights and the future of our society. Most importantly, it allows us to contemplate our own ethical responsibilities.
Consider the following: Sexist discrimination is business as usual at Fortune's "most admired corporation." In her book "Selling Women Short," Liza Featherstone documents rampant sexism at Wal-Mart, denial of promotion opportunities to women, underpayment of female employees and the prevalence of exclusive, men-only meetings.
Rather than pay a living wage, Wal-Mart encourages its employees to make ends meet via public assistance programs. Along with their paltry paychecks, Wal-Mart employees receive instruction on how to apply for food stamps, state health insurance for the poor and other welfare programs.
A congressional report found that a 200-employee Wal-Mart costs federal taxpayers $420,000 a year, an average of $2,103 per employee.
This weekend, Eric Muller's blog pointed me to a story in the Chapel Hill News about El Centro Latino. I'm not sure whether I should write that El Centro is having trouble again, or that their struggle continues.
There's no doubt their path has been rocky. From my vantage point, it's difficult to tell how much of these problems are from working with a low-resource population on problems that the majority of people may not know exist, and how much of it stems from poor management. It's likely to be at least a little of both. But having worked professionally in the nonprofit sector for over a decade, I have a lot of sympathy for the challenges of a brand-new organization just trying to get on it's feet while the problems it hopes to address are exploding. It's certainly annoying to see people take the time to complain about them instead of volunteering or donating to make the programs better.
Guest Post by James Carnahan
A Concept Plan for Carolina North, the June 29 presentation by the Village project, will be re-broadcast Monday, August 1, 7 to 9pm on local cable channel 18 in Carrboro & Chapel Hill. This concept plan represents a year-long, unfunded effort by the local non-profit walkable community advocacy group to offer an alternative view of how UNC's Horace Williams property might be developed.
Not meant to be definitive, the presentation is primarily intended to answer the question, "what would Carolina North look like if citizen input were incorporated?" and to encourage the University to utilize a facilitated collaborative process to further develop its plans for the new campus. Key differences are a multi-modal transportation approach making possible greatly reduced parking and dependence on the automobile, 4 times the housing proposed in the Ayers/Saint/Gross plan, and a half-mile long reservoir for holding rainfall harvested from rooftops, that doubles as a outdoor recreation space.
James Carnahan is the Chair of The Village Project.
Orange County lost two different creative venues this week. You probably heard about the Carolina Theater in downtown Chapel Hill. Last night was their final showing of films. This great loss means even fewer options for alternative films, fewer cozy venues downtown, possibly less locally-owned businesses, and certainly more control over what we see and hear by large multi-screen theater chains.
Today is also the last day of business at the Main Street storefront of Temple Ball Gallery/De La Luz performance space. Although less people were impacted by De La Luz, the performances and other events they hosted were quite unique and not like anything else you could find in town. For example, there are precious few places where a handful of Tibetan Buddhist monks could set up shop for over a week to painstakingly create a sand mandala, where a struggling 'zine publisher could host their Weird Movie Night, and where some incredible jazz, funk, and rock bands could really tear down the house.
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