Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday May 28, 2005

The leaders of the go-go-growth crowd are true believers. Since they hold fast and firm to a common principle, the ethic of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" holds sway. In truth, it is often the same back.

Thus, when UNC released its Economic Impact Analysis for Carolina North last Wednesday, it was not surprising that the contact provided for "economic impacts on the local community" was Aaron Nelson of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce.

UNC's report was all good news and Nelson's e-mail to chamber members matched it with effusive praise. He characterized Carolina North as "relieving pressure on the housing market." Let's see: 1,400 to 1,800 new homes to accommodate 7,500 new employees. That's about a 6,000 unit deficit, an odd notion of relief.

The festivities downtown will go on this year, but sans alcohol (and beer distributor sponsorship). They are looking for folks to give $500 or more to sponsor the events, perhaps OrangePolitics readers could help out.

Here's an idea: Donate money through the PayPal button below or pledge a donation in the comments. If we get enough, we can list "The Readers of OrangePolitics.org" as a sponsor of the downtown parties!

UPDATE: We now have a fail-safe way to support this project. Folks can make donations of support, but everyone gets their money back if we do not reach our target - $500. Click here to support the summer series!

For the summer event series, the first happening would be on June 15 -- a movie showing of "The Incredibles," at McCorkle Place on the UNC campus.

A few different interesting things from around the news today...

The Chapel Hill News says Eastern Federal Theaters, the owner of the vacant hole in the Elliot Road shopping center, is perfectly content to let it stay that way. Somehow they are blaming the Town for the fact that they had a dispute with the neighbors over who was responsible for the driveways. Since both sides were greedy bastards, they had to come back to the Town Council to resolve the matter last year. And what's the hold up now? Eastern Federal says they won't even start building unless the Town gives them a one-year extension on their permit. One of the things the town will usually look at in making that decision is whether they have actually been working on the project in earnest. Oops.

The Herald reports that the schools are considering starting later one day a month to give teachers more time to plan. Could they possibly think of a solution more disruptive to kids and working parents than this? What are they thinking?