December 2004

Recently the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has been working on rolling out what could be the largest public wireless network in the USA. That momentum was interrupted when Pennsylvania house bill 30, a.k.a. the "Verizon Bill," was introduced to the Pennsylvania legislature in Harrisburg.

Simply, Verizon doesn't want competition from the Wireless Philadelphia Initiative on providing wireless internet access. The key part of Verizon's argument is that the City of Philadelphia would be charging the citizens to construct the wireless network, pay for its long term maintenance, and supposedly for access to the wireless network itself. Verizon claims it would not charge citizens for the CREATION of a wireless network. But it is clear they would have to charge for ACCESS to the network once this future private network was constructed.

Guest Post by Joan Petit

Last year, Carrboro residents wisely voted in favor of a bond referendum for the construction of sidewalks and greenways. Now, however, some Carrboro residents, including my neighbors on Oak Street, are fighting sidewalk installation on their own streets.

If 75% of property owners on any given street formally oppose sidewalks, then the question goes to the Sidewalk Review Committee, who has the final say on whether sidewalks are built.

from: Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday, December 04, 2004

For most of us, it would be hard to say no to $500,000 a year, especially if it promises to be followed by a gift of $12 million. But "no" is just what UNC should say to the Pope Foundation in response to its generous yet tainted offer to fund a Western civilization minor for undergraduates.

Much of the controversy surrounding the proposed donation is over the Pope family's association with the Pope Center for Higher Education, an aggressive critic of those areas of the UNC curriculum that suggest the scope of undergraduate education might be broader than the traditional Western canon.

Guest Post by Paul Jones

Christian Stallberg, who founded the local Computer Professional for Social Responsibility chapter, sends this announcement:

Is Your Vote Counted?
Panel Presentation and Community Speak-Out on the Question of Voter Integrity
Wednesday, December 8, 2004 7-9pm
Chapel Hill Town Hall, 306 North Columbia St.

Introduction by Joyce McCloy, Founder, NC Coalition for Verified Voting

David Price, US Congressman: 4th District

David Allen, Systems Engineer, publisher and tech consultant "Black Box Voting:
Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century"

Justin Moore, Computer Scientist, member National Committee for Voting Integrity

Lewis Pitts, Legal Aid Attorney, Advocates for Children's Services

Moderator, Christian Stalberg, founder, RTP Chapter of Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility

Guest Post by Janeen Gingrich

In response to the November 29th domestic violence homicide of Shennel McKendall, 37, on UNC's campus, the Family Violence Prevention Center of Orange County and Family Violence & Rape Crisis of Chatham County are hosting a vigil tonight at 5:30pm at the Franklin Street Post Office. For further details about the homicide, please see the Raleigh News and Observer articles entitled “Man kills wife, self” from November 30th, 2004 and “Murder-suicide prompts focus on prevention” on December 2nd, 2004.

In light of these events, please join us in sending the message that domestic violence will not be tolerated in our community.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE COMMUNITY VIGIL
Tuesday, December 7, 2004
5:30 p.m. – Rain or Shine
Franklin Street Post Office, Chapel Hill

For additional information, please call (919) 929-3872.

Organized by the Family Violence Prevention Center of Orange County and Family Violence and Rape Crisis of Chatham County

According to the right, liberals love to throw money at things. This is just what Dorothy Verkerk and Edith Wiggins did with the cemetery repair issue last Monday night. There was controversy over how to spend the $150,000 allocated to the repairs, so they came up with the idea of spending another $70,000. And, thanks to Mayor Foy's readiness to bang the gavel, a $40,000 cost savings proposed by Cam Hill was not even discussed.

Here's how Cam Hill described the problem in a letter to Foy:

I had met with Gaines Steer (of the Last Unicorn) and Bill Wyatt (an associated welder) and they had assured me of two things:

#1. That the Di/Phi fences are in no immediate danger of irredeemable deterioration. We need not be in any hurry to restore these fences; we can explore all possible options.
#2. There are lower cost alternatives to the proposed $52,000 restoration proposal.

Guest Post by Terri Buckner

Rickie White, one of OP's founding authors, is moving on to a great new job in Washington, DC. While we will miss Rickie's knowledge of and love for Orange County's environment as well as his progressive views on issues of social justice, we wish him all the best in his new job and his new home. Thanks for everything, Rickie.

Guest Post by Terri Buckner

The recent debates over the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery and, to a lesser extent, the protection of 3 unmarked graves behind Brewer Lane in Carrboro illustrate the importance local residents and elected officials place on historical preservation. Rather than discussing the protection of a particular building or site, let's explore historic preservation in more detail and see if we can't come up with some recommendations of our own to provide local officials.

Two members of the Hillsborough Town Board are accused of communicating via their PDAs during a meeting. It's unlikely they really did unless they have really fancy PDAs (most of them don't communicate with the outside world independently). But what are the implications of the open meetings law when you have open wireless networks in both Chapel Hill and Carrboro Town Halls?

If a member of the Board or Council posts something to a website or sends an e-mail during a meeting, would that be a violation? What if one of their colleagues also visited that public website during the meeting? What if a constituent sends an e-mail to their repsentative lobbying them on a issue they are voting on during the meeting?

Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday, December 18, 2004

Two weeks ago, the International Worker Justice Campaign and UE-150, the N.C. Public Service Workers Union, sponsored a public hearing on the need for collective bargaining rights for public sector employees. The testimony at that event, from numerous university and Chapel Hill employees, was unsettling to say the least.

It has been pretty well established that certain blue collar job categories both at UNC and with the town have historically had a disproportionate number of African-American workers. These workers have suffered under difficult working conditions, poor pay, discriminatory promotion policies and grievance procedures that are often stacked against them.

Those were some of the topics discussed by workers at the recent hearing. Particularly harrowing were the descriptions of the effect of some of the chemicals that cleaning crews are required to use at the hospital. Exposure to these chemicals has caused respiratory problems, nosebleeds and other health problems. Some workers were coughing up blood.