February 2007
As published in the Chapel Hill Herald on Saturday, February 17th:
Last Monday night's Town Council agenda pretty much summed up the amazing number of growth issues happening now in Chapel Hill. There are three developments on the table this month -- Lot 5 and Greenbridge downtown, the Residences at Chapel Hill North in the northwestern part of town, and East 54 on, well, East 54. There are also the issues caused by the large number of proposed developments -- re-evaluations of the comprehensive plan and tree protection ordinance, and a neighborhood conservation district in the Whitehead/Mason Farm area.
When all this stuff is going on, the Town Council and Planning Board (of which I am a member) get a lot of attention, as do the engaged citizens who speak out and make their feelings known.
Who woulda thunk it? I agree 100% with this statement by Fred Black:
Community activist Fred Black ... said many people who complain about panhandlers really are talking about something else: "being different in Chapel Hill."
"We have a perception issue," Black said. "We're talking about the perception of threats in downtown Chapel Hill. People use the verb panhandle as a convenient label for what they don't look like."
- chapelhillnews.com | Foy: 'I want people to vent', 2/21/07
I really hope this doesn't spark yet another tirade against the poor people who are forced to live on the streets due to misfortune, mental illness, and lack of community support. Instead of panhandling, let's talk about poverty in Chapel Hill and what we are doing about that!
Tonight the Chapel Hill Town Council has on its agenda a petition from the Orange County Bill of Rights Defense Committee proposing A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A POLICY ON ARREST FOR CIVIL IMMIGRATION VIOLATION and A RESOLUTION TO REDRESS SOME OF THE HARM CAUSED BY THE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT OF SIMA FALLAHI. See the pdf of the resolutions and full text bellow the fold. Tonights full agenda is located here. Learn more about what happened to Sima in the OP posts Free Sima and Sima Update.
(Text is subject to change)
A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A POLICY ON ARREST FOR CIVIL IMMIGRATION VIOLATION AGENDA #3a(3)
A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A POLICY THAT THE CHAPEL HILL POLICE DEPARTMENT WILL NOT SEEK TO ARREST PERSONS WHEN THE SOLE BASIS FOR ARRESTING SUCH PERSONS IS THAT SUCH PERSONS HAVE OR MAY HAVE COMMITTED A CIVIL IMMIGRATION VIOLATION
This is an issue I've been wanting to write about for a while, but it's been hard to start. I have been a supporter of the Rogers Road neighbors for 10-15 years. It may have been as far back as my college days, when I wrote my senior thesis on environmental racism, that I first met Rev. Robert Campbell and learned about the repeated violations of the local governments' promise to the residents of this historic African-American neighborhood.
As was thoroughly documented in a recent Chapel Hill News editorial by Aarne Veslind, our current landfill on Eubanks Road was built in 1972 with assurances to the neighbors that it would only operate for a fixed period of time and that no additional waste management facilities would be located in the neighborhood. Guess what happened?
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