April 2007
You may remember last fall when I moved about 1/2 a mile north from my old home downtown and suddenly found myself feeling like I was miles away from town. For the thousand or so people like me who live near Umstead Drive, Village Drive, and Estes Drive Extension, the only way to walk downtown involves a 2-mile hike up MLK Boulevard or a cut through the woods around Estes Park Apartments to Pleasant Drive in Carrboro.
Well, the Town of Chapel Hill was two steps ahead of me and was already planning an extension of the Bolin Creek Greenway that would connect Umstead Park and our neighborhood to Northside (which is just across the creek), the future Carolina North campus, and MLK Blvd. Importantly, this extension will also connect my old neighbors in Northside to University Mall (the Greenway's eastern terminus).
This looks interesting:
Hillsborough's people and stories will be showcased in a photo documentary to be presented Friday during the year's first Last Friday.
A sampling of photographs will be exhibited on the sidewalk outside Orange County Courthouse, beginning at 6 p.m. at the downtown arts event. At 7:30 p.m., a narrated slideshow presentation will be given inside the county building at 110 E. King St., where the Economic Development Commission and Board of Elections offices are housed.
The documentary is 14 individual stories documented by undergraduate students in a class called Small Town USA at Duke's Center for Documentary Studies. The students toured the town in January with Mayor Tom Stevens and with Cathleen Turner, executive director of the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough.
- Hillsborough press release
Also in Hillsborough on Friday:
• Stop by the Coldwell Banker office at 114 W. King Street between 6-8pm to learn more about CPR, heart attacks, strokes and have a free blood pressure reading.
Perhaps I missed the announcement, but at some point the public information meetings scheduled for today were moved to Thursday, and they will be held at The Friday Center which I think will be easier to get to than the School of Government was for the last round of meetings. I managed some moderate live blogging of the last meeting, but I'm not even sure if I can make it this time. Someone please go and pick up the slack!
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill invites local residents, faculty, staff and students to participate in a second round of community meetings about Carolina North on April 26.
The meetings will begin at 3:30 p.m. at the William and Ida Friday Continuing Education Center off N.C. 54. The presentation will be repeated at 5:30 p.m. in the same location. Parking will be available at the Friday Center. Chapel Hill Transit service is available via the FCX, S and V routes. See http://www.townofchapelhill.org/index.asp?NID=399 for timetables of these routes.
Just what the Rogers Road neighborhood needs: money? sewer lines? sidewalks? environmental justice? No, it's another committee! I just received an announcement of a new "Historic Rogers Road Community Taskforce" being formed by Orange County. Given that the Commissioners are long overdue in compensating this community for hosting the County's garbage for the last 30 years, and for repeatedly being lied to by elected officials, it's not crazy to have a committee to address this. But...
There is already a Rogers Road Small Area Plan Task Force appointed by the Town of Chapel Hill which is also addressing "the enhancement of the living environment in the historic Rogers Road Community" (and may be tapping the limited volunteer capacity of the neighborhood).
Orange County Seeks Volunteers for the Historic Rogers Road Community Taskforce
Contact: Monica C. Evans,
Orange County Board of Commissioners Office (919) 245-2125
There is a planning meeting being held tonight at 5:30 PM in the Board Room in the Carrboro Town Hall with Ballentine Associates and Northwest Properties to display their plans for "The Shoppes at Jones Ferry".
It might be a good time to ask them if they plan to put solar panels on the roof. See http://www.sunedison.com
A new Harris Teeter and shopping center have been proposed near downtown Carrboro.
Plans for The Shoppes at Jones Ferry at 405-407 Jones Ferry Road are being reviewed by town staff and advisory boards, Carrboro planner James Thomas said.
The town has a Harris Teeter less than a mile away next to Carr Mill Mall.
Applicant Northwest Property Group, based in Skyland, N.C., is negotiating to buy the land from Calvin and Nora Mellott and Mellott Trucking & Supply Co., Thomas said. The submitting of detailed plans and a permit application shows Northwest is serious about building, he said.
This fall, half of the Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough governing bodies will be up for election, as well as all of their Mayors, and half of the Chapel-Hill Carrboro School Board. If you have ever thought about running for elected office or had people tell you you should think about it or want to help other good folks run, now is your chance. Check out the Community Action Network's 'Campaign and Elections Workshop' this Saturday.
When: Saturday, April 28, 2007 10:00 AM - 12 NOON
Where: Chapel Hill Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard
Offices Covered: Carrboro Mayor and Board of Aldermen, Chapel Hill Mayor and Town Council, Orange County Commissioners, School Boards, Hillsborough Mayor and Town Board
Format: Panel of former elected officials and campaign volunteers (questions from the moderator and audience), followed by breakout sessions
Topics: Deciding to run, campaign staffing, scheduling, financing, publicity, election laws, use of technology, etc.
Cost: FREE
Fred Black gave a good description in a recent column:
Important dates and data:
- One-stop voting, October 18 - 1 pm November 3rd
- Election, November 6th , 6:30 am - 7:30 pm
More at http://www.co.orange.nc.us/elect/2007elect.asp
Unlike the rest of OrangePolitics, the information provided on this section of the site is NON-PARTISAN. For opinions and current news, see our blog discussions at http://orangepolitics.org/issue/elections/2007, especially the personal endorsements of OP readers. If your questions are not answered here, please visit the Board of Elections for Orange County or the State of North Carolina.
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One point that caught my attention in last Saturday's meeting to discuss Carrboro's Northern Study Area was the idea of "metro-farming". The current plan includes:
ENCOURAGE “METRO-FARMINGâ€Â: Encourage the conservation of active farmland within new conservation subdivisions and elsewhere in the Study Area, with emphasis on nontraditional crops or uses (high-value vegetables, pick-your-own berries, apples, etc.) and community-supported agriculture (community gardening, wholesale nurseries, commercial stables, etc.). Metro-farming should be promoted by a special committee that would look into ways to make Use Value Assessments more common and frequently applied.
Yet this is an idea which has not yet been realized. With changing patterns of food consumption and agriculture, the availability of arable land available for small scale agriculture will become increasingly important in the future.
Local activist (and former renter of dorm fridges--anyone else remember that?) Erik Ose has a piece today in Salon.com titled, "I saw John Edwards in the shampoo aisle." Maybe some other OP-area readers have had similar encounters, though I have not.
I'm pointing this out because, first of all, it's weird when you see the name of someone you know in the national news when you weren't expecting it (Ose, not Edwards!).
Further, does this have repercussions for our local economy? What if Orange County resident Edwards spent $400 on eight hair cuts at Moshi Moshi? Or on sixteen haircuts at Sid's? Or even more haircuts at the barbershop in Northside?
And now, onto the actual issue here: I have been wondering what local folks think about this issue, of our wealthy neighbor who is also advocating for the poor. Is this a problem? Contradiction? Or none of our friggin business?
(Elizabeth Edwards, if you are reading this... please forgive me!)
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