June 2008

The N&O is reporting that Liz Parham is resigning as executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Parntership and taking a job as director of the Office of Urban Development for the Division of Community Assistance at the state Department of Commerce .

The resignation is effective July 18.

This Tuesday, June 10, the County Commissioners will hold a work session with the planning board to discuss the proposed comprehensive plan update. Although the plan has been under development since October 2006, the work session will be the first public meeting at which the commissioners will scrutinize the plan. The work session begins at 7:30pm and will be held at the Link Government Services Center, 200 S. Cameron St., Hillsborough.

I feel very strongly that it is important to support our local businesses. I go out of my way to do this because without them we would be forced to shop at larger, less personable chains where our local dollars are shipped out to their corporate headquarters. Once there the money would be spent on national advertising as well as the development of other big-box stores with their sprawling parking lots and filled with the same, foreign made crap that I could buy in their other stores across the country.

By spending my money in my home town I have learned that the local businesses have a different variety of products, and that the owners are competing for my business. So they are happy to make minor accommodations to keep me as a customer. Furthermore, if I want to know where something came from all I have to do is ask the clerk or owner of the business.

UPDATE: UNC is buying University Square and Granville Towers.

Anyone want to guess what this is about?

Representatives from UNC-Chapel Hill and the Town of Chapel Hill will hold a joint news conference at 1 p.m. today to announce details about a major real estate acquisition. The event will be held at the Chapel Hill Town Hall.

The news will have "significant positive implications" for the future of the downtown Chapel Hill business district, UNC officials said this morning.

The following e-mail was forwarded to me by a friend. El Futuro works to help Latinos with mental health issues, it seems like an important program deserving of our support. Please take a moment to contact your favorite commissioner and ask that they restore funding.

Last night, the Orange County commissioners tentatively nixed $60,000 that had been approved by their subcommittee for El Futuro ( http://elfuturo-nc.org if you're not familiar with the organization).

Please please please send the commissioners an email TODAY --their meeting is tonight-- protesting this decision. Based on a conversation one of our board members had with an OC commissioner, there is still a chance to restore at least part of this funding if we can get people to object.

El Futuro is an amazing non-profit organization that serves a population that otherwise would be ignored.

Unless you've been on vacation for the last 10 days or so you should be quite aware of the controversial action of the Chapel Hill Town Council (by a 8-1 vote) granting themselves a health care benefit usually associated with long-term service. I'm sure readers of this site have by now made up their minds as to the appropriateness of this action so I need not concern myself with that. I would hope that readers are also aware that the Council members who voted in favor of this benefit quickly realized that they had erred, if not in substance, at least in process, and quickly reversed their decision. Even before they had voted to reverse their decision they were inundated with voice mails and emails, some apparently quite nasty and distastetful, expressing their displeasure over the Council actions.

Yeah YOU. Did you know that there's an election on Tuesday? That's OK - I forgot too.

A handful of registered Democrats and independents who remember to go to the polls across North Carolina will be selecting the nominee for Commissioner of Labor. But more interestingly (to me, anyway) voters in the newly-created northern district of Orange County will be selecting their first County Commissioner to represent District 2.

Steve Yuhasz and Leo Allison finished the primary with 37% and 27% respectively. Yuhasz' failure to get over 40% qualified Allison to ask for a run-off.

Unfortunately I'm out of town, or I would drive around Hillsborough and parts north this weekend and see what going on. Are people talking about the election? How many people will vote on Tuesday?

The results will come in at: http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NC/Orange/4609/6585/en/summary.html

In Chapel Hill we have a representative form of government that works better than any place I've lived. When I first got here I joined a citizen committee on Technology. I was amazed at how directly involved I could be. But the experience of being on that board also opened my eyes to the many flaws in this process. Yet I still yearn for more citizen input in our Town.

The recent citizen outcry against a Council vote on health care is a excellent example of what happens if you don't have enough community input BEFORE a council vote. This bit from The Chapel Hill News describes the problem well,

I see that the BOCC has decided to rename OPT as The Orange Bus, with resultant web-site and advertising changes as well as painting all their vehicles OP-orange. As a side-note, perhaps OP should think about taking out some advertising on the buses. Commissioner Barry Jacobs was against the idea, according to OrangeChat, calling it "too precious" and saying that he thought OPT was just fine. C'mon Commissioner Jacobs, this is a web 2.0 world! I am totally in favor of OPT becoming The Orange Bus. First off, how many of you knew what OPT was the first time you heard the acronym? How many of you know what OPT actually does? But, The Orange Bus, that's easy to understand and by playing on the county name it becomes catchy.

This does raise a question in my mind though and that is, what changes will be made on the website to make it a better tool for potential customers. As it stands right now, I think most people have no idea what OPT does unless they are already using it. How will the website make this information more accessible? I had the opportunity just this morning to tell a coworker moving to Hillsborough about the Hill-to-Hill route - she had no idea that it existed and was very excited about the possibility of not driving every day. How will The Orange Bus get this information out to the public?