May 2013

Today I am very happy to announce that we have a new member joining the OrangePolitics Posse (a.k.a. editorial board)! Travis Crayton has been a regular poster & commenter here on OP for almost 2 years. Travis first became interested in local issues when he served as treasurer and an active volunteer for Lee Storrow's 2011 campaign. Since then, he's become particularly interested in transit, economic development, town-university relations, and all things downtown. He graduates this Sunday from UNC with a degree in political science and public policy.

I think he's going to make an excellent addition the the posse, and he's jumping in by helping to live tweet the Chapel Hill Town Council Worksession tonight on @OrangePolitics!

Please join us at our next editorial meeting on June 2nd to welcome him in person. 

At 7:00 pm on Tuesday night, at the Southern Orange Human Services center at 2501 Homestead Rd in Chapel Hill, the Orange County Comissioners will discuss the Orange County Public Library Draft Strategic Plan for 2013 - 2016.  The draft plan can be found in the Work Session agenda (PDF) on the county website. 

The last time the library was discussed at the BOCC, the county staff suggested that the plan, which is being written up by Dr. Anthony Chow, an assistant professor in the Department of Library Science at UNC-Greensboro, would be critical to informing the site selection of the Southern Branch of the Orange County Library.  The plan begins on page 29 of the PDF after Dr. Chow's Curriculum Vitae.

Appendix A provides a link to a Library Needs Assessment with a completion date of January 2, 2013, which seems to be much more substantive, containing significant amounts of qualitative and quantitative data.

http://orangecountync.gov/library/documents/ocpl_community_needs_analysis_2013.pdf

Tonight is the first of two public information sessions regarding changes to Chapel Hill's advisory board structure. For the past several years, the Town of Chapel Hill has been in the process of reevaluating most of its operations. This includes changes in department organizational policies and procedures, employee compensation and classification, and Council guidelines for more efficient meetings. However, one area of the Town's operations that has not yet been restructured are its advisory boards. There has been a Council committee in place since 2010 (currently comprised of Council Members Gene Pease, Laurin Easthom, and Matt Czajkowski) to evaluate the advisory boards, and last Wednesday Council Member Pease presented their recommendations for board restructuring at a Council work session

With all the talk about restructuring Chapel Hill's advisory boards, I thought it might be good time to publicly share my idea for a new board to help foster better civic engagement and more open government, while also addressing the gap left by firing the technology advisory board 7 years ago. I shared this proposal with the Mayor's Committee on Communications in late 2010, but there didn't seem to be much interest at the time. Maybe now there is an opportunity to do something to make Chapel Hill more participatory and democratic.

Not enough Chapel Hill residents participate in public meetings and advisory boards. This lack of engagement leaves the Town at a disadvantage without the valuable input of a broad range of Chapel Hillians, and also leaves many people feeling frustrated and cut off from decisions that impact their lives and issues that concern them.