July 2016
I am copying here my letter to the OWASA Board of Directors regarding the proposal that they host the Mountains to Sea Trail (MST) on OWASA property along the West side of the Cane Creek Reservoir. The short answer is that I think they should agree to host it and I expect them to arrive at this same conclusion. The real debate will revolve around what conditions they include with their agreement.
Note that OWASA's approval of hosting MST would not be an endorsement of any proposed trail route. Their agreeing to host the trail does not guarantee that a route along the Cane Creek Reservoir can be worked out. It simply would be an acceptance of the idea of the MST in general, and help set guidelines that other landowners nearby can follow if they would also like to host the trail (full disclosure - I have offered to host nearly a mile of MST on property in the area. While I am a proponent of the trail, I am also a proponent of folks being good neighbors and will not support any trail route that negatively impacts folks living nearby).
The Carrboro Police Department will be running our next Citizen's Police Academy on September 10th, 2016 at the Carrboro Police Department. I'll be the lead instructor during the academy and numerous other officers will be on hand to assist with different blocks of instruction. The basic format for the Citizen's Police Academy is listed below:
- Classroom lecture on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, law enforcement operations & procedures and vital department statistics.
- Hands-on activities including fingerprint lifting, K-9 demonstrations, vehicle demonstrations, etc.
- Scenarios involving roleplayers where participants will get to act as police officers and respond to calls for services based on real calls we've responded to.
Lunch will be provided as part of the Academy.
The June 29, 2016, "Off the Rails" INDY Week piece by David Hudnall, which discusses the Durham-Orange light rail transit project (DOLRT) is a poorly researched opinion piece that does a tremendous disservice to INDY Week readers, residents of Durham and Chapel Hill, and—most importantly—current public transit riders in Durham and Orange counties who stand to benefit greatly from a significantly enhanced bus and rail transit network with DOLRT at its core.
Town of Chapel Hill Launches Open Data Platform
On Tuesday, July 5, finding data will get easier with the Town of Chapel Hill’s new information service, Chapel Hill Open Data.
Post Date: 07/05/2016 10:57 AM
Where are all of the traffic signals in Chapel Hill? How many bicycle crashes are reported annually in our town? How many police searches were there last year? On Tuesday, July 5, finding this and other data will get easier with the Town of Chapel Hill’s new information service, Chapel Hill Open Data.
With this web-based service, anyone in the community or around the world can access an ever-growing catalog of data sets from Town departments and divisions at www.chapelhillopendata.org. Users can easily create graphs, charts, and maps based on the data sets, as well as download data, interact with it, and reuse it. The site’s goal is to increase government transparency by facilitating public access to local government information.
We’ve heard that House Bill 2 has already had a detrimental effect throughout North Carolina, from PayPal deciding against developing more jobs here to Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Starr, and Cirque du Soleil cancelling their shows. We have not been immune here in Orange County:
Human Rights Impacts
The Chapel Hill and Carrboro downtowns are vibrant spaces where you can find good food, great music, art, lectures, run into friends and jump on a Chapel Hill Transit bus for free. Some residents have started sharing what they love about our downtowns over on Twitter with the hashtag #loveourdowntowns. Here's a collection of what's been shared so far. Join in on Twitter or share your thoughts on this thread. We'll post another set soon
A common complaint in Chapel Hill is that homeowners bear too great a tax burden because the town lacks a significant commercial tax base to offset it. The town’s onerous development process limits the amount of commercial space that can be built while also limiting the construction of new, different, and denser housing that is affordable to a wider range of people. At the same time, through the Neighborhood Conservation District (NCD) process, the town further restricts the availability of some areas for redevelopment, effectively freezing large areas of Chapel Hill in time. Removing these areas from potential redevelopment results in even less land for the creation of new mixed use and less single-family detached suburban type development to shift the tax burden. If our town is serious about supporting affordability, NCDs are counterproductive, “protecting” large swaths of the town that cannot be developed into denser urban environments.
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