Dan Coleman's blog
are the topic of tonight's Sierra Club forum:
Chatham County Growth Issues
Prospects and Possible Solutions
Wednesday, March 9th, 7:30 p.m
Chapel Hill Town Hall, 306 North Columbia Street
Loyse Hurley, president of Chatham Citizens for Effective Communities, Jeffrey Starkweather, president of Chatham Coalition and Mike Cross and Patrick Barnes, two newly-elected Chatham County commissioners who were endorsed by the Sierra Club, are the presenters.
The meeting will be televised on public access.
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday, March 05, 2005
On Feb. 16, 141 nations celebrated the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, an unprecedented global response to the greatest crisis facing the world -- global warming. In one respect, Kyoto represents the culmination of a process that spanned the last century as nations worked to build the capacity to cooperate in the face of global challenges.
Unfortunately, the celebration of this historic moment is sadly diminished for Americans. Alone among the world's great powers, the United States steadfastly refuses to participate.
Reading the various reports and analyses of what one commentator called America's "monumental shame," it struck me that this was a time for local government to truly step into the breach. Symbolic measures, like our towns' occasional protests of national policy, would not be sufficient. Action was needed, the only question being what form that action should take.
at Monday night's Town Council meeting if that's what it takes to demonstrate Chapel Hill's commitment to gay and lesbian rights.
My intro is glib but the issue is serious, especially in the aftermath of the recent attack on a gay UNC student. The Herald reports today that "A Christian activist group plans to bring 200 to 500 people to Monday night's Town Council meeting to protest the council's stance on same-sex marriage." Groups like this live off and in turn breed the intolerance that leads to hate crimes.
As I discussed in my Chapel Hill Herald column of 4/3/2004, there are over 1000 automatic federal protections, benefits, and responsibilities that come with a marriage license, many more at the state level. All Americans, and all North Carolinians, should have an equal right to these privileges and responsibilities.
Here is Equality NC's action alert:
The Independent reports that veteran journalist Mark Schultz will be returning to Orange County:
The N&O has also lured away longtime H-S reporter and current metro editor Mark Schultz, who will be in charge of both the Orange County bureau of the newspaper and its community paper there, The Chapel Hill News.
This can only be good news for the local news. It indicates a serious commitment to our area by the N&O and a willingness to compete with the Herald for coverage and circulation. The competition should keep both papers engaged in Orange County, much to our benefit.
From a reader's perspective, Schultz did a great job when he previously edited the Chapel Hill Herald. He is a fitting replacement for Ted Vaden.
Welcome back, Mark.
Those who hold out the hope that local government can have a progressive impact beyond its immediate and often parochial borders must have been pleased with last night's Town Council meeting.
At Sally Greene's initiative, the Council placed the repeal of GS 95-98 on its legislative agenda. This is the unfortunate law that prevents collective bargaining by public employees.
This is not a case of liberal Chapel Hill taking a stand on its own. While Chapel Hill is the first, UE-150 is taking its campaign statewide and expects other communities to also stand up for the repeal. It make take years to prevail on this issue but a growing NC labor movement may ultimately succeed.
Bill Strom also deserves credit for encouraging UE-150 on this issue. He, along with Greene, was a member of the worker's rights board that took testimony at December 4 hearing on the union's International Worker Justice Campaign.
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