Dan Coleman's blog

Carrboro has launched a new online system to help residents interact with town government. The Carrboro Action Line is oriented toward facilitating communication with town staff on a wide range of informational and action items.

There is an article on the project in today's Herald.

We discussed improving the friendliness of the town web site at the board retreat last February. This strikes me as a big step forward, entirely from staff initiative and at a fairly low cost.

I'll be interested to learn of the experience of users of the system (as, I'm sure, will town staff who just rolled out the program). In particularly, you web savvy folks who've been riding Chapel Hill's case on technology, let us know what you think of this step for Carrboro.

Many have expressed concern about a recent action by Carr Mill Mall to ban dancing by free-form dancer Bruce Thomas (even the CH Herald today opined "Let the dancing guy keep on dancing.").

Thomas has been enlivening the Carr Mill lawn for the last few years with his spontaneous, gracefully spiritual dancing. Other times, Bruce can be seen sitting in quiet meditation on one of the nearby benches. And, yes, he is a regular customer of Weaver Street Market.

The ban apparently results from a Carr Mill policy that states that only mall tenants and those attending their events can use the lawn space (thus, Bruce may dance during a WSM event but not otherwise).

Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday December 17, 2005

The second biggest item of national news coming from UNC this year was the return of John Edwards to direct the Law School's Program on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. Edwards is also a new resident of Orange County, one whom I hoped might offer some insight into our local efforts to address the problems of poverty. This past week I had a conversation with him on that question.

A significant issue for us over the years has revolved around efforts to site facilities to serve the poor. Edwards believes it is possible for neighborhoods and communities to become more welcoming.

"It's similar to the way I talk about this in general," he said. "[Helping] people who are struggling in poverty, it's not something we do for them, it's something we do for us. It's not them and us, it's all of us, people who are struggling want to be part of our community and we want to give them a chance to do better."