If you weren't paying attention at the end of the Chapel Hill Town Council meeting tonight, you might have missed some pretty shocking information. The controversial bus ad policy, the one that allowed the now-famous "end military aid to Israel" ads, was in fact not the policy adopted by Council just last year!
Here is a memo from Transit Director Steve Spade to Roger Stancil detailing the error:
When Transit needed a copy of the policy, I went to the June 13th meeting and used the policy that was included in the packet of materials rather than the policy provided in the supplemental materials that was approved by Council. As a result we have been using the draft policy rather than the one approved by the Council. In reviewing our communication since June 2011, we have consistently applied the draft policy rather than the one approved by the Council.
There were several edits in the policy approved by the Council, most significantly were the addition of two items in section 2.01 that excluded religious and political and social issue advertising.
Just wanted to share Valerie Foushee's new video on public service. It's a powerful look at how, growing up in Orange County, her parents instilled in the values of education and listening.
If you like the video, I hope you'll share it with friends and neighbors. Valerie has been a great representative for Orange County and I'm looking forward to what she does in Raleigh.
Chapel Hill Magazine's The Weekly had a nice scoop this afternoon. "The WEEKLY has learned that George Cianciolo will make himself a candidate to fill @pennyrich's council seat after she moves to BOCC."They also noted that Jon Dehart will seek the appointment as well. Should be interseting to see their article next week, particularly if they have other names of folks planning to run. Also worth noting that if Penny was replaced by George or Jon, who'd both make good councilmen, that would leave only 2 women (22% of council/mayor) representing 53% of Chapel Hill...
A little over a year ago I attended a public meeting in the basement of the Chapel Hill Library. To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t been to many public meetings and I hadn’t the slightest idea what the Comprehensive plan was or what in the world these folks were initiating. It ended up being the start of a very interesting year.
After all, I was attending that meeting solely to report back information to then recent UNC graduate Lee Storrow.
During that spring, Lee had been appointed to the initiating committee and also decided to run for Chapel Hill Town Council. While the former was public, the latter was still mostly under wraps – most people in town had no idea who Lee Storrow was. Due to an unfortunate scheduling coincidence, Lee was unable to attend every meeting.
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