Molly De Marco's blog
The Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood Task Force continues its work but has a
new barrier to contend with that may preclude the Orange County Board of
Commissioners from taking action. As reported in this story
by Chapelboro, an EPA complaint filed by the Rogers-Eubanks
Neighborhood Association in 2007 alleges the Orange County Planning and
Inspections Department (OCPID) "intentionally discriminated on the basis
of race by denying water and sewer service to the African American
residents of the Rogers Road Community." The full letter from the EPA to
the OCPID can be read here.
At
the recent task force meeting held on July 17, 2013, Board of Commissioners representatives Renee Price and Penny Rich abstained from several votes on recommendations of what
to include in the task force's final report, citing the EPA complaint.
A full complement of Task Force members was in attendance at today's meeting of the Historic Rogers Road Task Force. The Task Force is nearing it's end and as Alderperson Michelle Johnson notes in her recent post, there is a lot on the line. Most task force members came to the meeting expecting to talk about two options: annexation of the Eubanks-Rogers Road Neighborhood or development of an Extra-territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ). Instead, Orange County Assistant Manager Michael Talbert proposed a third alternative that I'll call the Hybrid 77% Plan (but some at the meeting jokingly called the Talbert Plan).
As Travis notes in his post on the upcoming election for Chapel Hill Town Council, the filing period to run for the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Board of Education also begins on July 5th.
Three incumbents are up for re-election: James Barrett, Michelle Brownstein, and Greg McElveen
James Barrett was elected to a two-year seat in 2011. He intends to run for re-election.
Michelle Brownstein was first elected to the CHCCS Board in 2009. She is currently Board Chair. She also intends to run for re-election.
Greg McElveen
was appointed to fill Pam Hemminger's seat when Pam was elected to the
Orange County Board of County Commissioners in 2008. He was elected to
the seat in 2009. Greg will not be seeking re-election.
This leaves one seat open. There are no known challengers at this point.
Rosemary Street in downtown Chapel Hill has a lot of untapped potential and is already a vibrant intersection for students and permanent residents (including long-time residents of the historically African American Northside neighborhood). The Town of Chapel Hill Economic Development Office and the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership have teamed up to create a new process they are calling 'Rosemary Imagined,' which they are promoting as "an innovative community-led process to
refine our thinking of how Rosemary Street fits into the development and
growth of Downtown Chapel Hill."
As Terri Buckner describes in her commentary in yesterday's Chapel Hill News, we could be seeing the end, as we know it, of our very successful recycling program in Orange County.
Some will say that since the county has already privatized recycling
in the urban areas, this proposed expansion to county residents should
not create any concerns. But if all recycling in Orange County is
privatized, the current system is effectually dead, including all the
outreach and education, the goodwill recycling and composting at public
events like Hog Day, the dedicated staff constantly seeking new markets,
and the service to both school systems that has always been handled by
the county. In other words, we'll be left with the same kind of
recycling program that everyone else in the state has.
In 1997 as
part of the state's required plan, we adopted a goal of 61 percent
waste reduction. We're just a smidgeon away from achieving that goal (59
percent). We've accomplished something amazing, something worth
fighting to protect.
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