Ruby Sinreich's blog

Here is a commentary I contributed to WCHL last week (it ran last Friday, but I can't find links to their recordings anymore). It was a little too long so the bit in gray was not on the air.

Much has been said about the abrupt departure of Bill Strom from the Chapel Hill Town Council. Whatever frustrations we may have had with him, at least we can take comfort in the fact that Strom will no longer have any influence on Orange County politics.

As they have done with all other mid-term vacancies in recent history, the Town Council will appoint a replacement to finish Strom's term. The Town Council also has a long-standing tradition of using the appointment process to ensure that there is at least one African-American sitting at the table.

I was a little worried that the polling in Chapel Hill would screw up the annual Pundit of the Year contest, but since PPP Polls had Penny in 6th and she actually came in 1st, I think we can safely say that pundits had to rely on their own intuition. No-one (not even Penny) predicted Penny would come first in Chapel Hill so no contestants won on the order.

The following people did predict the winners correctly in all of the races though, and most of them put their entries in before Tom Jensen announced the PPP figures anyway: Jason Baker, Penny Rich, Mark Chilton, Erin Crouse, and Greg Bell!  Each of them will get a gift certificate for OP's Zazzle print-on-demand store.

In averaged results, the contestants as a whole picked the winners in every race except for School Board.  However, we got the order wrong on the Chapel Hill Town Council and Carrboro Board of Aldermen due to the success of challengers Penny Rich and Sammy Slade.  Read on for aggregated predictions...

I'm not sure whether I'll be awake to kick this off when the polls open at 6:30 am (although it's all too likely with an infant in the house) so I'm starting it early.  What's going on out there, how are you feeling, what are you doing today?

And aren't you glad it's almost over!