Government

Congrats to the Really Really Free Market for receiving sponsorship from SURGE, which will provide insurance coverage to allow the Marketeers to continue to distribute food along with other items shared for free (really) at the Carrboro Town Commons on the first Saturday of each month.

Last year, the RRFM refused to pay Carrboro's normal fee for reserving the space (until receiving support from an anonymous donor), and then recently refused to stop serving food although doing so presented a potential liability issue for the Town.

This just in from the Town of Hillsborough:

The U.S. Postal Service has misplaced about 5,000 Town of Hillsborough water/sewer bills.

The bills were delivered to the Hillsborough Post Office early last week and should have been received by customers by Aug. 1. Payment is due by Aug. 25.

If the Post Office is unable to find the bills by this Wednesday, the town will reprint the bills as long as the data can be retrieved, Hillsborough Finance Director Greg Siler said.
[...]
If the bills can be reprinted, customers should expect to receive them by early next week. Any customers who do not receive a bill this month should call or come by the Water/Sewer Billing and Collections Office to find out how much is owed. Payments may be mailed or paid at the office.
[...]
If customers receive two bills in August, they should disregard one.

Uh right, like people are going to march on down there and ask to pay the bills they haven't received. Good luck, Hillsborough! If I was you, I'd sue the USPS for the lost revenue. I hope you don't charge late fees for customers who didn't get their bills.

As you may know, last session the State Legislature passed a law which allows cable and phone companies to avoid many of the public service requirements that have existed for over 30 years. Those requirements mainly have to do with channel space and support for Community Media Centers, like Chapel Hill's own The Peoples Channel, and Public, Educational, and Government (PEG) Access channels. The bill has turned out to be a very serious blow to local governments and nonprofits like us. Many of us concerned with the legislation worked together to produce a new piece of legislation that would remedy two major problems with the bill: funding for Community Media Center and PEG channels, and deployment of broadband to rural and economically distressed communities.

The bill, S-1068 moved along quickly in the Senate and is now on the House side, but there is a fear that they won't take it on before the session ends or at all. I haven't given a call to action thus far because we thought this bill would have no problems and I know you all have busy lives. However, we need to make calls by tomorrow (Wednesday).