Government

Here's another chance for the town of Chapel Hill to catch up to Carrboro: free wireless Internet downtown.

It seems to have been a resounding success for Carrboro. Some businesses might worry about dozens of folks setting up their laptops for hours while only buying a pastry and coffee, but WSM has got plenty of space on the lawn, and more importantly having free wifi just adds to their role as the community hub. That attracts customers that aren't even using the wireless.

But Chapel Hill has a new angle on this. They are discussing covering the downtown neighborhoods like Northside where some residents can't afford high-speed Internet access.

Across the town line in Carrboro, officials decided last year to put a few thousand dollars into expanding the wireless network in the downtown area, enabling people to connect -- for free -- to the Internet with their laptop computers equipped with wireless cards.

Dr. Carol Kirschenbaum passed away last week in her home in Durham after an 8 year battle with ovarian cancer. Perhaps better known in Durham than in Orange County, Kirschenbaum was a leader in the fight to make access to health care a right for all North Carolinians.

She spearheaded the effort to pass a constitutional amendment (current HB 1358) that would read:

Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity, and there is an obligation for the State to ensure that every resident is able to realize this fundamental right. Not later than July 1, 2007, the General Assembly shall provide by law a plan to ensure that by July 1, 2011, every resident of North Carolina has access to appropriate health care on a regular basis.

An obituary written by her husband Dennis Lazof can be found here.

The Orange County Board of Commissioners is recruiting citizen volunteers for the Orange County Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) Taskforce. This taskforce will evaluate the feasibility of establishing a TDR program in all or portions of the county. The taskforce will address: Sustainably balancing rural and urban areas, directing growth and development away from important natural and cultural resources and toward areas with municipal service potential and able to support urban densities, providing working farms with an alternative income potential, and developing policies to accommodate the sending and receiving areas of housing density and economic development to be added to the Comprehensive Plan. The County has hired a consultant to help in this endeavor.