advisory boards

Or more to the point, put a night or two a month where your mouth is.  Spring is coming, and spring means many things: bird starting to return, daffodils and hellebores popping up in bloom, Bradford pears soon to be unleashing their terrible stench upon anywhere unlucky enough to have planted them.  But spring is also the time when, at least in Chapel Hill, most of the appointments are made to advisory boards and commissions.  According to the town's current vacancies page, there are almost 20 seats on various boards that are currently sitting empty.  But on top of that, since most board terms are three years long, about a third of current board members will be coming up for reappointment. While terms officially end June 30, most appointments are made in the Spring - last year, most of them in April or May. So, right now is a great time to get your application in.

I was pretty shocked to read today that Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy has written a memo to the Town Council proposing that they should end the Horace Williams Citizen's Committee (old web site, new web site). Just a few months ago, I helped to draft a plan for how the HWCC would proceed in the next year or two to study some of the issues surrounding Carolina North and to make recommendations on them to the Town Council.

In all of the discussion of Ken Broun's new committee to advise UNC's leaders, it has always been made clear that the HWCC would still exist to advise Chapel Hill's leaders. I have not seen any change in situation that would mean we don't need this service any longer. This decision would be a major reversal and it deserves more explanation than the Mayor has given.