CH2020

Though the holiday season is now in full swing, the Chapel Hill 2020 will press forward with the second round of key theme group working sessions Thursday. The meetings will be held at Frank Porter Graham Elementary School on Smith Level Road from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. They promise to follow essentially the same format as the first round of meetings. The key difference is that before breaking off into seperate theme meetings, Town Manager Roger Stancil will give a presentation on the fiscal state of the town.

I want to begin by thanking all of the stakeholders who came out to Chapel Hill High this morning, a beautifully sunny fall morning, and participated in our first “come together” session in which we heard reports from all of the theme groups on what transpired in their first work sessions.  We had over 100 stakeholders participate and we got to hear from about ¼ of you in the discussion portion of the meeting.  For those of you who didn’t have time to share your thoughts please think about posting them on either the blog or the web.

You may have noticed an editorial in Wednesday’s edition of the Durham Herald-Sun concerning the Chapel Hill 2020 process. It’s author—Chapel Hill resident and writer Joe Buonfiglio—points out some conflicts of interest that may be present in the theme group structure and argues that the public input process will result in a plan with only “the mere appearance of citizens running the narrative.” While Mr. Buonfiglio makes some legitimate points about the weaknesses of the process thus far, I would argue that the 2020 process features more involvement than past planning efforts in Chapel Hill and than can be seen in other similarly-sized cities around the country.