NCGA

I'm pretty sure that no other municipality in North Carolina could have done business from prison in Raleigh tonight. But Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton (who helped instigate Mega Moral Monday) as well as Alderpeople Michelle Johnson, Damon Seils, and Sammy Slade all committed civil disobedience with about 140 other people - including Chapel Hill Town Council Member Donna Bell and OP Editor Molly De Marco - by refusing to leave the rotunda in the N.C. General Assembly.

Among the 1,000 protesters outside the NCGA were a quorum of Orange County Commissioners (Bernadette Pelissier, Penny Rich, Renee Price, and Mark Dorosin), a Carrboro Alderperson (Randee Haven-O'Donnell), OP regular Mark Marcoplos, and two more OP editors (Travis Crayton and myself).

It’s about to get a lot harder to vote in Orange County, at least for some of us.

The Republican majority in the General Assembly clearly feels that the racist, anti-woman, anti-urban, and very anti-liberal redistricting which took place last year didn’t do enough to solidify their entrenched majority. Now they’re hard at work systematically disenfranchising people who are unlikely to vote for them. Stringent voter identification requirements, shortened early voting, and other impediments to voting have been proposed in the General Assembly and are all likely to pass.

But of particular note to us in Orange County is the aptly-numbered Senate Bill 666. The most significant change in SB 666 isn’t in chapter 163 which governs elections; rather, it’s a change to the tax code:

With the month of May coming, it time for flowers to bloom and for our school district to trim resources.   Every year when this happens I appreciate the flowers and figure there has to be a better way to fund our schools.  Below is the text of a letter I send to Representative Insko with copy to County Commissioner Alice Gordon.  There has to be a better approach that what we have now.  Thoughts and comments are appreciated.