Hello,
I am the local organizer for the Momma for Obama National Rally here in Chapel Hill. On November 1 from 2:30 to 4pm on the Southern Village Green in Chapel Hill, mothers and families across the nation will gather in a demonstration of unity and support for Senator Barack Obama and Senator Joe Biden. This Wednesday, October 1, at 7pm, at my house I am hosting an organizational meeting for this rally. I would like to invite anyone from your organization who is interested to attend and/or contact me for more information.
YES WE CAN!
thank you,
Christine Ellestad
101 Buck Taylor Trail
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
919-929-3013

I attended a meeting at the White Cross Community Center last night. The meeting was held and attended by close to 300 concerned Orange County residents who discussed UNC’s possible THEFT of homes and homesteads through eminent domain.

Why do I call it theft? Well, many interesting facts were presented such as cost (40 MILLION), economic and ecological impact to our communities and of course, kicking people out of their homes and off their farms so rich dudes can fly in for ball games and not be inconvenienced by having to drive an extra 5 minutes from RDU! I implore anyone who cares about the environment, local economy, justice or not letting your fellow citizens get SCREWED to help STOP this Jackassary NOW!

You can educate yourself on the facts by reading the following: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sworangecounty

From BolinCreek.org:

The 5th Annual Bolin Creek Festival will be from 11am-5pm, October 4th at Umstead Park in Chapel Hill. Featuring local artist Dale Morgan, music by Club Boheme, Skeedaddle, Project Mastana—passionate Bollywood dance music, and rhythm circles by the Music Explorium. Special activities for children will include the introduction to stream critters and the popular Enviroscape by the Chapel Hill Stormwater Office.

On Thursday evening September 25th, at 7 PM, the Chapel Hill Town Council held a special meeting at the Friday Center.  In addition to all of the Council members (except Councilman Bill Thorpe who is absent due to medical issues) the Council Members were joined by UNC representatives Roger Perry (Chair, Board of Trustees), Bob Winston (trustee, Chair of the Building Committee) and Jack Evans, who is is chair of the Carolina North project for the University.

One of the important points that was made early by Roger Perry was that he and Bob Winston speak for the trustees and he gave assurances that anything that they agreed to in principle would be supported by the Trustees.  Another important issue was that of timing.  Roger pointed out that in July there will be 6 new trustees (out of 13) and that these new trustees would come in with little or no background.  Thus he urged the Council to consider a timetable that would complete by the Council's summer recess the necessary steps (e.g., rezoning, development agreement?) to allow Carolina North to go forward.

It's today!  Happy anniversary to all of you who make this community kick ass!

I've been too busy to organize a party, but you are are owed one. How does Wednesday, October 15th sound?

I'm also going to kick off another annual fund raising drive. This one is for 1 year's worth of hosting costs. Last fall you all raised $1,000 to help move the site from WordPress to Drupal. I think it was definitely worthwhile, as we are now reaping the benefits of a more powerful community platform. The new software uses a new host and that costs me $35 each month. 

My favorite absentee landlord, Joe Riddle, has found a tenant for the vacant Gap/Carolina Theater space* at the corner of Franklin and Columbia Streets. However, he's being very tight-lipped about what is going in there. This makes me hopeful, but also nervous. This should be an improvement over the other vacant Franklin Street storefronts and lots that Riddle owns, but then again he doesn't exactly have a record of being terribly concerned about the well-being of our downtown.

The Daily Tar Heel reports that Riddle has signed a lease and begun demolition inside, but hasn't applied for any permits that might offer a clue as to at least what type of use this will be nor who the tenant is. Anyone want to guess?

This may come as a bit of a shock to those of you who've heard nothing but doom and gloom about newspapers.
Over the past couple of months, publisher Robert Dickson and I have been talking about how we can expand The Carrboro Citizen.
With a healthy, growing local ad base, incredible encouragement from readers and a pickup rate that now leaves us with very few returns and a lot of empty boxes at the end of the week, we sense that we can grow and should.
As regular readers may have noticed, we've started to cover more news out of Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and Chatham County. We've also expanded distribution into these areas.
Following are a couple of things we're looking at to make our decisions. We've decided to share them in the interest of gathering feedback and suggestions.

The Orange County Commission for Women is co-sponsoring the event with local organizations as part of North Carolina Women United's "Women's Agenda Assembly process."

The 2008 Agenda Assembly marks the 20th anniversary of these events in North Carolina. Across the state, women hear from local experts on issues like health care, education, the economy, equal political representation, immigration and violence against women. Participants discuss the issues, prioritize them, and set the agenda for policies addressed by local and state leaders. It's democracy at its best; your voice will count! Our goal is to include over 100 women in the process this year.

This is interesting. I may have missed the announcement of this high-level negotiating process between UNC Trustees and the Chapel Hill Town Council. It's not clear to me whether it's open to the public, or if we just get to watch the highlights later.

Fiona Morgan at the Independent reports that a number of newsroom staff have accepted the buyout offers that the McClatchy-owned News & Observer offered last month.

Among them is Samiha Khanna, who covers Durham County and its school system; Matt Dees, a former Durham city reporter who was recently transferred to the Orange County bureau; and Cheryl Johnston Sadgrove, who covers Orange County government. Until the newsroom is reorganized to adjust for these losses, that leaves one Orange County and four Durham reporters.

- Triangulator: N&O loses more reporters, 9/22/08

This is getting voted on in DC tomorrow, Sept. 23rd.  It is not really

a local issue, but I wish to post it since I work towards these goals

locally.  If it doesn't pass, perhaps local initiatives could be brought

forward. 

*H.R. 6899: Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection

Act*

The ReCYCLEry, http://www.recyclery.info, is celebrating its first 8th anniversary by hosting a fun-filled family-oriented gathering on October 26th that will include food, music, cruiser-style bike rides and more.  Located at the Southern Rail Restaurant near Weaver Street Market, the event will run from 2-6 pm and will welcome hundreds of community members who have volunteered their time and skills, their support, or have benefited from the work of The ReCYCLEry over the past eight years.  All are welcome to join!  Suggested donation per person: $8.

I was fortunate enough to be a scholarship participant on the Inter-City Visits to Madison and Ann Arbor. I thoroughly enjoyed both experiences, but I found that I am unable to stop comparing the Madison experience to the Ann Arbor experience.

This exercise, of course, is completely unfair. Mainly because, in my opinion, Madison wins. In everything. Hands down. Period. Ann Arbor doesn't stand a chance.

Madison has an abundance of natural beauty. It had a really great downtown that seemed accessable to both students and other people. It has the Overture Center, which always takes my breath away, and Madision is a hotbed for creativity and technology. It is so much what I want for Chapel Hill.

But Ann Arbor is different (duh). I didn't see anything particularly beautiful or extrodinary about it. Ann Arbor seems much more into function, rather than form. It ain't Madison, but it has its good parts.

The country has been getting ransacked over the last couple of weeks.  On August 4th 2008  both houses of congress (Rep. David Price included) sanctioned  H.R. 3221 and the conservatorship of Fannie and Freddie  essentially saddeling the U.S. government with 5.4 trillion in debt that it is now responsible for!!! 

Had we had a debate and expressed the outrage over this back then, gone into the streets banging our pots and pans .... the latest outrage, the  proposed bail-out bill, would now be something that our Congressman David Price might think twice about before voting  ...  we should have broken down his door back in August!

The very wise, prophetic, yet ignored,  Catherine Austin Fitts has summed this bill up:

The question is simple to state but probably very complex to answer.

What are the possible ramifications to the County and the Towns from the current financial crisis including but not at all exclusively budgets, taxes, development plans, services, credit, bonds, etc....? 

A secondary question is are there any actions our local governments should be taking now to reduce negative risks?

Certainly the personal suffering of residents is likely, including potential loss of jobs, shrinking investments, sinking home values (maybe). If this gets worse the consequences will be felt by local governments.

Maybe there are skills on this blog that can provide some insights.

I always seem to forget about this until the last minute. Monday is Car Free Day, and I hope you will try some transit all week long. I've been guilty of flying all over this week, but next week I will be happily working from home every day.  Maybe I'll take the bus downtown for lunch.

Try Transit Week is sponsored by Durham Area Transit Authority (DATA), Cary Transit (C-Tran), Capital Area Transit (CAT), Chapel Hill Transit, UNC Chapel Hill, NCSU Wolfline and Triangle Transit. The goal of the campaign is to encourage Triange commuters to try the bus! Taking transit instead of driving alone helps save our environment, save money on expensive gas and save our sanity by reducing stressful traffic.