Blogs

A day after the elections for city-wide offices in Durham, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough several of our elected officials joined advocates for transit to publicly launch "DO Transit" - Durham Orange Friends of Transit.  Thanks to Gerry Cohen for posting info about the kick-off meeting here on OP and for being there last night to help explain House Bill 148.  The newly enacted legislation establishes the Congestion Relief and Intermodal Transportation 21st Century Fund, providing the Triangle with an unprecedented opportunity to build a robust transit system.  

With the election mercifully in the rear view mirror Chapel Hill political observers will now shift their focus to the appointment of a replacement for Bill Strom.

Our poll found voters in town evenly divided on whether one of the losing candidates in yesterday's election should be appointed to fill the Strom seat- 38% in favor, 38% opposed, and 24% unsure.

Trumping that finding with the loss of Jim Merritt though is probably the question we asked about whether Chapel Hillians thought it was important to have an African American on the Town Council.  57% of voters said yes to that with just 28% dissenting, and I imagine given the strong support from the community that's the direction the Council will now go in with the appointment.

Two other key findings from the poll, neither of which is particularly surprising given the returns.  51% of Chapel Hill voters support publicly financed elections with only 31% opposed.  Given Mark Kleinschmidt's win and Penny Rich's first place finish it's clear there was no backlash from that and it's even possible the opposite was true.