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Guest Post by Matt Compton

With all the trouble between the Town and the University lately, it seems funny that storm-water runoff would be the controversy that puts the two entities in court, facing off against each other, but that seems as if it will be precisely what happens unless either University Administrators or the Town Council decide to back down from a fight over the issue.

As for me, while I think the University is being unduly stubborn about this, the layman in me believes that Carolina has a case for going it alone. If UNC has a separate pipe system and a separate permit from the town, then it would not seem reasonable to ask the University to make a significant contribution to the Town's plan. And it is certainly wrongheaded for the Town to pursue Councilman Ward's plan to include projections including a University contribution into a budget for the Town's storm-water plan before any sort of agreement is reached.

But the question I'm really interested in getting answers to is this: How does this current dispute fit into the greater context of Town-Gown relations?

I find it very disheartening to hear that the progress made against racism in the Town of Chapel Hill's Public Works department could be undone by the departure of two leaders. This indicates that not much progress was made at all, which is exactly what the Black Public Works Association (BPWA) would have probably told us in the first place.

The Black Public Works Association also suggested a number of remedies to the problems. Until the recent change in leadership, workers said, the department had made progress on stemming some of the problems pointed out in previous years.

"We know it is impossible to change attitudes, stereotypes and behavior overnight," Steve England, president of the association, said in a letter signed by eight other employees.

"But because there are no black people in the highest levels, we know that leadership will backslide in its commitments to being even nonracist -- much less the anti-racist commitment that should be the goal of all management."- News & Observer, 4/29/04

Many of it's neighbors have wanted state-owned Horace Williams Airport closed for a long time. It appeared that they had a powerful ally in the plan for Carolina North which took advantage of the airport's flat, already-cleared land to begin it's own march westward from Airport Road.

The N.C. General Assembly has had other ideas and continues to resist closing the airport. One of the best arguments on their side is UNC Hospital's AHEC program which uses the airport to fly doctors to more remote (and less affulent) parts of the state.

The Chapel Hill Town Council is getting pressure from UNC to move more quickly toward their presumably inevitable approval of Carolina North. But the Council has some pretty important concerns that will need to be addressed before the Town can invest more in this huge development effort.

Earlier this month, the Council unanimously passed this resolution drafted by Councilmember Cam Hill: