Orange County

Sierra Club Endorsements Announced

Upon recommendation of the Orange-Chatham Group's Political and Executive Committees, the North Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club has endorsed the following candidates for elected office here in Orange County. The Sierra Club supports candidates with demonstrated knowledge of local environmental issues who will provide strong leadership on matters including growth and conservation.

Orange County Commissioner:

  • At-Large: Bernadette Pelissier
  • District 1: Valerie Foushee & Pam Hemminger

General Assembly:

  • NC Senate 23: Ellie Kinnaird
  • NC House 54: Joe Hackney
  • NC House 56: Verla Insko

Trash talk, budget busters and poseur politics

The elephant in the room that nobody is talking about... factoring rising fuel costs into the equation.

It's mindnumbing that an area that prides itself on sustainability would even be considering a program to export it's own waste. The very definition of sustainability is something that can be maintained into the indefinite future. Is paying to haul waste out of county sustainable in any sense of the word? Is increasing transportation miles at the end of a product's long transportation chain to get to the consumer even sane?

What percentage of trash in the current landfill comes from UNC? What percentage comes from Chapel Hill and Carrboro? What percentage comes from elsewhere in the county? Maybe each district should be required to sustainably deal with it's own waste.

Chapel Hill and Carrboro have sustainable community as their vision. Carolina North has as it's stated vision: "This and other progressive measures will help make Carolina North a model of sustainability — a campus that is socially, environmentally, and economically sound."

Public Demonstration of Voting Machines

OK, now this sounds like fun. Or at least quite interesting. Let's all go!

Press release from Orange County:

Contact: Tracy Reams, Director, Orange County Board of Elections, 245-2351

The public is invited to see a demonstration of the voting process and the procedures in place to ensure all ballots are counted accurately.

The Orange County Board of Elections wants to ensure that the voters of Orange County have complete confidence in the voting system. The Board of Elections will demonstrate the voting machines on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. at the Orange Enterprise Building located at 500 Valley Forge Rd, Hillsborough, NC.

For additional information, please contact the Orange County Board of Elections (919) 245-2350.

Date: 

Saturday, April 26, 2008 - 9:00am

Location: 

Orange Enterprise Building located at 500 Valley Forge Rd, Hillsborough

13th Piedmont Farm Tour

Come on out and support local, sustainable agriculture. Meet local farmers. See where your food is grown. Sign up for Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), and just have fun.

 

http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/

Location: 

throughout Orange and neighboring counties

Importance of Farms in Orange County

The other night District 2 County Commissioner candidate Steve Yuhasz said something to me that I found so incredible that I determined to do a little bit of research on the subject. Steve maintained that in 2006 there were only 3 farms in all of Orange County that claimed more than $20,000 farm income. He said that farming for a living was no longer viable. The implication was that if farming was not economically significant, then the county might as well be subdivided into more neighborhoods and strip malls. Steve said he got that info from something circulated by the Economic Devolpment subcomittee. How scary.

My first thought was how in the world would anybody get such information? Individual and corporate tax returns are considered so private that when the various gov't agencies that report on income sectors make their reports, they go to some lengths to make sure that nothing that could identify a specific person or farm can be gleaned from even a very careful reading of their summaries.

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