County Commissioners

CHPL ver. 4.0

I think we are in about the 4th iteration of the Chapel Hill Public Library debate, but whatever the number, it's an important debate about an important issue. Four things stick out to me:

First, the Town Council has delayed moving forward with the addition. As much as I want to see it built, the current economic situation being what it is gave them little choice. When the situation is more favorable I'm sure that they will move forward.

New leadership for County Commissioners

With the newly-elected (and newly-districted) members of the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) sworn in, they have followed their annual tradition of selecting a new chair and vice-chair of the group. This is a leadership structure that is quite different from other elected bodies in the county in that the chair has similar responsibilities as a Mayor would have in a municipality, but the seat rotates among the members in a very egalitarian fashion so that every commissioner in recent memory has served at least one year at the helm.

What I found especially interesting is that this year's chair will be Valerie Foushee (an African-American woman) and the vice-chair will be Mike Nelson (a gay man).

Wasting economic development

I have to say that besides Eubanks Road, Hillsborough (or of any of our municipalities) is about the worst place I can imagine putting our future waste transfer station. Apparently the two sites being looked at there are in an economic development zone. Unless they are planning for it to heavy industrial development, it doesn't seem like a good fit. (The DTH has a small graphic of the top 10 sites and Hillsborough's response to the two sites on their doorstep.)

These suggestions are so off the wall that I am wondering if they're preparing us for something really awful. I am ready for the Commissioners to get rid of the siting consultants and step up to take some responsibility for our county's garbage for a change.

Sorry this post is so short - I am running our the door to travel to a family gathering. Will be out of town until Tuesday night, but I will still be checking on y'all so behave! ;-)

County Commish Candidates '08

Here are some hastily scribbled notes from last night's forum to meet the new cast of county commissioner candidates hosted by the Dem Women of OC.

From the DWOC handouts :

OC is going to a 7 member CC Plan; D1 = 3 members, D2 = 2 members + 2 "At Large" members. District 1 is the 71,389 people in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School District. District 2 is the 44,142 of us that make up the rest of the rest of the county. In 2008 4 commissioners will be elected. D1 gets 2 seats, D2 gets one seat and one "At-Large" seat. 3 Commishes are not up for re-election until 2010: Alice Gordon, Barry Jacobs and Mike Nelson.

From notes:

Valerie Foushee D1 - (D-CH) uncontested "safe seat" - spoke on community mental health needs and diversity in housing, said state offered current county commissioners only 2 choices in raising taxes: land transfer tax or sales tax, which she sees as more regressive

Mary M. Wolfe - At Large -- absent