June 2005
Hillsborough wants you to get off your butt on Saturday.
Fostering community spirit and promoting the walkability of the town will be the main focus of the fourth annual Walkable Hillsborough Day this Saturday.
There are three different walks to choose from, all based on the level of difficulty. Each will begin at 9 a.m. at the old courthouse on the corner of King and Churton streets, she said.
- The News of Orange County, 6/9/05
The three different walking routes vary from 20-minutes to a vigorous hour-long hike. All of them are short enough that you can come into the cool air-conditioned lab for the Blog Teach-In after you get all sweaty walking around. ;-)
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday June 11, 2005
With the filing period now just a few weeks away, speculation is rampant about the upcoming municipal elections in Carrboro and Chapel Hill. Rarely have we gotten this late in the pre-election season and known so little about the prospective field.
The mayoral races are the easiest to handicap. In Chapel Hill, the position will again be Kevin Foy's if he wants it. If not, Bill Strom, a tough campaigner, looks unbeatable and might even run without opposition.
In Carrboro, Mayor Mike Nelson has said he won't be running for another term and the only affirmative steps toward a mayoral candidacy have come from Alderman Mark Chilton. This week Chilton mailed out a questionnaire to gauge voters' priorities for the town.
Should Chilton choose to run, he would be an odds-on favorite to win. He came in first among alderman candidates in 2003 with 1,709 votes, a big number for Carrboro. Chilton seems to relish an active grassroots campaign and can be expected to again be knocking on doors throughout Carrboro.
OrangePolitics is a great place to discuss local politics, but should we also be able to discuss/react to our local newspaper articles? Steve Outing at Poynter Online has an interesting article on Citizen Journalism, that identifies 11 ways in which conventional newspapers can open themselves up to interaction with the public. The Daily Tarheel has allowed comments all year and the feature is almost never used. Should the Chapel Hill Newspaper and the Herald-Sun open themselves up? Would we know more about our community if citizens had the opportunity to add to articles, correct errors, or simply comment?
H671/S631 grants the NC Department of Agriculture sole authority for banning plants and seeds within North Carolina. The intent of this law appears to be preventing cities and counties from using their zoning authority to restrict the use of genetically modified plants and seeds within their jurisdiction. However, there may be equally unattractive unintended consequences. For example, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Orange County (possibly Hillsborough too), currently restrict the types of plants used in landscaping new development. By using their zoning authority in this way, they protect our native species from the most egregious invasives such as bamboo, english ivy, etc. Native species are of critical importance in protecting our riparian systems as well as our local wildlife.
In its effort to develop four neighborhood conservation districts at once, the Town of Chapel Hill is looking for some outside assistance. They didn't have to look very far. Recently retired Chapel Hill Planning Director Roger Waldon has been hired as a consultant on the project.
It's true the Town needs outside assistance to be able to do 4 NCDs at once. And clearly Roger understands the NCD rules - he helped create them. But I don't buy the logic that having worked on the previous Northside NCD qualifies one to work on future efforts. The Northside NCD process was not managed very well. Although a lot of people worked very hard on it, and some good regulations resulted, the process generally lacked clear vision and leadership. I would hate to see it repeated.
Also, this budget switcheroo is kind of weird:
Here's the schedule so far for Chapel Hill's Summer Movie and Concert series - of which YOU are a sponsor, OP Readers!
Events are Wednesdays at 7:30 pm at McCorkle Place on Franklin Street.
June 22
concert: Cool John Ferguson (the rockin' blues)
June 29
movie: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
July 6
concert: Dub Addis (reggae)
July 13
movie: Bend it Like Beckham
July 20
concert (t.b.a.)
July 27
movie: Hitch
August 3
concert (t.b.a.)
The summer festival sponsors include: RBC Centura, Ram Development Group, Carolina Brewery, Carolina Car Wash, Chapel Hill Tire Car Care Center, Coldwell Banker Howard Perry and Walston, Earth Fare, Harris Incorporated, Local 506, The Readers of OrangePolitics.org, Rosemary Village, Spanky's, UNC-Chapel Hill, University Florist, Chapel Hill News, Pa'lante Magazine, WCHL 1360 AM
The Town Council talked about a few of the things they don't want to see in the new mixed-use re-development on Lots 2 & 5 downtown.
They don't want to be The Streets at Southpoint, though they avoided speaking the name of the behemoth to the east that's anathema to Chapel Hill business leaders. "I hate that manufactured Main Street," council member Mark Kleinschmidt said.
"That's my biggest fear, that it will look like a mall that's trying to look like Main Street." Council members nodded...
"This space is so important to us," Mayor Kevin Foy said. "The way it looks should respect the existing architecture in the town but doesn't mimic and doesn't try to imitate it."
The council wants modern. It wants cool. It wants something looking to the future in a place that for many -- UNC-Chapel Hill alumni, in particular -- is memory lane.
- News & Observer 6/21/05
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday June 18, 2005
According to the International Cooperative Alliance, "a co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise."
This is a definition that provides great flexibility of interpretation. Co-ops can be as small as a group of neighbors meeting their child-care needs or as large as the 1,000 orange growers who work together to market their products under the Florida Natural brand.
Unfortunately, the term cooperative has often been stretched so far that it is hard to distinguish a cooperator from an investor. Owners of Weaver Street Market who are currently considering proposed changes to the market's investment system would do well to contemplate this distinction.
Dr. Carol Kirschenbaum passed away last week in her home in Durham after an 8 year battle with ovarian cancer. Perhaps better known in Durham than in Orange County, Kirschenbaum was a leader in the fight to make access to health care a right for all North Carolinians.
She spearheaded the effort to pass a constitutional amendment (current HB 1358) that would read:
Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity, and there is an obligation for the State to ensure that every resident is able to realize this fundamental right. Not later than July 1, 2007, the General Assembly shall provide by law a plan to ensure that by July 1, 2011, every resident of North Carolina has access to appropriate health care on a regular basis.
An obituary written by her husband Dennis Lazof can be found here.
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