November 2011

Breaking: Plans for Internal Review of Yates Motor's SWAT by Chapel Hill Town Manager and CHPD Chief of Police Chris Blue

In advance of tonight's Council meeting, Chapel Hill Town Manager Roger Stancil sent the email below this afternoon to members of the Town Council, Chief of Police Chris Blue and Town of Chapel Hill employees.

Roger and Chief Chris Blue are conducting an internal review of "the events centered on the vacant Yates Motor Company building." Others might more aptly characterized those "events" as "the deployment of an ~ 25 person SWAT Unit to arrest seven people charged with misdemeanor breaking and entering at the Yates Building."

The Council will consider the Petition that I and 77 other cosignatories submitted to the Council. That Petition requests that the Council establish an independent task force to review the events leading to the deployment of the CHPD SWAT team on November 13th, and report back its findings and recommendations to the Council and the public.

The Town Manager's proposal is neither independent nor transparent. The parties conducting the investigation have conflicts of interest, namely their real or perceived bias to protect the image and reputation of the CHPD and the Town of Chapel Hill.

Another attempt to publicly fund a private school

A little bird flew in the window this morning bearing news of the application for a new charter school here in Chapel Hill/Carrboro. I found that interesting because when I was education chair for the local NAACP the idea was kicked around and found to have many holes in it. For me the expense and building of infrastructure was too great. This district, although it is failing the majority of the children of color, has a fantastic infrastructure and curriculum that, if improved upon, will do well for all students.

Recently, I and a group of parents from Chapel Hill and Carrboro met with the new school superintendent, Dr. Forcella. As a result I intend to work with him as opposed to funneling money away from the district as a charter school would do, if the application is approved.

So, as what should be normally done when faced with something unexpected, follow the money. In this case it started with an article from Truthout.org I read yesterday discussing the "pilot" programs in Florida centering around the privatization of education.

The anarchist's way: shout down anyone you don't agree with

I tried to engage the local anarchists group at http://trianarchy.wordpress.com today and my comments were deleted, and it reminded me of their behavior at tonight's city council meeting. They take advantage of democracy's freedom of speech while simultaneously shouting down anyone they don't agree with. I thought the mayor handled the situation very well under the circumstances.

I didn't hear what happened to the petition to issue an apology to the journalists immediately, though. (I was trying to listen to the meeting while practicing my Haydn.)

Anybody know what's happening at Town Hall?

I drove by Town Hall around 8:40pm and it appeared that protesters (Occupy?) were blocking southbound traffic on MLK Jr. Blvd/Airport Road/NC-86 right next to the bridge that leads to the main Chapel Hill municipal building. Last I saw (again, around 8:40pm), a couple of police cars were also in the southbound lanes protecting the protesters from getting run over by traffic. Anyone know what's going on now?

The First Report Out Session: A Recap

As many of you probably know, the first report out session from the Chapel Hill 2020 theme groups was held at Chapel Hill High School. The session included an overview of the process thus far, advice from UNC School of Government facilitators as to how best keep discussions focused, updates from each of the theme groups as to what was discussed at the first theme group meeting, a community and open-mic discussion of the issues that the town will confront. The event was fairly well-attended and a poll of those present suggested that about 20% to 25% of the participants had never attended a Chapel Hill 2020 meeting before. Looking at the meeting through the public participation lens, a few things emerged: