Dan Coleman's blog
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.
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday June 04, 2005
Recently I was asked what I thought the issues would be in this year's Carrboro elections. I didn't have a ready answer. As I considered the question, it seemed that no one has been putting new ideas on the table for Carrboro lately.
Recent elections have functioned as referenda on the policies of the existing board, policies that have evolved over the past decade or so. This year, things have been pretty quiet.
Alderman Alex Zaffron hit a nail on the head recently when he suggested that the best thing the board had done lately might have been hiring Steve Stewart as town manager. Stewart has brought in his proposed 2005-06 budget without a tax increase.
It has long seemed that if there was an issue that could unite the diverse groups who are unhappy with the status quo, it was Carrboro's tax rate. Property taxes in Carrboro have tracked at some 20 percent above those of Chapel Hill despite the smaller town turning to its larger neighbor for a number of amenities.
This year, under Stewart's proposed budget and thanks to a modest increase in Chapel Hill, the gap will close a bit.
Well, the go-go-growth crowd is not as monolithic as I recently suggested. Sometimes competition can split even the most steadfast of allies. The Herald today reported that a
113-6 vote in the House endorsed an amendment to the state Umstead Act to allow the UNC system's 16 campuses to sell goods and services in competition with the private sector when doing so would further the teaching, research and service mission of the university.
Hackney and Insko voted in favor. Bill Faison voted against thereby joining the "anti-university" crowd that for the moment also includes Aaron Nelson. From the Herald report:
Yesterday, the local peace movement held a Memorial Day commemoration at Carrboro's Commons.
Sarah Shields gave a powerful speech connecting the suffering of wars victims, whether soldiers or civilians, to the demand for peace:
The war in Iraq has so far cost the people of North Carolina more than 37,000 affordable housing units. It could have insured 2.5 million children, hired 72,000 new teachers. Just in North Carolina. The Peace Dividend I was promised before I became a mother has become an enormous War Deficit, and spending on the War and its share in the debt now demands forty-two cents of every dollar I pay in taxes.8
The legacy of war, whether in our memories or not, continues. War kills people, and modern warfare continues to kill long after. Death. Amputation. Hatred. Fear. Suicide. Disease. Terror. War threatens our humanity, individually and collectively...
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday May 28, 2005
The leaders of the go-go-growth crowd are true believers. Since they hold fast and firm to a common principle, the ethic of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" holds sway. In truth, it is often the same back.
Thus, when UNC released its Economic Impact Analysis for Carolina North last Wednesday, it was not surprising that the contact provided for "economic impacts on the local community" was Aaron Nelson of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce.
UNC's report was all good news and Nelson's e-mail to chamber members matched it with effusive praise. He characterized Carolina North as "relieving pressure on the housing market." Let's see: 1,400 to 1,800 new homes to accommodate 7,500 new employees. That's about a 6,000 unit deficit, an odd notion of relief.
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