Ruby Sinreich's blog
Here's another chance for the town of Chapel Hill to catch up to Carrboro: free wireless Internet downtown.
It seems to have been a resounding success for Carrboro. Some businesses might worry about dozens of folks setting up their laptops for hours while only buying a pastry and coffee, but WSM has got plenty of space on the lawn, and more importantly having free wifi just adds to their role as the community hub. That attracts customers that aren't even using the wireless.
But Chapel Hill has a new angle on this. They are discussing covering the downtown neighborhoods like Northside where some residents can't afford high-speed Internet access.
Across the town line in Carrboro, officials decided last year to put a few thousand dollars into expanding the wireless network in the downtown area, enabling people to connect -- for free -- to the Internet with their laptop computers equipped with wireless cards.
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
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
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:
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