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As Travis notes in his post on the upcoming election for Chapel Hill Town Council, the filing period to run for the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Board of Education also begins on July 5th.
Three incumbents are up for re-election: James Barrett, Michelle Brownstein, and Greg McElveen
James Barrett was elected to a two-year seat in 2011. He intends to run for re-election.
Michelle Brownstein was first elected to the CHCCS Board in 2009. She is currently Board Chair. She also intends to run for re-election.
Greg McElveen
was appointed to fill Pam Hemminger's seat when Pam was elected to the
Orange County Board of County Commissioners in 2008. He was elected to
the seat in 2009. Greg will not be seeking re-election.
This leaves one seat open. There are no known challengers at this point.
In a little over a month, on July 5, candidate filing will open at the Orange County Board of Elections for municipal elections and the Chapel Hill/Carrboro School Board. There hasn't been much media attention yet to potential candidates for any of these offices, but with
Gary Kahn announcing today his intention to run for Chapel Hill Town Council, it's certainly about that time when election speculation begins.
With many discussions about the future of Chapel Hill -- particularly the future of economic development -- occurring simultaneously right now, who runs and who wins in November could have a significant impact on shaping the direction in which Chapel Hill grows. As such, let's take a look at who we might expect to see emerge as candidates for Town Council as the filing period nears.
With all the talk about restructuring Chapel Hill's advisory boards, I thought it might be good time to publicly share my idea for a new board to help foster better civic engagement and more open government, while also addressing the gap left by firing the technology advisory board 7 years ago. I shared this proposal with the Mayor's Committee on Communications
in late 2010, but there didn't seem to be much interest at the time.
Maybe now there is an opportunity to do something to make Chapel
Hill more participatory and democratic.
Not
enough Chapel Hill residents participate in public meetings and
advisory boards. This lack of engagement leaves the Town at a
disadvantage without the valuable input of a broad range of Chapel
Hillians, and also leaves many people feeling frustrated and cut off
from decisions that impact their lives and issues that concern them.
Yesterday at noon, Chapel Hill's Economic Development Officer
Dwight Bassett provided a brief, one-hour presentation outlining some
key facts and developments concerning retail, housing, and office space
in Chapel Hill. The full presentation can be viewed here.
I attended and live-tweeted the meeting. You can see the play-by-play below.
Tonight
is the first of two public information sessions regarding changes to
Chapel Hill's advisory board structure. For the past several years, the
Town of Chapel Hill has been in the process of reevaluating most of its
operations. This includes changes in department organizational policies
and procedures, employee compensation and classification, and Council
guidelines for more efficient meetings. However, one area of the Town's
operations that has not yet been restructured are its advisory boards.
There has been a Council committee in place since 2010 (currently
comprised of Council Members Gene Pease, Laurin Easthom, and Matt
Czajkowski) to evaluate the advisory boards, and last Wednesday Council
Member Pease presented their recommendations for board restructuring at a
Council work session
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