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Last night, the Chapel Hill/Carrboro chapter of the NAACP held a candidate’s forum for the County Commissioner at-large and County Sheriff’s race.
The candidates present were: Clarence Birkhead, Lindy Pendergrass, Joal Hall Broun, Barry Jacobs and Joe Phelps. Alice Gordon also stopped by, even though she is uncontested in her County Commissioner race in District 1.
There was actually a lot of ground covered at the forum. Among the topics discussed was the 287g Program, overcrowding in county jails, funding for the Chapel Hill library and Google Fiber Optics.
Most notable was William Thorp, the NAACP chapter chair, giving an impassioned plea to the commissioner-hopefuls to fix the situation in Rogers Road. The plea came in the wake of a new report that found 9 out of 11 wells in the region were contaminated and a quarter of the septic tanks in the area were in disrepair.
The N&O just announced that NCDOT has agreed to build Carrboro's preferred design for Smith Level Rd, but is dropping their previous requirement that Carrboro must pick up the ongoing maintenance tab for the roadway if the town's preferred design is to be accepted.
Last year, the Rail Station Task Force recommended the Collins Parcel in Hillsborough as the best place for a future Amtrak and commuter station for Orange County, which is one of only two counties along the North Carolina Railroad corridor statewide without passenger service today (Davidson County is the other). Conceptual plans for the station and transit-oriented development on the site were presented to a packed audience on March 31, 2010 at the Orange County Library.
The IFC held the first of three scheduled community discussions tonight. These discussions are designed to facilitate better communications with the community. The meeting began with three short presentations to update everyone on the current status of the planning process and to provide a brief synopsis of the expectations IFC has for the new facility.
The new facility is being designed to serve 52 men on a full-time basis with room for 17 emergency cots on white-flag nights. As Chris Moran said, the Community House will serve as transitional housing for homeless men. Emergency housing will need to be provided through the efforts of the 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness group.
The facility is laid out with the first floor devoted to counseling, health and dental services, and other resources to help the residents transition out of homelessness. The second floor provides sleeping/living rooms. The men will start off living in a dormitory-type room with around 10 occupants per room. There are two of the large dorm rooms. As the men progress toward their goals they will step down to a 4-occupant room and finally to a 2-occupant room.
Well, if anyone was wondering why there is a noticeable void of good reporting on campaign finances in local elections… I have the answer.
The answer is pretty simple, but horribly boring.
The answer is a lack of uniformity in campaign finance report rules, a lack of money to throw around and a lack of technological advancement in local governments. More notably, the office-holder hopefuls who are filling out these forms (or are having their buddy/treasurer fill them out) are also fairly technologically challenged.
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