Blogs

Ouch. The N & O blog has published some strongly-worded comments from Orange County Commissioner Mike Nelson about this year's budget process, as well as an admission from Moses Carey that he planned it that way. On the one hand, this is Mike's first year on the Board of Commissioners, so maybe he just hasn't gotten the hang of how they do business. On the other hand, if he didn't have access to the budget in advance, how is the public supposed to be informed about what's going on?

After being told that Chairman Moses Carey and Vice Chairman Barry Jacobs were reviewing a draft work session for that night's meeting and that handouts on some of the topics would be distributed that night, Nelson wrote to Blackmon, Coffey and his fellow commissioners:

"With all due respect, we needed this information before now. I don't understand why I've had to ask for it. The public expects us to know what's going on and to come to these meetings prepared. How the hell can I come to this meeting prepared if I don't get the agenda until now?"

Cam Hill asked me to post his guest column in the Herald today about Carolina North:

For several years UNC has been talking about developing a research campus, Carolina North, which is slated to contain as many as eight million square feet of buildings. UNC owns the Horace Williams tract, some 900 acres that currently is the home of the Horace Williams Airport, a couple of toxic dump sites and the old town of Chapel Hill public works and transit facility locations. UNC wants to put Carolina North there. Because the property is largely undeveloped (with the above exceptions), surrounded by existing neighborhoods and not served by any existing (or planned) transit or large-scale utility infrastructure, and because this is Chapel Hill; there has been some considerable discussion about this. Oh yeah, and the airport is still open.

I was thinking in Omaha over the weekend about the upcoming local elections and the media. It got me to wondering how often the various local elected officials appear in the newspaper, be it quotes in stories, op/eds they wrote, letters to the editor that mentioned them, etc.

So I decided to run a search to come up with those numbers for the Orange County Commissioners, Chapel Hill Town Council, and Carrboro Board of Aldermen. For the Orange County Commissioners the search ran from December 5th, 2006 when Mike Nelson took office through today. For the Chapel Hill Town Council it ran from December 5th, 2005 when Bill Thorpe and Laurin Easthom took office through today. For the Aldermen it ran from February 15th, 2006 (shortly after Dan Coleman was appointed) through today.

Here are the results:

Chapel Hill Herald/Durham Herald-Sun:

Moses Carey 56
Barry Jacobs 31
Alice Gordon 25
Mike Nelson 24
Valerie Foushee 11