Month: November 2008

  • Who needs an argument?

    As I was reminded recently, some folks can’t tell the difference between thoughtful disputation and just plain, ornery, contradiction. When I take a position contradictory to the established order, I always try to work from a reasoned basis. I also try to find the humor in what is sometimes a tense process. Man: An argument […]

  • Carolina North: Easthom – “Now is the time!”

    Council member Laurin Easthom says “Now is the time” for the community to get involved with the planning for Carolina North. Now is the time. Now is the time to comment on Carolina North, the largest development to ever hit the Town of Chapel Hill. The Town Council and UNC Trustees are meeting monthly to […]

  • Trash Talk: Shall We Stand United? Rogers-Eubanks Community Says “Yes”!

    I knew that the final siting of the solid waste transfer station might devolve into an “us vs. them” debacle – pitting neighbor against neighbor. Orange County is no stranger to inter-community bickering caused by waste-related issues. From the beginning, as I made contact with leaders of various organized groups – the Rogers Road community, […]

  • Nov. 23: The History of Chapel Hill’s Dead Tree Media

    The troubled News and Observer posted this reminder: The Chapel Hill Historical Society will present The History of Print Media in Chapel Hill and Carrboro on Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m. The featured speakers will be Don Evans, an editor and writer at The Chapel Hill News for three decades, and Kirk Ross, former […]

  • Carolina North: Community needs to wake up and show up!

    [UPDATE] The Daily Tar Heel’s Emily Stephenson chimes in here (DTH ‘blogs). A story on yesterday’s poor turnout here. [ORIGINAL] Earlier today (Nov. 19th), UNC’s Board of Trustees approved the draft Carolina North design guidelines making the proposal official UNC policy. This evening, the first in a series of informational/public feedback sessions on Carolina North […]

  • Community Oversight of the Planning Board

    My previous posts tracking requests for information, feedback and general commentary to our Town staff and elected folks seem to be fairly popular. I’m going to continue to post correspondence which might be of public interest. The Town’s Technology Board (now defunct) was the first advisory board I regularly interacted with. The first meeting I […]

  • Chancellor Thorp on HWA Closure: Not until we have to…

    UNC’s Chancellor Holden Thorp takes a postion (“Carolina North: A Glass Half-Full Perspective”) on Horace-William Airport’s closure. One of the most vexing issues, though, has been the future of Horace Williams Airport. As you know, it occupies the heart of the Carolina North acreage. It’s the flattest part of the tract and, therefore, the best […]

  • Comment Policy

    Hey folks, thank you for reading my ‘blog. I was getting a ton of comment spam over the last six months,so I had to restrict comments to those folks who registered. The latest WordPress has additional controls that should help throttle that nonsense. I’m now relaxing CitizenWill’s commenting policy to encourage more reader involvement. To […]

  • Carolina North: Nov. 18th Meeting Notes

    Tonight’s meeting (background) was well attended . Many of the folks attending were there to send the message “No Airport!”. Chapel Hill News reporter Eric Ferriri did a pretty good job covering that part of the meeting over at OrangeChat. The Chancellor was missing in action. I think that is two of three meetings now. […]

  • 12:13AM Jet Set

    [UPDATE] As Fred notes, this was a Cessna 550 probably configured like the photo below: These type planes are used both for charter and commercial commuter purposes. [ORIGINAL] I have lived near Horace-Williams Airport for about 16 years. During the recent uproar over siting a new UNC-sponsored general aviation facility somewhere in the OC, I’ve […]

  • Making North Carolina Legislative Sausage

    Two posts in two days highlighting Gerry Cohen’s Drafting Musings? Hey, quality posts deserve link love! Following on the heels of his historical survey of buffalo noses and other NC legislative curiosities is this post on how bills actually wend their way through the legislative process. Most civics classes focus on how a bill becomes […]

  • Nov. 18th: It’s Snowing!

    We just got a strange burst of flurries falling from a partly cloudy, mostly blue, sky. Starting with a few big flakes, we got about 5 minutes of solid flurries that subsequently tailed off.

  • Southern Village: So Long Six Stories

    One of the projects on tonight’s agenda was D.R. Bryan’s six story Southern Village hotel. The hotel was to be plopped down in Southern Village’s central “square”. At 75+ feet, it would tower over the nearby United Methodist Church. Local residents were concerned that this 6 story project wasn’t human-scale or compatible with the existing […]

  • North Carolina’s Third Legislative House

    Gerry Cohen, Director of Bill Drafting for the North Carolina General Assembly since 1981 and former Chapel Hill Council member, maintains a fantastic ‘blog Drafting Musings. While he usually covers the vagaries of NC’s legislative sausage-making, luckily for his readers he also veers into interesting back-stories of local and state events. Today he posts the […]

  • East 54’s Virtual Chapel Hill

    Do you recognize the following scene? This is East West Partner’s revisionist view of Chapel Hill as improved upon by their East 54 project. They have provided a cool animation of the eventual East 54 living experience. One small problem. Their Chapel Hill doesn’t match reality. What is it about big time developers and their […]