Category: CitizenWill

  • Lift up your hearts, all will come right

    “…lift up your hearts, all will come right. Out of depths of sorrow and sacrifice will be born again the glory of mankind…” PRIME MINISTER WINSTON CHURCHILL’S SPEECH TO THE ALLIED DELEGATES St. James’s Place, London, June 12, 1941 I’ve been thinking about my Libyan friend Ish’s family the last couple weeks. Finally, a promise […]

  • Election 2010: Thank You Russ!

    I admire Senator Russ Feingold’s tenacious defense of our basic civil liberties and Rights. This evening Russ, a progressive visionary with backbone and real moxy, lost his seat as the flood gates he help build to control the untraceable torrent of money into our election process fell before the onslaught unleashed by the Supreme Courts […]

  • A Bit Older, Less Grayer

    I ended up talking about the troubling aspects of both East54 and the Lot $5 with a native Chapel Hillian after a recent community meeting. While introducing myself they exclaimed “you’re Will Raymond? I saw you speak several years ago about the Town’s Downtown project” but, they went on, I “looked different”, even younger than […]

  • June 22, 2010: I Voted, Again…

    [UPDATE:] Ellie, at 3:00pm, was #143. Analysis of turnout is coming in but it’s clear Elaine has won with apparently 2/3rds of the vote. Just back from the Library. I was #112 in one of the voting-est precincts in Town. Given the early voting trend this year, that doesn’t bode well for overall turnout. In […]

  • Internet Privacy:Ye Shall Know Them By What They Ask…

    Search engine providers like Google are making cash by building detailed profiles of your web surfing habits. There is a slew of technologies they use to track usage, following folks as the hop-skip-and-jump across the world wide web. In this “social networking” world it seems like many people wait until an inevitable crisis before taking […]

  • “You Are Excused”

    Of the few ways one can “exercise” citizenship directly, being chosen as a sitting juror seems most capricious. Ever since I turned 18 I’ve waited for the call. Master jury lists in North Carolina are randomly drawn from voter rolls and driver license records. Having been a licensed driver and voting maniac (all elections except […]

  • Who You Gonna Call? Deerbusters!

    Education and our own private “rabbit-proof” fencing seems to be the extent of Chapel Hill’s plan to deal with its exploding dear population. The Town is responding to my Mount Bolus neighbor’s Oct. 12th petition this evening with a proposal [PDF] to educate folks on how to deter expansion of the deer population. Unfortunately, rather […]

  • Look To The Stars and Dream

    Even after 40 years the Moon landing remains one of the touchstones of my life. I am fascinated by science. Growing up I, like many other kids of the ’60’s, dreamed of traveling to space. I wanted to join NASA and help make those dreams reality. It seemed a given that rational investigation and thoughtful […]

  • 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 […]

  • Northern Heads South

    Not a great day for local tech companies in RTP. Nortel (Northern Telecom) is shedding another 1,300 jobs in an effort to stay afloat. I worked at Northern for nearly seven years (I started at Team10 for any old-timers out there). Back then it was an incredibly vibrant can-do company with a really nice and […]

  • Persons Out of Place

    In my application for Bill’s seat on Council, I mentioned my concern (“Walking is not a crime.”) that the recently announced Orange County Community Safety Partnership program, which trains Town staff and the general public to identify and report criminal activity or other public safety related issues, needs to be careful in discriminating what is […]

  • Community Service: Horace-Williams Citizens Committee, What Did I Do?

    Someone sent me an email saying one local pundit doesn’t think my service on the Horace-Williams Citizens Committee deserves recognition. Three comments. First, while I was appointed in January, 2006 and the HWCC provided its final report May 22nd, 2006 (report here), I definitely hit the ground running. While I wasn’t a member of the […]

  • Halloween, 2008: Helicopters and Sirens Go On and On

    I was Downtown about 8pm this evening. Some folks were gathering but it was generally quiet. It appeared Chapel Hill’s attempt to “scare” off visitors might have worked. Starting 9:30pm though I began to wonder. We live close to Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and the Police Station. Starting 10pm there was the constant thrum […]

  • Raymond, Ready For Service: Formal Application

    Here is my formal application to fill Bill’s seat. I agree with recent Council comments that their new colleague must be “ready to hit the road running”. To do so, an applicant should be prepared, involved and experienced. Council already has a demanding workload. Over the next 7 months two major challenges – troubled finances […]

  • Raymond, Ready For Service: What Would I Do?

    What would I do the next 13 months? If you look back through the hundreds of posts on local issues I’ve made since September 2005, you will see I’m not short of ideas for positive change. I also have two election platforms (2005 and 2007) and many election questionnaires that contain specific proposals addressing Town […]