Category: EconomicDevelopment

  • 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 […]

  • 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 Have I Done?

    I submitted my formal application to fill Bill’s seat (not his shoes) this afternoon. Along with my application, I provided some examples of my recent activism, a list of advisory boards I would like to represent Council on and some suggestions covering a few of the issues that Chapel Hill faces next year. The additional […]

  • Affordable Housing: I Can’t Live In Lieu

    The Chapel Hill News’ Jesse DeConto’s posts over on OrangeChat a discussion of tonight’s request by Orange Community Housing and Land Trust Executive Director Robert Dowling’s renewed request to take in lieu payments over affordable housing stock. I’ve been troubled by his and others calls to take money over square footage for some time. Whatever […]

  • Carolina North: Oct. 15th Comments from Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth

    Julie McClintock presented the following comments on behalf of Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth (NRG) to Council during Oct. 15th’s public hearing. I had to chuckle when NRG’s request for an online progress tracking system stirred Council’s interest. Why? I proposed a work tracking system for Planning when I first got involved in local government 8 […]

  • Carolina North: Oct. 22nd Meeting Agenda

    The agenda just went online (a full 5 1/2 hours before the meeting 😉 ). The good news is that the various foundational studies are nearing completion. The Council and Trustees have concurred that the current Carolina North discussion should build upon rather than replicate this prior community, Town, and University work. The additional background […]

  • Carolina North: Oct. 15th Development Agreement Hearing

    Quick reminder that there is another joint meeting between Council and UNC’s BOT representatives tonight (Oct. 22nd) from 7 – 9:30 pm at the Chapel Hill Public Library (no agenda online – boo!). Tonight’s meeting continues to flesh out the policy surrounding use of a development agreement for Carolina North (previous posts here and here). […]

  • Trash Talk: The Next Waste Management Fight

    Even though local environmentalist have talked about our county’s responsibility to manage its waste stream responsibly – not dumping the problem on another community – I couldn’t find a recent request to the Board of Commissioners by either a organization or an individual to start the process of developing either a new landfill or a […]

  • Trash Talk: Commissioner Gordon, “No Plan B”

    After this evening’s solid waste transfer site meeting, I took a second to ask Alice why she said delaying the final site selection would lead to “garbage piling up”. She had made that statement earlier, in an effort to encourage her colleagues to make a decision by mid-November. Orange County’s landfill is slated to close […]

  • Hwy 54: Trash Central

    The Orange County Board of Commissioner’s narrowed the possible trash transfer sites to three – 779, 759 and 056 – this evening during their special working session [agenda]. All three are along Hwy 54. While I’m quite happy that the Rogers Road community is off the hook, at least for now, I’m troubled by the […]

  • Filling Bill’s Seat, Not His Shoes…

    Councilmember Laurin Easthom sketches out the scope of work required to diligently discharge a Council member’s civic responsibilities. As she notes, agendas can weigh in at 11 lbs. Meetings are more frequently going until 1am. Preparation takes hours and hours. And the work expands well beyond what most folks usually see – liaising with other […]

  • Trash Talk: Will We Stand United?

    A Lion used to prowl about a field in which Four Oxen used to dwell. Many a time he tried to attack them; but whenever he came near they turned their tails to one another, so that whichever way he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At last, however, […]

  • Airport Conundrum: Southwest Orange County Community Wonders Why

    Sponsored by southwest Orange County residents Tony Blake, Walt Lobotsky, Clifford Leath, Deonna Angelillo, and Susan Lombardo, tonight’s community meeting (WEBSITE) discussing the siting of a new UNC airport, was packed. Roughly 270 folks, from all around the county, attended the meeting to find out the latest on UNC’s (and now, as reported, Orange County’s […]

  • Jim to David: $700 Billion, No How, No Way!

    I write my ‘blog knowing full well that there are many folks more eloquent, more on-point than I will ever be. Jim Protzman, former Chapel Hill Councilmember, BlueNC’r sent this simple request to Representative David Price about the Bush Administration’s $700 billion long con. Dear Congressman Price We were told last week that the world […]

  • Twisting the Zoning Pretzel

    Tonight I asked the Council, once again, to reconsider cutting corners in the zoning process to push their “dense” development agenda. Just as in this Spring’s approval of the new TC-3 zoning district (A Matter of Process: Greenbridge and Council’s Devolving Standard of Public Review), the Council is trying to slide through a far-reaching zoning […]