This Monday (Apr. 11th,2011), the Council will have the first of two hearings on the Charterwood development. This proposed development supposedly aligns with the goals set forth in both the Town’s aged Comprehensive Plan and the problematic Northern Area Plan.

I’ve read well over a hundred of planning proposals the last decade and have seen a steady trend of “cut-n-pasting” language from other successfully approved proposals to justify a new project – usually generic snippets from the Comprehensive Plan characterizing some community benefit (“well being”) which is hard to objectively pin down.

Certain catch-phrases become de riguer as time goes on: “transit-oriented”, “green”,”sustainable”, etc. Each used to suggest qualities the project might or might not have but each having been successful in pushing other projects through the pipeline.

Because of that applications usually have a strange quirk, some strangled logic, used to justify a quality the project doesn’t innately possess. For instance, the developers of Charterwood are seeking a “mix use village” (MUV) zone and claim their project, which calls for clearing acres of 100-year growth forest to make way for 282 parking spots, is “transit-oriented”.

As Del Snow, a tireless advocate for northern Chapel Hill (who I’ve served with on several advisory boards), points out in today’s Chapel Hill News, the price of this project should be carefully weighed against all the costs it incurs.

As proposed, Charterwood barely meets the criteria laid out in the Northern Area plan. This is not a compact, dense development which seeks to maximize a tracts potential while minimizing its impact on local neighborhoods, current infrastructure and environment.

One example: the “transit-oriented” layout calls for carving an acre of impervious surface parking lot out of the existing tract of 100-year growth trees – a tract which sits at the headwaters of several local creeks. Another: the potential environmental risk posed by shifting the responsibility for maintaining the current on-site catch-basins in this sensitive area from NC-DOT to a private commercial entity.

As Del said in her guest editorial:

Land available for development is dwindling in Chapel Hill. As a result, we will be seeing more and more applications from developers that stretch the limits of our ordinances and ask us to re-assess our priorities.

Council will have to decide if the public good is best served by foregoing the principles laid in our current planning framework or by sticking with those community priorities which balance the public price against private reward.

More on Charterwood’s zoning application, design goals and anticipated footprint.

Local commentator and involved citizen Fred Black invited me to do a WCHL1360 Who’s Talking segment last week.

It airs this evening (Tues. Aug. 3rd, 2010) at 6PM.

While the subject was supposed to be the Lot #5/140 West project, which is slated to finally get started later this month, Fred used this opportunity to talk about development Downtown, public engagement, and Council.

As I said then and before, I believe Lot #5 presented an excellent opportunity for redevelopment.

I and others argued for a fiscally prudent, environmentally sustainable, community-oriented development that had workforce housing, affordable commercial opportunities, an integrative tenant – like a grocery store – and real public space.

Instead of getting a signature development that met those goals from the RAM Development/Chapel Hill collaboration we got a $10M+ taxpayer funded luxury condo development with little public utility. Architecturally, the project’s look fits the Atlanta beltway more than Chapel Hill – it says little, if anything, significant about our community.

Not only was the business model flawed but so was the underlying commitment to adhere to measurable energy and environmental targets (the Council, unlike what they’ve pushed UNC to do, did not adopt and has no plan to evaluate energy usage, for instance, using ASHRAE or other quantifiable standards).

Of course, I thought that the scale of this development (which you can get a sense of from the site models I created 4 years ago) didn’t fit the human-scale dimensions of our current Downtown. That human-scale is part of Chapel Hill’s ‘brand’ – evidenced by the Town’s own logo – and shouldn’t have been casually tossed without at least a proper attempt to educate our residents and some informed buy-in from the community.

What now?

The Council had many chances to walk away from the project over the last few years as RAM Development missed contractual obligation after obligation. The majority didn’t.

The Council had 2 years to work with local businesses to minimize the impact of the next 2 years of construction. That collaboration just started and already there is some significant friction between the Town and the Franklin St. commercial district.

The public financial burden begins immediately as the environmental remediation begins though the Town’s finances are stretched to the maximum by the majority of this Council’s decision to issue $20+ M in bonds for the Library expansion among others capital improvements. There’s no plan in place to publish those costs as they mount.

Is it too late to do anything? No.

This is OUR project. WE are investing $30-40M in cash and property and have every right to expect that nearby businesses can still function, that questions of public access be finally laid to rest, that every dollar invested by our residents is accounted for and that we have a solid commitment to measuring the success or failure – in terms of tax and parking revenues, energy efficiency, growth of commercial activity – of the project

I did a quick review of my posts on the Lot $5/140 West project and have collected those from 2006 to 2010 below for further background:

June 2010

21: 2010 Final Spring Meeting Chapel Hill Council

12: Downtown Development Framework: Compact, Connected, Anchored and Green

10: Radical Shift in Vision For Downtown

March 2010

09: Sustainability Task Force: The Whole or The Sum of the Parts?

February 2010

03: Chapel Hill’s First Budget Meeting of 2010

01: WCHL Commentary: Library Expansion Next Year or Lot #5 Project, Not Both

January 2010

25: Library or Lot #5?

October 2009

28: Unfunded Liabilities

03: 2009 Sierra Club Chapel Hill Candidate Forum

03: 2009 NRG Chapel Hill Candidate Forum

November 2008

19: Community Oversight of the Planning Board

17: Southern Village: So Long Six Stories

13: East 54′s Virtual Chapel Hill

12: A middle finger to Northside

04: Dec. 10th: The Density Discussion

October 2008

27: Affordable Housing: I Can’t Live In Lieu

September 2008

18: Twisting the Zoning Pretzel

June 2008

25: Council “Off the Rails”

November 2007

14: Chapel Hill’s Resegregation?

10: Closing the Door on Diversity

08: Election 2007: Incumbents Strategy Disservice to Our Community

October 2007

23: Election 2007: Money on the Street

15: Election 2007: Friends of Affordable Housing Questionnaire

13: Election 2007: Chapel Hill News Candidate Questionnaire

13: Election 2007: Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth

12: Election 2007: Chapel Hill’s Diminished Environmental Credibility

11: Election 2007: Chapel Hill Sierra Club Forum

06: Election 2007: Carrboro’s League of Women Voters Forum

02: Election 2007: League of Women Voters Forum Unplugged

01: Election 2007: League Of Women Voters Forum

August 2007

01: Election 2007: Keeping it Simple

July 2007

19: Not Just Real-Estate: Chapel Hill’s Economic Strategy “Chained” Down?

19: Not Just Real-Estate: Chapel Hill’s Draft Economic Development Report

June 2007

04: June 6th’s Closed Council Session

May 2007

04: Another $460,000 for Lot $5: Will Rising Costs Mean Raising Taxes?

03: Carrot or Stick: House Approves Chapel Hill’s Energy Reduction Incentives

April 2007

27: Two years later, Town hires Economic Development Officer

05: Hazardous Consequences: Mystery of the Vault Contest

04: Hazardous Consequences: A Report, a Rushed Decision, a Regrettable Day for Chapel Hill

March 2007

29: Hazardous Consequences: No Official Word, Yet, On Lot #5′s Hazardous Waste Issue

28: Dad

25: Lot #5′s Silver Lining

23: A Matter of Process: Greenbridge and Council’s Devolving Standard of Public Review

21: Raleigh’s Carlton Place: A Downtown Affordable Housing Commitment Worth Emulating

20: Lot #5 Development: “…up through the ground come a bubbling crude…”

19: Lot #5 Development: Two Pictures 1,000 Words Apart

19: The HeraldSun Turns A Corner: Trouble on the horizon at lot 5

16: Lot #5 Downtown Development: Do you smell gas?

14: Municipal Networking: St. Cloud Soars Above Chapel Hill

07: Chapel Hill 2035

07: Giving Kiosk Out, Panhandling Meters In?

February 2007

23: Parking Downtown: Water, Water Everywhere, Nary a Drop to Drink

19: Chapel Hill News: Crushed by Council’s Jagganath

14: Downtown Development: Feb. 12th Council Debate

14: Downtown Development: The LEEDs Trade-Off, AIA 2030 Up Next

14: Downtown Development: Feb. 12th Citizen Comment

12: Godzilla vs. Bambi:RAM Development and Chapel Hill

12: RAM’s VP Casey Cummings – The Sixth Beatle?

12: Downtown Development Intiative: Thank you Sir, May I Have Another?

12: Downtown Development Intiative: Easthom, Ward on Hazardous Waste Liability

12: Downtown Development Intiative: Feb. 12th’s Comments

12: The Sad Story of Council’s Downtown Development Initiative

12: Confidential Lot 5 Memorandum and Notes: Update I

12: Downtown Development Initiative: Listen and Learn How Negotiations Went Awry

08: Confidential Lot 5 Memorandum and Notes

December 2006

06: Downtown Development: RAM’s VP Cummings’ Smackdown

05: The Chickens Have Roosted: Council’s Environmental Credibility Gap

04: Downtown Development: Steamrolled by Jagannath

04: Out-Foxed Chapel Hill Style

04: Downtown Development: Easthom’s questions, questions, questions…

02: Downtown Development Initiative: A Few New Perspectives

01: Downtown Development Initiative: Our Fair City Before Lot #5

01: Downtown Development Initiative: Search for Wholesome Goodness Continues…

01: GoogleEarth Experiment: RAM Development Flybys

01: Downtown Development Initiative: Where’s the beef?

November 2006

29: …water fountains, bathrooms and benches….

28: Chapel Hill Downtown Development Initiative: The Debate

28: Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership: Nov. 28th State of the Union

27: Downtown Development Initiative: Stanford on a Sea of Asphalt

27: Downtown Development Initiative: Culbreth and the Domino Effect

20: Downtown Initiative: $500,000 here, $7.3 Million there, pretty soon we’re talking real money…

September 2006

22: Hillsborough425: Yes, it is interactive!

22: Hillsborough425: Google Earth Fly-By, Alpha Quality

20: Hillsborough425: Daily Tar Heel Says “Scrap the Plan”

17: Hillsborough425 aka “The Residences at Grove Park”

07: Greenwashing?

August 2006

09: This grass is not greener…

06: What Price Downtown? Possibly more than you might think…

06: What Price Downtown? The Mayor Responds.

06: What Price Downtown

July 2006

31: You can’t squeeze orange juice from a turnip….

June 2006

20: Haven’t we heard that before?

19: Session closed under North Carolina General Statute 143-318.11(a)(6)

19: 7:30am Wake Up Call for Downtown Partnership Members

17: Council’s Conflict of Interest? Maybe just a slight edge….

16: Council’s Conflict of Interest?

April 2006

27: Tapping into our community’s aggregate wisdom

March 2006

01: Castles in the Clouds

WUNC’s reporting treasure Laura Leslie (can you tell I am a fan?), made an informal personal survey of her community’s (Garner) “Parlor Games”.

Ripping a page from the big boys (It’s Not A Spill), one “parlor” (sounds funereal) she visited was

“decorated with pictures of craps tables and roulette wheels, right next to the signs assuring you in capital letters that “YOU ARE NOT GAMBLING.”

It appears that in-spite of evidence to the contrary, as long as you post a sign ALL IN CAPS you’re good to go.

In the Sheriff’s race, though, there’s only two candidates, one of which, former Hillsborough/Duke University Police Chief Clarence Birkhead, that deserves your wholehearted support.

I met Clarence several months ago and have had the pleasure of getting to know and support his efforts to lead our County forward. I’m convinced he will work for progressive and cost effective policy changes in the Sheriff’s department to overcome the many existing and new challenges before us.

It is certainly a time for change but not just for change sake. Here are some of the key differences I’ve noted between Clarence and the 28 year incumbent Lindy Pendergrass:

Clarence will effectively collaborate with Chapel Hill/Carrboro/Hillsborough and Durham law enforcement and coordinate response to a variety of common issues, including: outreach to immigrant populations, creating a county-wide task force to deal with the growth of criminal gangs (which are spilling over the County’s border from Durham and elsewhere), using timely intelligence collected by other departments (including UNC) on cross-jurisdictional problems.

His service not just in Hillsborough but as Duke University’s Chief underlined for him the importance of working together over going it alone.

As far as communication, Lindy has resisted deploying a radio system that allows the current Sheriff’s department to call upon Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough’s police and fire departments in an emergency. While Hillsborough police can call upon Chapel Hill police directly, Sheriff deputies commonly route communications through the department slowing coordination.

We can no longer take the rather pedestrian view that law enforcement issues are segregated by region – the County and each of its municipalities must work together, eliminate traditional barriers to collaboration. This starts with doing something as simple as equipping our County force appropriately.

Speaking of equipment, it’s time to update our Deputies bulletproof vests – something Lindy has put off year after year though his department has run a net surplus. Clarence will make sure that our Deputies don’t have to worry if the most basic protection will fail because it’s certified lifetime has expired.

Clarence, as chief of Hillsborough’s police department the last 5 years, is well aware of how difficult it can be to communicate with a department a few blocks from his own and has pledged to make dealing with this communications gap a top priority.

Clarence sought out troubled neighborhoods in Hillsborough, found residents who would work with his force to curtail criminal activity. While Clarence fostered double digit decreases in the crime rate using the power of community, Lindy saw a near double digit increase in the County. Yes, Lindy initiated and grew the County’s neighborhood watch program but hasn’t taken it to the next level.

Lindy, unlike Clarence’s proactive approach, has taken a much more passive approach – his “open door” policy reflects an attitude that he’s the mountain we must all come to for service (Lindy even remarked at a recent forum that he’d be happy to have the police chiefs of each jurisdiction come visit him rather than taking Clarence’s approach of seeking them out – which he did as Chief of Hillsborough’s force).

Neighborhood’s are currently not actively recruited into the program, communications are fairly one-way and problem “hot spots” don’t get due attention. Clarence has successfully dealt with problem spots in Hillsborough by taking a cooperative, proactive approach to not just working with neighborhoods but actively soliciting neighborhood support.

The current department doesn’t reflect the diversity of this county.

Clarence will work to put folks on the front lines that are representative of the community we live in. Not only that, at the recent Orange County Democratic Women’s forum, Clarence declared that his policy is not to let a person’s immigration status be an impediment to helping residents. This includes making sure that ICE (immigration enforcement) is applied only when required by statute. He will not replicate the abuses seem elsewhere in North Carolina.

Lindy, unfortunately, continues to tap-dance around the immigrant issue and has not owned up to fingerprinting misdemeanor suspects – which is generally not required – which can trigger ICE action.

Crowding at the County jail, the only jail for all jurisdictions, continues to be a problem. This is not only a human rights issue but an issue affecting law enforcement in each of our local communities. Reserving appropriate capacity to deal with Chapel Hill’s needs, for instance, has taken a back-seat to using the jail as a profit-center, generating Federal dollars housing Federal prisoners. Citizens pay for the jail, our local law enforcement needs should come first.

I’ve liked what Clarence has said about re-balancing the ratio of Federal prisoners currently housed at the County’s jail to prioritize our local obligations, to maintain a facility that is manageable and doesn’t run the risk of civil rights abuses.

Finally, in these dispiriting economic times, Clarence has shown he can live within his community’s fiscal means to support law enforcement.

What about Lindy Pendergrass?

Lindy has been a steady, professional and competent manager for the department – his campaign reflects that steadiness in emphasizing “staying the course”. As Orange County continues to shrink, his current approach hasn’t evolved to meet the growing challenges facing ALL of our residents.

The primary is May 4th and there is a high likelihood that the Democratic candidate coming out of the primary will be the eventual winner – now is the time to get to know your candidates.

More on Clarence here: http://www.clarencebirkhead.com/

As far as that at-large Commissioner’s race? The field is interesting: Barry, the incumbent, who has worked hard on some progressive issues dear to me; Joal, who has a very professional sensibility and has shown she can be as adept at managing County issues as she was a Carrboro BOA member; and Joe, who has taken the lead on budget matters, including making a clear case for structural changes in outlays, to get us from today’s fiscal mess to a more solid foundation.

They all have attributes I prize and I expect that there is a good chance for a run-off depending on turnout.

As far as Senate, my heart says Ken Lewis though I know he is the longest of shots. Elaine Marshall is a product of the political machine, has routinely avoided taking stances on controversial issues in her many years of service to the State, has missed several opportunities to make substantial, progressive changes our State needs.

The Appeals Courts are two seats I’m still researching. As folks might recall from my posts in 2006, elections for Judges rarely get the attention they deserve and answers, by necessity, sometimes require a level of circumspection that makes it difficult to tease out differences.

I’ll be working the Library poll May 2nd, hope to see you there….

I last saw Yonni Aug. 28th at the commemoration of Chapel Hill’s new Peace and Justice Plaza. We talked awhile about the possible Board of Commissioner’s decision to site the new trash transfer facility in the Millhouse/Rogers Road community.

Yonni Chapman, KeithEdwards, Al McSurely
Yonni’s Picassa, Aug. 28th, 2009, Peace and Justice Commemoration

Fighting for consideration of social justice in the decision-making process of siting the transfer facility was just one of many local issues that Yonni helped our community address. He reminded us of the historical context, stressed that we cannot move forward if we forget where we’ve been.

From Yonni’s on-line profile

Privileged white child of the sixties. Became a revolutionary in 1969 at Harvard. Moved to Atlanta to do social justice organizing. Attended Atlanta Area Tech and became a Certified Laboratory Technician. Moved to Chapel Hill area. Worked in Hematology at UNC Memorial Hospital. Chair of Employees Forum. Did grassroots organizing in Chapel Hill with Welfare Rights Organization, CH Tenants Organization, hospital and university workers, Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, Jesse Jackson Campaign, Fred Battle Campaign for School Board, African Liberation Support Committee, Medical Aid for Southern Africa, Central America solidarity campaigns, anti-Apartheid movement, etc. Attended graduate school at UNC in history. Thesis, 1995, Second Generation: Black Youth and the Origins of the Chapel Hill Civil Rights Movement, 1937-1963. Dissertation, 2006, Black Freedom and the University of North Carolina, 1793-1960. Expert Witness for UNC Housekeepers Movement lawsuit; organized campaign to abolish Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award at UNC; UNC Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth (CHAT); NAACP/Community Church movement to establish a state highway marker to commemorate the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation in Chapel Hill; Town of Chapel Hill/NAACP commemoration of nine local leaders at Peace and Justice Plaza. Member of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Second Vice Chair, Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP and Chair of History Committee. Cancer survivor. Proud father of Sandra and Joyce. Eagerly expectant grandpa.

The Exchange Pool swim team, the Cyclones, came in first once again in the Chapel Hill Summer Swim League championship. The team also won the League Swim for Smiles Award with the girls taking the dual meet honors.

Ellie and I have been “official” members of the Exchange Pool for over a decade (since she was pregnant with Elijah). I’ve always enjoyed the family friendly atmosphere that is an integral part of this simple facility.

When Elijah swam for the team several years ago there were only a couple dozen kids racing. This year there were about 200!

While the kids, coaches and parents took their swimming seriously, I know there was quite a bit of fun along the way.

Congratulations Cyclones, here’s to next year!

Below is my formal announcement, more posts to follow:

Will Raymond Announces Run for Chapel Hill Town Council 2009

Chapel Hill, NC – July 17th, 2009

I am taking the next step in my eight year continuum of public service to Chapel Hill by announcing my candidacy for Town Council.

After listening to hundreds of my fellow citizens during the Sustainability Task Force’s nine recent public forums, it is clear that Chapel Hill’s residents want to move forward on a different path for the next decade.

Moving Chapel Hill forward will require common sense leadership that is innovative, experienced, tested and prepared to follow our citizens’ mandate to change course.

Successfully working with a variety of community organizations, advisory boards, the Town Council and Orange County Board of Commissioners in the past, I have taken on some of the thorniest, toughest and, occasionally, most controversial issues facing our community.

Listening to the community, gathering the best advice, with conviction and thoughtful fortitude, I have been unwavering in my support of reasonable growth policies, fiscal prudence, environmental protection and transparent government operations.

As my understanding of these challenges deepened, so has my sense of responsibility for making sure our community thrives when meeting them.

The next four years finds Chapel Hill at a crossroads. Addressing these four issues will be vital to our community’s sustainability:

• Beneficial Growth – I joined the Town’s Sustainability Task force to help build community consensus on measurably healthy growth.
  
  I know we must adopt balanced development policies that enrich all of our community. These policies must maintain our residents’ quality of life without sacrificing those bedrock principles that have made Chapel Hill shine. As existing projects like Greenbridge and East54 change the complexion of our community, and new projects like Carolina North and University Square come to fruition, we must better honor those values which have made Chapel Hill a sought after community.
  
• Fiscal Responsibility – I know we must strengthen our Town’s fiscal foundations so that we can meet not only the unique demands of the current economic downturn but prudently manage existing obligations. We need to implement a broad range of pragmatic policies, many previously suggested by our talented citizenry, to tighten our Town’s belt – to live within our residents’ means – while also seizing new opportunities to expand our pool of jobs and commercial tax base.
  
• Environmental and Neighborhood Protection – As a longtime resident, I know many citizens see enhancing and protecting Chapel Hill’s neighborhoods as inextricably linked to nurturing and defending our environment. Our Town’s growth goals, though, must be consistent with our environmental policy, with expected trade-offs clearly understood by our community.
  
• Public Participation – I know now is the time to build upon our improved relationship with the University and expand upon the commitment to make public participation central to managing the expansion of UNC onto Carolina North. Carolina North can be a stunning success if the burdens and benefits created are mutually understood and shared. Firming existing relationships, operating in good faith, we can make sure that financial, transit, environmental and social costs are not thrust upon residents’ overtaxed shoulders.
  

I have lived in the Chapel Hill area for two decades, the last 16 years a stones throw from UNC’s Carolina North. My wife, Ellie Reinhold, is a local artist and founding member of the wonderful Hillsborough Gallery of Arts cooperative. We currently live along Mt. Bolus, one of the older (and quite delightful) neighborhoods close to downtown, with our twelve year-old son Elijah.

Ellie, Elijah and I have deep roots in this community. We chose this exciting, diverse, vibrant, forward – looking community to make our home at a time when a couple of modest means could get their foot in the door.

Professionally, the last 21 years I have been a successful chief information officer of thriving startups, a technical manager in RTP, an independent software developer and an entrepreneur.

Negotiating decades of technology boom and busts, I know growing a sustainable business concern owes as much to building a strong, independent, flexible, respected workforce as to watching dollars and cents. We need that understanding to pervade our Town’s operations.

Over the last 8 years I have served our community in a variety of roles:

• Technology Committee – The Council adopted recommendations based on non-governmental examples to annually save tens of thousands of dollars. I championed the Wi-Fi/fiber optic network initiatives to serve economic development and to bridge the digital divide. I also worked to integrate cost saving “open software” into our Town’s operations.
  
• Horace-Williams Citizen Committee (2006) – Along with former Council members Julie McClintock and Joe Capowski, I drafted the committees’ response to Chancellor Moeser’s proposal. I also suggested a number of environmental guidelines which eventually made their way into 2009′s Carolina North development agreement.
  
• Downtown Parking Task Force – Part of revitalizing Downtown is improving access. Along with Council member Jim Ward, local Chamber of Commerce Director Aaron Nelson, representatives of downtown businesses, the University and other concerned citizens, I helped develop a set of measurable, cost effective recommendations for improving Downtown parking – including free parking, courtesy enforcement reminders instead of tickets and better signage.
  
• Sustainability Task Force – I worked to expand participation and increase diversity on the task force so that the final recommendations build upon the broadest possible consensus of what Chapel Hill should look like these next 10 years.
  
• Friends of Lincoln Arts Center – I helped rescue Chapel Hill’s only hands-on arts program and brought attention to the dearth of affordable, community-based hands-on arts opportunities in Chapel Hill.
  

Beyond these groups, I participated as an involved citizen in the Town’s Budget Advisory group, Orange County’s transfer site selection process, the County’s decision to create election districts, the University’s Leadership Advisory Committee and other initiatives with direct impact on our community’s well-being.

Through hard work, due diligence and dogged persistence, I have already helped improve Chapel Hill and seen many of my suggestions integrated into the fabric of our Town and County.

As a member of the Town Council, on behalf of our whole community, I will continue to bring my strong work ethic and proven public service commitment to shepherd our Town through some trying but eventually rewarding times in a way that validates and bolsters our Town’s progressive reputation.

As your representative, I pledge to continue to listen to and cultivate all of the diverse viewpoints which are a hallmark of this community, to work diligently on those key issues to ensure our Town’s viability and to make sure that the door opens wide – and stays open – for folks, like Ellie, Elijah and I, who choose to not only live here but grow and prosper here.

Contact:
Will Raymond, Candidate 2009 Chapel Hill Town Council
willraymond.org
209 Mt. Bolus Rd.
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
919-360-9939
campaign@willraymond.org

The Town released this notification earlier this afternoon:

Proposed Transfer Station Site on Millhouse Road

Mayor Kevin C. Foy has officially informed the Chair of the BOCC that the proposed transfer station site on Millhouse Road will not be considered at the upcoming Business Meeting on Monday, June 22. Given the Town Council’s agenda process there was insufficient time to add this item on the printed agenda and provide the public with an adequate and reasonable amount of time to consider the proposal.

The County has informed the Mayor that, absent official confirmation from the town during the summer, county staff would not invest additional effort or resources into further investigation of the Millhouse Road possibility. However, the County made clear that it will be important for the Town to consider the County Commissioners’ request as soon as possible in the fall, and the Mayor has agreed to add this item to the Sept. 14 business meeting.

There are many reasons, technical and otherwise, that make Millhouse a poor site for the transfer station. If Mayor Foy had spent a few moments reviewing the county’s criteria for selecting candidate sites he could easily have avoided this latest turn of events.

This Council already floated the idea of charging more for Downtown parking, an idea not only at odds with both the Downtown Parking task force recommendations [PDF] (of which I was a member) but also the Friends of Downtown, a group of Chapel Hill business owners and other concerned citizens who want to improve the Downtown experience for visitors and residents alike.

It is clear that Carolina North will shove roughly $800,000 to $2.4 million costs per year (spiking to much more 6-7 years out) onto Chapel Hill’s citizens’ shoulders, but creating a new fee based on your reason for living here doesn’t make sense.

This is an error on Google’s part and they have been notified. It appears an old version of a WordPress (the blogging software I use) plugin triggered the alert. Strangely enough, the code StopBadware.org flagged was actually there to remove possibly malicious comments submitted by others causing problems.

In short, CitizenWill is safe and, hopefully, Google will lift their ban ASAP.

As usual, I’ve read a ton of development related documents flowing out of Townhall and the University, argued for improvements and changes in policy before Council, attended a variety of meetings, as part of what has become the usual routine.

What I haven’t done is keep those folks that read my ‘blog up to date.

I know you are out there, still checking in, thank you for that. Like many folks these days, carving out time for family, work, civic and social responsibilities – what has to be done – requires more and more effort to balance against what we want to do.

That said, in an effort to provide background for local public policy discussions, an occasional counterpoint to other sites take on local issues and another platform for local groups to get their message out, I’m going to try to be a little more consistent and timely with the updates.

Man: An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
Other Man: No it isn’t!
Man: Yes it is! ’tisn’t just contradiction.
Other Man: Look, if I “argue” with you, I must take up a contrary position!
Man: Yes but it isn’t just saying ‘no it isn’t’.
Other Man: Yes it is!
Man: No it isn’t!
Other Man: Yes it is!
Man: No it isn’t!
Other Man: Yes it is!
Man: No it ISN’T! Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.

Funny stuff, easily applicable to real world issues. For instance, I’m looking for more reasoned debate on Carolina North and a little less reflexive contradiction.

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 comment, simply select a name and use a legitimate email address.

If you are new to CitizenWill, your first comment will require approval. After that, your comments will appear directly on the site.

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 a law. Just as important is how an idea becomes a bill. During the 2007-2008 legislative session, 4,993 bills and resolutions were filed, and 884 (17% of the total) became law.  That wasn’t the whole iceberg, legislative staff received 5,693 bill drafting requests from members. That volume of requests has been steadily rising, from 3,401 in 2001-2002, to 3,533 in 2003-2004, up a staggering amount to 5,367 in 2005-2006 and then up to this past’s session’s total.

Fascinating insight into sausage making North Carolina-style.