Citizen Will

Month: September 2006

  • DTH on WIFI: They have a point…

    From Sept. 18th’s Daily Tar Heel by kind permission of Mason Phillips. Nice to see a shout-out to my series on the poor decision to go with the proprietary lock-in NextBus system over an open-standards system. An alternative standards-based system could’ve delivered Internet access along all 23 transit routes – an alternative providing excellent penetration […]

  • Madison Smoozefest or Chapel Hill’s Sleazefest?

    Smoozefest or snoozefest, either way this weekend’s (Sept. 24th-26th [correction]) trip to Madison by our local “usual suspects” appears to be more about building relationships at home than abroad. Most of all, this trip is about building relationships. Not only will participants gain knowledge of what has worked and what has not worked in Madison, […]

  • Hillsborough425: Google Earth Fly-By, Alpha Quality

    Alpha quality? This is my first release of a “fly-by” created with Google’s mapping tool Google Earth [v4.0291.beta], drawing tool SketchUp and published concept plans to model new development in our community. In this case, modeling RAM Development’s 322 luxury condos visual impact. The large McMansion-like teardown, unfortunately, is displacing Hillsborough Street’s affordable 111 unit […]

  • Jim Ward Knee Jerk

    No, Jim hasn’t been co-opted by another AstroTurf organization, he was responding to Mayor Kevin Foy’s remarks on the St. Thomas More Catholic Church expansion plans: Councilman Jim Ward, in a point seconded by Mayor Kevin Foy, argued the issue went beyond Carmichael Street and driveways, to the overall impact of increased traffic on roads […]

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

    That’s the Daily Tar Heel’s Editorial Board. The concept plan to tear down the 111-unit Town House Apartment complex and build 322 new nonrental luxury units called the Residences at Grove Park should be scrapped before any more money is wasted investigating the issue. They share some common concerns: traffic and affordable housing.

  • Chapel Hill Transit: A %1 Solution

    Local transit activist Ellen Perry posted a heads up Car Free Day 09/22 on local ‘blog OrangePolitics. On Friday, September 22, residents of Carrboro and Chapel Hill will for the third straight year join millions of others around the world in celebrating World Car Free Day, leaving their cars at home and using other means […]

  • Shearon-Harris Offline: Who tripped over the wire?

    Local Progress Energy nuke plant Shearon-Harris went unexpectedly offline (or in nuke industry jargon “had an unplanned outage”) this morning: Progress Energy’s Shearon Harris nuclear plant shut down today at about 10 a.m., in the first unplanned outage this year. The nuclear plant, about 25 miles southwest of Raleigh, turned itself off automatically when the […]

  • Hillsborough425 aka “The Residences at Grove Park”

    Plenty of kudzu, not much of a grove. HeraldSun covers some of the issues with RAM Development’s strangely renamed condo-blivium project “The Residences at Grove Park”. I’ve already commented on Council’s need “to be as Caesar’s wife” in handling this project’s approvals in light of their existing relationship as co-developers with RAM on the $100 […]

  • Deeds, not words shall speak me….

    Prolific local blogger Bora Coturnix reveals the back story to the recent CitizenWill post North Carolina Diktat: Thou Shalt Pledge Allegiance. His son was the young student, armed with the courage of his convictions, who calmly asserted his Constitutional right to not be compelled to affirm that which he doesn’t believe. North Carolina’s motto, roughly […]

  • ZeFrank’s Simple, Nuanced Message

    I’m stuck in a video culture. The immediacy of the message, the ability to project nuance, is quite alluring. Today’s low-cost of creation and dissemination has helped unleash citizen’s voices which otherwise would never be heard. Yesterday, I featured Keith Olbermann’s Sept. 11th impassioned defense of dissent. It was a strong, direct, thoughtful yet emotional […]

  • The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street

    Keith Olbermann, Sept. 11th, 2006 – on fire: And anyone who claims that I and others like me are “soft”, or have “forgotten” the lessons of what happened here — is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante — and at worst, an idiot — whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a […]

  • North Carolina Diktat: Thou Shalt Pledge Allegiance

    It is a hollow affirmation that must be compelled. [UPDATE:] I find it incredibly encouraging for our country when a young person, within a deeply authoritarian framework like our school system, shows the fortitude and courage to calmly assert their Constitutional rights. Moreso in our current national anti-dissent climate – a climate fostered by officials […]

  • Municipal Wifi: St. Cloud on Cloud Nine

    So let the naysayers and talking heads let fly, but the little secret that is secret no more is that the results of a carefully planned and deployed municipally owned system delivered free to the citizens as a public service is actually the most successful, beneficial and effective model in existence. So says Jonathan Baltuch, […]

  • Gangs of Chapel Hill

    Last year, unlike most other Council candidates who wanted to reactively deploy our additional police resources downtown in a show of force that was more “feel-good” than strategic, I called for enhancing our forces expertise in “gang management”. For the last few years, gangs, mostly from outside our community, have been involved in some of […]

  • Five Long Years

    Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts […]