Citizen Will

Filing for office begins noon July 6th and ends noon July 20th.

Confirmed candidates for Chapel Hill Council and Mayoral races are:

• Kevin Foy, current incumbent Mayor.
• Sally Greene, 4-year incumbent Council member, ‘blogger.
• Cam Hill (yes, quite a scary snapshot but there was no official site I could find), another 2003 winner and incumbent Council member
• Bill Strom, another incumbent and current Mayor Pro-Tem (foiled, it seems this round in his quest for the Mayoralship)

As far as current Council members, that leaves Jim Ward yet to declare.

According to local political pundit and Chapel Hill Herald columnist Tom Jensen “this election is probably going to be a snoozer in Chapel Hill” (OP) because “it will be an uphill battle since incumbents rarely lose in Chapel Hill and I don’t think anyone on Council has done anything to outrage any broad segment of the citizenry.”

Interesting spin from Tom but maybe he’s right – no one will rise to the challenge.

I helped Bill, Sally and Cam during the 2003 election, so this year presents some interesting contrasts. Strangely enough (cough, cough), Bill, Sally and Cam represented the Town in the RAM Development/Lot $$$5 debacle.

One might assume that they saw this as a career enhancer – it’ll be interesting to see how their white whale plays during the election cycle.

Tom, maybe possible contenders, like the Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth (NRG) Mike Collin’s or frequent OrangePolitics poster and the Planning Board’s George Cianciolo or a few more locally active folks will be scared off by the awesome weight of incumbency.

We’ll see, as July 20th is a short two weeks away.

In the “cooler” (at least according to WCHL‘s Ron Stutts) ‘berg of Carrboro

• Appointed Board of Alderman Dan Coleman (Dan, more content on the site please)
• popular Mayor Mark Chilton
• and newly announced (via the Chapel Hill New’s OrangeChat ‘blog)Lydia Lavelle.

are on deck. Current BOA members Joal Broun and Alex Zaffron haven’t officially said which way they’ll jump though I’ve read that Alex might pass.

Who else might run?

In Carrboro, folks are looking North to Katrina Ryan, a 2005 candidate that more than a few folks thought deserved Dan Coleman’s seat.

Carrboro’s NTA (Northern Territories) have more than a few possible candidates to draw upon, including the newly announced Lydia Lavelle. Lydia, who is coincidentally a partner in Foy and Lavelle (yes, that Foy), threw her hat into the appointment ring with Dan and the Village Project’s James Carnahan.

Will James or former well-liked candidate David Marshall make a run? I haven’t heard though the cool ‘berg of Carrboro would be well-served by their entry.

[UPDATE:] Someone asks “Is that all the potential candidates I can think of?” Not really, but I figure time will tell and, hopefully, we’ll all be pleasantly surprised.

In response to NY Times OP Ed piece promoting the use of a

13-year-old biological technology that stimulates milk production in dairy cows — a protein called recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), or bovine growth hormone. The protein, produced naturally by a cow’s pituitary, is one of the substances that control its milk production. It can be made in large quantities with gene-splicing (recombinant DNA) techniques.

by Herman I. Miller, fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of “The Frankenfood Myth”,a treatise which this review in Crop Science Journal cautions is a bit weak:

A major weakness of this book is that it is written in an overtly propagandistic literary style. Many professionals in agribusiness and academia who came of age in the 1960s will recognize the authors’ anachronistic rhetoric. Those who oppose the authors’ view are labeled as paranoid and anticapitalist. Consumers who fear biotechnology are dismissed as uninformed and irrelevent to public policy. This divisive tone undercuts the authors’ message on biotechnology. The authors are clearly writing to those whom they feel are already sympathetic to the message. The target group thus appears to be readers who intensely dislike regulation and big government. The problem with rallying anti-regulation troops to the Cause via angry and repetitive rhetoric is that the authors may alienate those who read the book with an open mind. Thus, I cannot recommend the book for the classroom and would caution graduate students to look for other data sources.

local ‘blogger and BlueNC‘r George Entenman wrote the following letter which was just printed (reproduced here in case you don’t have access to the NY Times original):

To the Editor:

Henry I. Miller argues that we should “embrace” the use of bovine growth hormone (rBST) in order to feed people more cheaply, save the environment and so on. He characterizes opponents of rBST as “cynical,” but I read Dr. Miller’s arguments as cynical.

I have no idea if rBST is safe. But I do know that the dairy industry and its lobbyists do not want to require labeling milk produced with rBST. In fact, they are so intent on reducing information available to consumers that they are lobbying to prevent dairies from labeling their milk as “rBST-free”!

There’s good reason for cynicism. George Entenman

Chapel Hill, N.C., June 29, 2007

He says “Being the North Carolina hick that I am, I think this is a big deal!”

Hey, I think it’s a big deal too!

Well done George.