A big thank you to the local chapter of the League of Women Voters for an excellent forum this evening. Vicki Boyer, who occasionally posts on OrangePolitics kept the show moving along with a variety of audience questions.
Unlike the Sierra Club forum, the environmental and social justice issues surrounding our neighbors out on Rogers Road (of which I have spoken about numerous times) got a fairly decent airing. The $8 million Downtown Development boondoggle merited one round.
The forum’s format, a round of answers with some opportunity for give-and-take, suited tonight’s questions. I hope the public and the local media take some time to mull over our responses.
There were a few surprises from the non-incumbents: Kevin Wolff bringing up voter-owned elections, Penny Rich suggesting punishing Downtown landlords who wouldn’t fill their storefronts, Matt Czajkowski’s excellent point that Chapel Hill has become introverted.
Of course, the incumbents tried to take credit for all the successes over the last four years while trying to dodge any responsibility or account for any of the mistakes.
Some of the successes – hiring an economic development officer, developing a strategic economic development plan, the Town’s new fiber network – were issues I brought forward first.
As far as surprises from the incumbents, I appreciated Mayor Foy’s complementary observation that I have an eye for efficiency.
Jim Ward’s bit of criticism (Incumbency Is Not Enough or Nineteen Seconds Is Too Long) about the 19 seconds I went over my time on one response provided some humor.
And Cam Hill, one of the negotiators on Lot #5, quoting a citizen outlay about $1 million short of the actual figure (CHN). I’ve been up since 6am and can understand a fumble –
hope fatigue explains his sloppy accounting.
The League graciously allowed me to assist them in posting tonight’s video on the web.
I’m preparing for upload now and expect the full video to be available by tomorrow evening (I’ll post a new article when it’s done).
Oh, and the Sierra Club has since declined my offer to post their forum on the Internet. They plan to do it themselves. I’ll keep an eye on their progress and will announce its availability.
I was recently asked by a close observer of the local political scene what I thought of the power of incumbency.
I mentioned the rather obvious. Watching the incumbents appear at gatherings “bearing gifts”. The several months of the election cycle the incumbents appear, in their official capacity, regularly before the public reminding folks of “gifts” yet to be given. The near impossibility for new candidates, like Penny and Matt, to get a column inch (for me, merely difficult). The incumbents’ meanderings – part of the ongoing story – inserted freely.
That’s why Jim Ward’s complaint, that I ran over 19 seconds on one of my answers at the League of Women Voters forum this evening, seemed a trifling stingy. I didn’t mean to go over, Jim (heck, I even apologized) but you are an incumbent and already bring so many advantages of incumbency to the table! Why begrudge me a few extra seconds to try to complete my thought.
[flashvideo width=”320″ height=”240″ filename=”https://citizenwill.org/campaign/video/NineteenSecondsTooLong_320x240.flv” /]
Funny thing. Ater giving me a bit of “what for”, Jim spent 44 seconds, a full 14 seconds more than he was supposed to, just 5 seconds short of my trespass, answering the same question. Another advantage of incumbency – that moderators defer to already elected folk and will let them plow on – I learned of the hard way in 2005.
[flashvideo width=”320″ height=”240″ filename=”https://citizenwill.org/campaign/video/JimWardsComplaint_320x240.flv” /]
Thanks Matt for offering up your time.
And even though we have very few remaining opportunities to talk to the public during this election cycle, I’ll continue to practice brevity so I won’t have to take you up on your kind offer. Maybe by Nov. 6th I’ll be able to compress my message down to a length suitable for even the most discerning of the incumbents.
Last night there was an unfortunate and possibly gang-related incident at Rosemary Street’s Visions nightclub.
At approximately 1:00 a.m. this morning officers responded to a report of gun shots at Visions Night Club located at 136 E. Rosemary Street. Multiple shots were reportedly fired from a handgun by an unidentified black male suspect after a fight occurred inside. Six victims were treated for non-life threatening gunshot wounds at area hospitals. Some of the victims identified have known gang affiliations. Due to the low lighting and the confusion associated with the large crowd, the suspect exited the night club shortly after firing the shots.
Lt. Kevin Gunter, CHPD
I was relieved to hear no one suffered grave injury.
I was also struck by the timing – it was just one year ago that then Police Chief Jarvies issued this memo [PDF] enumerating the reasons for closing Avalon, a similar venue on Rosemary St. I work close to Avalon and saw the escalation of minor problems into what became the culminating event leading to its closure – the July 30th, 2006 fatal shooting of Kevdrian Swan.
This was not the first incident at Avalon or, as Chief Jarvies noted, 136 East Rosemary St., the then location of Player’s, the current location of Visions.
My first thought was: “What should we have learned from the Avalon mess? Why didn’t our Town do more to prevent another outbreak of violence?”
Chief Jarvies pointed out the Players had the second highest incidence of serious offenses. The plan was to meet with the owners of that club and try to prevent another Avalon type outcome.
Why, a year later, are we dealing at the same location with what could have been a worse tragedy? Couldn’t the Town intervene earlier? Why didn’t it?
Both citizens and the media report that problems – including violent behavior – had been escalating at Visions (and spilling over into the nearby neighborhoods). The pattern was established but the Town failed to act.
As a University town, night clubs are a act of life. The Town should be able to foresee, especially with the growing influence of gangs in the Triangle, that venues like Visions can attract a dangerous crowd. Why don’t we have a standard mechanism for working with club owners to forestall these issues? Why aren’t we monitoring these flash points?
As far as Visions, I’d like to hear more about the incident. The knee-jerk response is to call for its closure – to go into reactive mode – something our Council is quite adept at.
Since we apparently missed an opportunity to learn some lessons from Avalon, I’m asking Council to make an effort to learn from Visions. If these venues are going to be allowed to operate, we should damn well be proactive and be ready to clamp down when we see a pattern of problems developing.
I’ve supported the CHPD’s efforts to become more “gang savvy” (here’s what I said about funding on WCHL).
I called on Council to provide a little “helper” funding to help make the recent Governor’s Crime Commission grant a bit more effective (didn’t happen).
Whether I’m elected or not, I will be asking Council again to support adequate gang education for both our police force and our community. And, as I said one year ago, we need to do more than deploy officers Downtown. We need to re-balance our force to nip issues before they escalate.
That is why I’m encouraged by an objective our Town Manager set our new new police chief, Chief Curran, to “expand the community policing efforts of the department so that community policing becomes a belief system within our department”.
Finally, Office Gunter asks:
Anyone with information about the shooting, please call either the Chapel Hill Police Department at 968-2760 or Crime Stoppers at 942-7515. Calls to Crime Stoppers are confidential and anonymous, and the caller may be eligible for a cash reward up to $1,200 for information that leads to arrest.
Forewarned, supposedly, is forearmed. We obviously missed a few lessons from the Avalon mess, hopefully we won’t miss the lessons of Visions.
