All posts by WillR
Oct. 16th Superior Court 15B Forum: Judicial Temperament
Oct. 16th Superior Court 15B Forum: Staying Current with the Law
Oct. 16th Superior Court 15B Forum: High Profile Cases
Oct. 16th Superior Court 15B Forum: Punctuality and Work Ethic
Voting Fabuloso Sports Racer Style
Hey fabuloso sports racers, ZeFrank lays out the voting gig:
Greensboro’s Chief Problem: Transparency in the Hands of the Blogsphere
Via Ed Cone, the consultant’s report (RMA) I posted on earlier is in the wild. An anonymously redacted and posted version is available on Greensboro101.
Guarino has a nice precis of the report – says that the report is “remarkable because of its relatively narrow scope”.
Now, the big question, at least for blogactivists: will Greensboro101 need the services of the Electronic Frontier Foundation?
Daily Tar Heel’s Excellent Use of Technology
Even the forward looking journalists at this weekend’s ConvergeSouth could learn a trick or two from our local university’s Daily Tar Heel.
What a great mashup of raw data on drinking violations and mapping technology to simply demonstrate an evolution of a problem.
Well done Tar Heel.
Oct. 16th Superior Court District 15B Forum
A quick reminder of tonight’s Superior Court District 15B forum. This one will be telecast, so I’ll probably not create a bazillion youTube clips like Oct. 11th’s forum.
From the N&O calendar:
The 15B Judicial District Bar will hold a forum for District 15-B Superior Court judge candidates at 7 p.m. Monday in the Chapel Hill Town Hall. The forum will be broadcast live on Time Warner Cable channel 18 in Orange and Chatham counties. George Doyle will moderate with questions coming from lawyers Barry Winston, Nat Smith, Ed Holmes and Sam Williams. You may submit questions by e-mail beforehand to Winston at btw@winstonandmaher.com.
Chapel Watch, Larkspur Connector Kibosh
Developers and neighbors don’t always see eye to eye but sometimes they do
Caught between neighbors’ wishes and town policy, the developers of Chapel Watch Village off Eubanks Road have sided with the neighbors.
Larkspur connectivity was a big deal in last year’s Council race. A candidate (now council member) even tried to duck discussing alternatives (not surprisingly, the same candidate, who “came around” during the race has been awful quiet on ensuing developments).
I support an appropriate level of connectivity between neighborhoods but inflexibly applying our town’s policy in every case to preserve some concept of absolute consistency makes no sense.
As Larkspur neighborhood activist Dmetra Vlachos of Larkspur Safety First observes
“It’s more than a simple connection between two residential neighborhoods because of the commercial activities,” Vlachos said Thursday at a public information session on the Chapel Watch project. “It goes beyond an issue of simple connectivity.”
Why does this go beyond simple connectivity? As today’s News and Observer article outlines
Her group formed last year to protest the extension of Maywood Way in Chapel Watch, which they say would create a cut-through from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Weaver Dairy Road to a planned Town Operations Center and other big employers along Eubanks Road.
Some of my strongest supporters were Larkspurians – I told them I’d keep an eye on this issue until it was satisfactorily resolved.
Though not a done deal, as of today, they’re well on their way to getting an acceptable solution.
Hey, maybe they can get that council member I mentioned earlier to jump on board and help shepherd this initiative through the several committees he serves on as Council representative.
Wonk Heaven: Discussion on BOCC to Max Debt Capacity with County Campus
Yes, local forum SqueezeThePulp often loses its value when “noise drowns signal” and discussions devolve into vitriolic snarkiness (of which, I admit, I have cast a stone or two).
Sometimes, though, there’s a hopeful sign that this “alternative to OrangePolitics” online community is growing in maturity and utility.
A case in point, a Mark Peter’s spawned thread on the recent Board of Commissioner decisions potentially harming our county’s debt rating. The thread, BOCC to Max Debt Capacity with County Campus, draws contributions from former OWASA board member TerriB and apophthegmatic Brian D. Voyce on governmental debt service, debt ceiling and debt oversight.
I believe most residents of Chapel Hill haven’t internalized the consequences of our current long-term financial obligations, the impact of a reduced bond rating and the imprudence of further acquisition of unnecessary debt.
Simply, bonds aren’t “free money” and we’re going to have “to pay the piper” sooner (and greater) than most folks understand.
BTW, TerriB has an interesting rant on public meetings that’s worth a quick check.
Greensboro’s Chief Problem: Transparency?
One of the more interesting aspects of Greensboro’s Chief Wray debacle involves a report (the RMA) prepared by outside consultants for internal consumption by Greensboro’s leadership. Questions swirl around both the legality of releasing the full report on the conditions leading to Wray’s firing and the public necessity of those revelations.
A number of GSO bloggers, current ‘blogger and former Council candidate Dave Hoggard for instance, have called for a redacted version to be released. As the Hogg points out,
After reading the whole thing I’m convinced our City Council should call a meeting and vote to release at least the first 31 pages of the report (Section 1). From my non-legal view, that section of the report confirms Bledsoe’s Rhino reported investigations and presents all of the justification needed for the public to understand why David Wray is no longer employed as our Chief of Police.
Others, like Greensboro’s newest ‘blogger (but longtime commenter), The Conservative Alternative, question the assertions that legal action can and will be taken against GSO ‘bloggers publishing the report “in toto”. The grounds for doing so, at least based on her/his analysis, seem pretty shaky.
My interest is more than academic. As a local citizen working on governance issues, the extent to which I can publish or provide documentation of governmental malfeasance hinges on the legal determinations at play in cases like those exposed by Greensboro’s RMA report.
This is one of the reasons I support the Electronic Frontier Foundation and their efforts to preserve and protect the online community’s First Amendment rights.
Greensboro’s Chief Problem
An update from Ed Cone on my reference to the release of a report on Greensboro’s Chief Wray, his behavior in managing his department, and the eventual breaking of trust between him and the Council. The fall and rise and fall of the leaders of Greensboro’s police force are well documented in Jerry Bledsoe’s Rhino Times series (nicely collated by Ed).
Why do I care about what goes on Greensboro?
To learn how a community, a government and individuals within both groups grapple with a serious and controversial problem. The crux of Wray’s problem appears to have been trust – the lack thereof…
I’ve also followed last year’s Durham City Manager debacle and this year’s Durham DA’s handling of the Duke lacrosse case for a similar reason: to learn how leaders, elected or otherwise, and “lowly” citizens grapple with crippling problems at the highest echelon of their civic structures.
What will I do with Greensboro’s and Durham’s “lessons well-learned”? Well, I believe it has helped sharpen my understanding of internal politics within a governmental organization, helped me focus on the relevant and salient actions of those at the top and, I hope this never happens, helped prepare me, an individual citizen, to step-forward and work with others to sort out similar messes should they ever occur in Chapel Hill.
BTW, it was nice seeing Greensboro’s ‘blogging Council rep Sandy Carmany yesterday at ConvergeSouth. Her community outreach, including her comments on the Chief Wray case, set a standard for elected officials.
ConvergeSouth 2006 – Wrap Up
[UPDATE]
Back from a great meal at Ganache. Fantastic conversations with quite a few participants, GerryC, Anglico, SouthernDem, MisterSugar, Josh, Zabouti, Pam, AE, DB, Ed Cone, Anonymoses and so many others. A highpoint of the day was hearing during dinner the incredible backstory of local ‘blogger Serbian Bora Coturnix – Red-State Serbian Jewish atheist liberal PhD student posting on BlogAroundTheClock. It started with his narrow escape just one week from pre-war Yugoslavia. Bora’s story was initiated by Philly.com’s Daniel Rubin Blinq tale of high journalistic adventure following the fall of Milosovich.
It also appears the GSO “secret report” on police chief Wray’s discharge is out in the public domain. A very interesting story in civic discourse. Dave Hoggard says “What I can tell you is the report is complete, disturbing and damning and city manager Mitch Johnson did what had to be done.” Wow! Strong stuff.
More starting here.
[ORIGINAL POST]
Ed Cone starts by announcing that the “confidential” report floating around Greensboro about their police force will surface on a ‘blog sometime today. A special add-on session is being proposed for after the wrap-up to discuss the release.
As far as ConvergeSouth (and I haven’t eaten yet), it’s been fun but there are a couple criticisms I’ve heard from more than a few folks – criticisms I share of what was basically a good conference.
One, that there wasn’t enough “UN” in this unconference. Folks, including myself, were surprised that room wasn’t made for more ad hoc sessions (at BarcampRDU – time and space was allocated for sessions that each person had to pitch to the whole group).
Two, that while last year there were too many interesting sessions concurrently scheduled, this year it felt a bit threadbare.
There was some excellent give-n-take during the sessions, so some of the “UN” was restored.
If one thing comes out of this years ConvergeSouth, I hope it’s the bit of “social networking” I facilitated during the MySpace session results in an under-served GSO community getting free gear and free access.
Now, off to some beer and then dinner. I’ll follow up with any interesting tidbits coming out of our dinner with Ed Cone.
My dinner partners:
- R.Gregg: Raleigh Chronicle
- John Barbara: johnforcary.livejournal.com
- Jim Buie, jimbuie.net and Senior Editor, NC Justice Center, www.ncjustice.org
- Bora Zivkovic,
http://scienceblogs.com/clock/ - Anthony Piraino, http://www.pleadthefirst.com/
- Kirk Ross, http://www.exileonjonesstreet.com
- WillR, http://citizenwill.org
- Michele Forrest (Chosen Fast)
- Austin Chandler austin_chandler@bellsouth.net
- Zack Exley http://zackexley.com
- Elizabeth Exley UNC School of Public Health
ConvergeSouth 2006 – Social Networking, MySpace
Walked in on Bora Coturnix ( BlogAroundTheClock ) discussing his use of MySpace to identify folk by common Yugoslavian last names and then reach out through th “Add to Friend” function of MySpace to contact them…
Nearly every one contacted joined. He goes on to describe, given the youth of those folks responding, how his profile makes it absolutely clear he’s 40 years-old, a parent, a husband and not some freakish MySpace stalker.
OK, this post got lost in the ether. I’m reconstructing from memory.
Several comments on privacy on social networks. Jen – “as soon as you put your private information in it becomes public…”
Ed Cone – taught kids to treat the ‘net like the local mall – your kids know not to wander off with strangers – real problem is folks don’t understand that interacting on the ‘net is just like the “real” world…
Audience member – it isn’t like the “real” world…when someone is reviewing a college grads history they probably know there’s a good chance that person had been drunk once or twice – that’s OK – it doesn’t disqualify them – BUT if a picture of them drunk shows up on MySpace – that’s it….
Moderator starts a digression on rural Internet access up Edenton way…”there should be an effort like rural electrification to bring Internet to everyone” – I point out that the telcos have been collecting surcharges since 1996 (specified in the 1996 Telecommunications Act) but that they hadn’t fulfilled their obligation and squandered 100’s of billion dollars. I mentioned our Chapel Hill effort to create a muni-network – to bridge the digital divide. A professor at NC A&T asks “what about computers?” I mention that it’s connectivity not computers that we’re short of – that we’re awash in cast-off computers. She says “I want those computers”. Turns out she was part of an organization of 90 GSO churches trying to get computers into the community. They’d tried everything.
Cool thing happens. Several GSO tech people jump in and offer to coordinate getting free gear and free access for her group! There’s about a 10 minute side-bar where various GSO folk do a quick ad hoc plan to make things happen.
I kid the group saying “for the young folk, what you just saw was some old-style social networking”. I really hope the GSO folk rise to the challenge.
Moderator steers the discussion back to social networks. Anonymity, privacy and identity discussion ensues.
Moderator: as soon as everyone can log into MySpace a bunch of “illegal immigrants will flood the MySpace nation” . Audience picks up on dilutive effect of opening flood gates – diminishment of special quality of MySpace.
Student: While she was working with Turner (? Broadcasting) this summer they had their interns search MySpace to report back on prospective employment candidates. They farmed out the job to students because the company didn’t have direct access to MySpace [kind of sleazy, ethically questionable on the company’s part].
Pretty good session. I had more notes that got truncated. Hopefully someone else took good notes.