This was one of the most interesting questions of the evening. Essentially, what did the candidates think if Mr. Stein was elected to serve only 2+ years of an 8 year term.
Judge Anderson dodged and weaved. Judge Fox left it to the people. Mr. Stein defended the propriety. Judge Baddour, in the most direct and thoughtful response, spoke of how a short-term can harm the system around justice – that beyond the public interest, litigants and court personnel alike will be impacted.
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.
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.
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.
From Kirk Ross’ ExileOnJonesStreet, the fabulous news that UNC Health Care is beginning to take action to live within their charter and restore some humanity to their service delivery mission:
This morning, the UNC Board of Governors approved the appointment of Rev. Bob Seymour, who served as minister of Binkley Baptist for 30 years, to the UNC Health Care board. Seymour was picked for the post by UNC President Erskine Bowles after complaints about the hospital system’s treatment of elderly patients and agressive collection tactics. Bowles agreed with petitioners that a citizen rep was needed on the board.
You might remember Bob’s comments on the aging of Orange County from my recent post Robert Seymour on Our Community’s Fit, Frail and Fragile
More from Kirk.
[UPDATE]
Kind of a bookend to this report from today’s N&O Under the Dome:
Much to the chagrin of the state-supported UNC Health Care system’s critics, the budget year that ended June 30, 2006, yielded a financial windfall for health system managers.
The UNC system paid out more than $2.5 million in bonuses based on financial performance, achievement of quality benchmarks and employee and patient satisfaction.
Health system chief executive Dr. William L. Roper led the pack with a bonus of $110,010. UNC Hospitals CEO Gary Park wasn’t far behind with a $103,632 bonus. Dr. Marschall Runge, president of the UNC physician practice, received a bonus of $101,246.
Scores of lower level managers received bonuses ranging from about $1,300 to awards in the tens of thousands of dollars. Bonuses are based partly on the health system’s financial performance, partly on quality and partly on employee and patient satisfaction.
How about this? Let’s keep the mega-bonuses down for the top administrators while folks are going without health care and the pay for the average UNC Health Care worker underwhelms.
Not quite sure where on Church St. Eric Dawkins was when he was assaulted but the location caught my eye reading Wednesday’s Chapel Hill News police blotter. According to the blotter, the two attackers (since described as two black males, 5′ 10″ wearing black hoodies) beat Dawkins when he resisted and then fled in a light colored sedan.
I work on the corner of Church and Franklin streets – this feels close to home. Last year I wrote a post, Two Neighborhoods, about safety on my corner of downtown – and the difference between my perception and others (like my Aveda neighbors).
Since then the town has increased police patrols downtown. But, between the recent rash of car break-ins, assaults and this third gun-related crime in a month, one wonders if we’re seeing a trend that belies my old assertion that downtown is basically safe.
I hope not.
The good news is Eric is recovering from his pistol whipping.
From Council member Laurin Easthom’s ‘blog The Easthom Page:
At our last council meeting, I read the above history of wireless in town, and gave our new town manager, Roger Stancil, the opportunity to begin a process. He appointed a staff committee headed by Flo Miller to keep the process alive in exploring a municipal wireless system within the context of a technology master plan. Additionally at that meeting, when the Town was discussing the timing of the fiber optic traffic signal system, Kevin Foy reminded David Bonk of our desire to study and consider the laying of fiber along with our upgraded system (for a possible future municipal broadband network backbone.) Now we have a council discussion of wireless and our master technology plan scheduled to be on our agenda at our next council meeting.
Phew! After a recent discussion with some local citizens about the majority of Council’s rather tepid and slow response to reconstituting the municipal networking initiative, I was ready to join with Laurin and start beating the drum for both a exploratory task force and a renewed effort to implement a strategic technology plan for our town.
Looks like Laurin went ahead without me 😉
She also reports that Mayor Foy hasn’t forgotten our strategic opportunity to “tag-a-long” with NC-DOT’s efforts to lay fibre to each of our nearly 100 signalized intersections. This community-owned high-speed networking loop would thread its way through every commercial district, lie along almost every University boundary and penetrate deeply into several underserved residential areas.
Long time followers of my efforts to promote municipal networking will remember that former town Technology Board member Terri Buckner and I focused attention on this once in decades opportunity nearly 3 years ago.
Thank you Laurin for keeping hope alive.
Monday’s agenda will be published here.
Chuck Anderson asks how the current system for selecting our judges (by election) might be modified to better serve the public.
Carl Fox and Chuck Anderson were omitted because I ran out of juice for my camera.
And then the last of my batteries went kaput. I apologize to Carl and Chuck for not capturing their last answers of the evening. My notes of their answers:
Fox – appellate selection – most current appelate judges haven’t served as superior judges, electing of judges then have a retention election
Anderson – unlikely we can change the way NC selects judges – legislative actions – how many folks of high quality are discouraged form running? the current system kind of screens out good candidates – don’t want to expose themselves to election – %85 of electorate (Timson) doesn’t know candidates or issues in current election….
Carl Fox starts with the observation that 9 out of 10 people sitting in his court audience are young African-American males.
“What are we doing wrong that is causing so many males to end up in court and what can we do to fix the situation?”
What experience do you have?