Citizen Will

Category: Community

  • East 54’s Virtual Chapel Hill

    Do you recognize the following scene? This is East West Partner’s revisionist view of Chapel Hill as improved upon by their East 54 project. They have provided a cool animation of the eventual East 54 living experience. One small problem. Their Chapel Hill doesn’t match reality. What is it about big time developers and their […]

  • Persons Out of Place

    In my application for Bill’s seat on Council, I mentioned my concern (“Walking is not a crime.”) that the recently announced Orange County Community Safety Partnership program, which trains Town staff and the general public to identify and report criminal activity or other public safety related issues, needs to be careful in discriminating what is […]

  • Jesus Swept. The Devil Dusted?

    Prolific BlueNC ‘blogger Anglico better known locally as former Council member Jim Protzman is now a newly minted novelist. Debut novelist Protzman offers a refreshingly different tale about a man who calls himself Jesus and leads a group of men who have taken the apostles’ names as they sweep parking lots and anything else they […]

  • Filling the Seat: Ten Applicants

    As of 5:00pm, 10 folks applied to fill Bill’s seat. It’s an interesting cross-section of concerned citizens. Amy, Gene and I have worked on several mutual issues before Council. Andre and Loren I know from their advisory board and advocacy work. Don served on the Technology Board with me. With 10 applicants, I expect our […]

  • Raymond, Ready For Service: What Would I Do?

    What would I do the next 13 months? If you look back through the hundreds of posts on local issues I’ve made since September 2005, you will see I’m not short of ideas for positive change. I also have two election platforms (2005 and 2007) and many election questionnaires that contain specific proposals addressing Town […]

  • Gearing of Garbage Trucks and Fuel Usage

    I’ve pushed for not only greater transparency in our governance but greater inclusiveness. Chapel Hill has an incredibly talented community well worth listening to, that is why I’ll be asking Council, again, to reconstitute the citizen budget advisory board to assist in identifying efficiencies and spending reductions to get us through next year. Listening to […]

  • Carolina North: Oct. 15th Comments from Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth

    Julie McClintock presented the following comments on behalf of Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth (NRG) to Council during Oct. 15th’s public hearing. I had to chuckle when NRG’s request for an online progress tracking system stirred Council’s interest. Why? I proposed a work tracking system for Planning when I first got involved in local government 8 […]

  • Private Drive for Public Airport

    One suspicion raised by the local organization Preserve Rural Orange is that the newly proposed UNC airport has more to do with private desire than the public good. UNC’s lead on the formation of an Airport Authority, Kevin Fitzgerald, was already hard-pressed to justify the recent fabulous (as in: “almost impossible to believe; incredible”) claims […]

  • Trash Talk: The Next Waste Management Fight

    Even though local environmentalist have talked about our county’s responsibility to manage its waste stream responsibly – not dumping the problem on another community – I couldn’t find a recent request to the Board of Commissioners by either a organization or an individual to start the process of developing either a new landfill or a […]

  • Trash Talk: Commissioner Gordon, “No Plan B”

    After this evening’s solid waste transfer site meeting, I took a second to ask Alice why she said delaying the final site selection would lead to “garbage piling up”. She had made that statement earlier, in an effort to encourage her colleagues to make a decision by mid-November. Orange County’s landfill is slated to close […]

  • Hwy 54: Trash Central

    The Orange County Board of Commissioner’s narrowed the possible trash transfer sites to three – 779, 759 and 056 – this evening during their special working session [agenda]. All three are along Hwy 54. While I’m quite happy that the Rogers Road community is off the hook, at least for now, I’m troubled by the […]

  • Trash Talk: Will We Stand United?

    A Lion used to prowl about a field in which Four Oxen used to dwell. Many a time he tried to attack them; but whenever he came near they turned their tails to one another, so that whichever way he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At last, however, […]

  • Airport Conundrum: Southwest Orange County Community Wonders Why

    Sponsored by southwest Orange County residents Tony Blake, Walt Lobotsky, Clifford Leath, Deonna Angelillo, and Susan Lombardo, tonight’s community meeting (WEBSITE) discussing the siting of a new UNC airport, was packed. Roughly 270 folks, from all around the county, attended the meeting to find out the latest on UNC’s (and now, as reported, Orange County’s […]

  • Jim to David: $700 Billion, No How, No Way!

    I write my ‘blog knowing full well that there are many folks more eloquent, more on-point than I will ever be. Jim Protzman, former Chapel Hill Councilmember, BlueNC’r sent this simple request to Representative David Price about the Bush Administration’s $700 billion long con. Dear Congressman Price We were told last week that the world […]

  • Transfer Site: Sept. 16th Live ‘Blog

    [UPDATE] The meeting started out with a set of criticisms, especially from Barry Jacobs, about the consultant’s work product and process. “This is not the process we agreed to…” sums up the majority’s concerns. I called for a reworking of both the process and the criteria used to determine the siting of the transfer facility, […]