Tag Archives: ChapelHill

ChapelHill, CitizenWill, Community, Media, Ruminations

Greensboro’s Chief Problem

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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.

ChapelHill, Community, Ruminations, UNC

A Healthy Sign, Robert Seymour Appointed to UNC Health Care Board

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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.

ChapelHill, CitizenWill, Community, Ruminations, UNC

Two Neighborhoods Revisited, Church St. Mugging Victim Recovering

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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.

ChapelHill, Government, MunicipalNetworking, Ruminations, Technology

Easthom, Stancil Breath a Little Life Back into Municipal Network Initiative

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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.

Carrboro, ChapelHill, CitizenWill, CivilLiberties, Community, LocalPolitics, Ruminations

Here comes the judge: The Forum – Anderson’s Question

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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….

Carrboro, ChapelHill, CitizenWill, CivilLiberties, Community, Government, Ruminations

Here comes the judge: The Forum – Fox’s Question

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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?”

Carrboro, ChapelHill, CitizenWill, CivilLiberties, Community, Government, LocalPolitics, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Here comes the judge: The Forum – Baddour’s Question

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What is the most important thing, if elected, you’ll accomplish over the next 8 years?

Adam Stein talks about how he can only serve about 1/3rd of a term (about 2 years).

Carrboro, ChapelHill, CitizenWill, Community, EconomicDevelopment, Government, Hillsborough, OrangeCounty, Ruminations, UNC

Madison: Some Smoozing, No Snoozing.

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At least, not much snoozing as participants have reported on local ‘blog OrangePolitics.org.

I appreciate the time and effort Mark Chilton, Gene Pease, Fred Black and Dan Coleman put into real-time reviews.

I hope some of our other “known” blog commenters (Anita, Linda, Aaron, Andrea, Diane ?) get in to the act.

[UPDATE:] Anita and Frances Henderson joined in.

AffordableHousing, CarolinaNorth, ChapelHill, CitizenWill, CivilLiberties, Community, EconomicDevelopment, Government, Ruminations, UNC

UNC’s Board of Trustee Roger Perry: You’re Insulted?

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UNC trustee and local developer Roger Perry said his sense was that UW-Madison officials essentially tell the community that the university’s mission requires it to do a certain project, and then everyone goes to work on preventing negative impacts, without trying to stop the project in general.

He said he’d like to get to that point in Chapel Hill, and that it can be somewhat “insulting” when someone not connected to UNC says they really aren’t convinced the university needs to do what it says it needs to do.

HeraldSun 09/27/06

Perry is insulted when someone outside of UNC questions the whys-and-wherefores of campus development?

What the hell? Near quoting from the authoritarianism playbook, Perry says he likes a community that doesn’t question the diktat of the university – a community that just “deals” with the university’s negative impacts.

Perry appears to long for the day when citizens “shut up” and STOP SAYING they aren’t really convinced about what the university needs to do. My guess? It isn’t the citizen taxpayer questioning the “needs” as much as the citizen taxpayer that questions the “hows” that really inflames his ire.

The obvious sub-text is Carolina North.

The fine residents of our community, the hard-working taxpaying citizens of our State, deserve more than the University’s current flimsy assertions of positive financial, economic and social impacts. From a straight business perspective, for the investment demanded of our community and State, the return is hardly clear.

While I believe the University needs to expand, I have been quite clear that the justifications UNC, to-date, have offered up for Carolina North are, at best, fundamentally weak, at worse, downright disingenuous.

Roger Perry and the rest of UNC’s Board of Trustees absolutely must address the glaring absence of any reasonable, documented, calculable return on investment before I, a single North Carolina citizen taxpayer, will be convinced of the soundness of their plans.

Of course, this is the board Carolina North’s designated quarterback Jack Evans claims can’t handle reading a 15 page list of development principles for Carolina North.

What a trip for the Carolina North boys. Perry’s “shut up” is a fine bookend to Moeser’s reaction to “freelance dissent”.

CarolinaNorth, Carrboro, ChapelHill, CitizenWill, OrangeCounty, Ruminations, UNC

Chancellor Moeser’s “Freelance dissenters”

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Freelance dissenters?

What an odd turn of phrase, Chancellor Moeser.

From today’s soon to evaporate HeraldSun, a story from the Madison smoozefest.

Alan Fish, University of Wisconsin-Madison’s (UWM) associate vice chancellor for facilities planning and management, describing UWM’s “Good Neighbor” policy:

In many instances, the university now goes to residents to talk before it even begins to design a project, Fish said. It sometimes negotiates detailed “memorandums of understanding” with the joint committees, so that the neighbors have spelled out critical concerns before the elected board votes on the project.

“These things are very difficult to do, and everybody has to engage in the process,” Fish noted.

Eleven years ago, UWM was the 1,000 pound badger arrogantly siting new development over existing neighborhoods. Sound familiar? That’s what UNC’s current administration has done, for instance, to the Mason Farm Rd. neighborhoods. Unlike the Moeser administrations historical track-record of creating faux community outreach groups, Madison’s community-university committees sound quite democratic.

Participant Gene Pease reports over on OrangePolitics that “the committees have town appointed neighborhood representatives, city council members, and university representitives. Once it passes this committee, it appears most projects get approved rather smoothly.”

The HeraldSun’s Rob Shapard reports Moeser liked what he heard:

The committees caught the ear of UNC Chancellor James Moeser, who said it sounded to him like a way to get key issues and possible solutions on the table early, so that “freelance dissenters” couldn’t derail a project late in the process. Therefore, he said, “The person with the loudest voice who complains isn’t able to override a constituted process that’s really representative.”

How could honest dissent be anything but freelance?

Historically UNC’s Board of Trustee’s (BOT) have derailed more university-community commitments on development than any other local entity.

I wonder if Moeser thinks “appointed” (UNC’s Board of Trustees) or “salaried” (UNC’s administrators) dissent is qualitatively better?

Carrboro, ChapelHill, CitizenWill, Community, EconomicDevelopment, LocalPolitics, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Madison Smoozefest: The Cost of Aaron Nelson’s Brickless Breakfast

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The Chapel Hill News (CHN) just posted Lisa Hoppenjans’ initial article on the Madison trip (Lisa is one of three reporters bird-dogging the event).

Aaron Nelson once again weighs in on the importance of building personal relationships amongst the delegation:

“There’s certainly room to improve the quality and tenor of communication when we are in disagreement. When you have breakfast with somebody, it changes the nature of the relationship,” Nelson said. “It doesn’t change your disagreement. It just means you’re more likely to talk about it before you throw a brick.”

How much will that brickless breakfast cost?

With a few more details and “facts” than the HeraldSun article, the CHN provides the following nice breakdown of governmental expenditures:

Money spent so far by local governments to send public employees and elected officials to Madison, including airfare, ground transportation, hotel rooms and most meals.

Carrboro………………………….$6,920
Chapel Hill…………………….. $11,805
Hillsborough………………………$2,490
Orange County…………………..$5,588

The $26,803 doesn’t account for the nearly 20 UNC employees (at $1100-$1300 a pop). While the CHN mentions the $26,803 is the cost after the organizers “scholarship award” reductions, it doesn’t list who got the discounts. I’m interested. Maybe the organizers, in the spirit of transparency, will publish the complete breakdown of who paid out-of-pocket, who used institutional funds and who surfed on the public’s largesse.

Included is a funny recollection by former Chapel Hill Mayor (and my neighbor) Jonathon Howes’ of the power of a similar trip:

Former Chapel Hill Mayor Jonathan Howes went on several of the Public-Private Partnership trips. Howes, now at UNC as special assistant to the chancellor for local government relations, said things residents see now in Chapel Hill were specifically influenced by those trips.

The idea for the Downtown Commission, which has evolved into the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership, came from what a similar group of participants learned about in Boulder, he said.

Well, that trip to Boulder was over 25 years ago and not all the folks on 1991’s Council were happy about it.

Council Member Andresen inquired about the Town’s annual membership dues to the Public-Private Partnership. Council Member Werner said approximately $1,200. Mayor Howes stated that the Public-Private Partnership was an organization composed of community leaders, serving as a forum for discussion of ideas of mutual interest. Council Member Werner expressed concern that it was not a Council-wide decision to join the Public-Private Partnership. Mayor Howes said that specific information on memberships was outlined in budget detail information. Council Member Andresen suggested that Council Members provide reports on the out-of-town public official trips in the future. Council Member Herzenberg noted that a full report had been made on the PPP’s trip to Boulder, Colorado. Council Member Andresen said that decisions concerning memberships such as the PPP should be made in a more open manner. Mayor Howes said that if the PPP took any future trips, the Council might wish to consider a resolution on funding and related matters.

The actual evolution was: Downtown Commission (strangled by Mayor Foy’s lead to defund), the unfortunately acronymed Downtown Economic Development Corporation (DEDC/”dead sea”) and, now, the Downtown Partnership (DPC).

Though quite effective sponsoring downtown events, handling recycling, sprucing up Franklin St. the Downtown Commission hit a bump when they endorsed a draconian panhandling ordinance (and produced the interesting 2002 Kaufman report on downtown’s homeless “feeding frenzy of bars, casual restaurants and tourist/university gifts”).

The DEDC, much more University oriented, hit a major bump, including the principled resignation of their chairman – attorney and former officeholder – Bob Epting, when they insisted on carrying out the public’s business behind closed doors.

The DPC, under Liz Parham, has done a much better job. Excepting some inherited issues with 501c3 status/conflict of interest, the DPC, more than a couple decades after the Boulder trip, is living up to its promise.

May the flowers of Madison bloom somewhat more quickly.