Tag Archives: OrangeCounty

ChapelHill, environment, Government, LocalPolitics, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Trashing the Rogers Road Community, Again

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[UPDATE: Response to davepr from Orange County BOCC member Moses Carey.

The Rogers Road (MAP) community has long suffered from promises unkept.


[UPDATE:] Embedded video:



At Feb. 12th’s Chapel Hill Town Council meeting
Sharon Cook and Jeanie Stroud defend their Rogers Road community.

As you might remember from my recent posts, the area is coming under closer scrutiny by Chapel Hill, which stands poised to annex the area.

Whether through deliberate environmental racism or just plain old callousness, the Rogers Road community, backing up to the Orange County landfill, has had to deal with the consequences of our garbage woes for decades while original promises, such as keeping the landfill north of Eubanks, fell to expediency in the mid-’90s.

Instead of treating this traditionally black community with the due courtesy and respect they deserve – deserve doubly for both dealing with the noxious detritus of our modern life and the many unfulfilled obligations our leaders made on our behalf – our community continues to give short shrift to our northern neighbors.

In December I attended the kickoff meeting for the Rogers Road Small Area Plan. That meeting cemented my concerns that, once again, the Rogers Road community would be getting the short end of the stick.

Why? Money, of course. From the Rogers Road corridor east towards Martin Luther King (Airport) Road is going to be prime development land. If Chapel Hill annexes the neighborhood before the landfill closes the tax valuations will race ahead of the land resale value. A developer, though, could pick up tracts for a song – sit on them waiting for the landfill to close up shop – and turn a pretty penny.

To avoid that our Council needs to promise to coordinate the annexation time table with the closing of the landfill. Let’s be fair.

Shorter term, the Rogers Road community faces the prospect of a garbage transfer station being sited on Eubanks.

Now, in many respects I’m proud of the strides our community has made in dealing responsibly with garbage.



Strategic operations by the Orange County Solid Waste Management Department, along with our community’s strong recycling efforts, have extended the life of the existing landfill while redirecting various waste streams into beneficial uses – mulching, composting, recycling, etc.

With the anticipated 2010 closure, transferring waste will become a necessity. Shipping it in or out of county entails another set of environmental consequences. Our community must take a leadership role in responsibly dealing with the 25,000 tons – 29% of the total waste – formerly going into the landfill.

Maybe the most effective site for the transfer center is the existing Eubanks road location. And maybe you can make it look “Greek or Roman temple”.

But if the Rogers Road community says “we’ve had enough” then we’re obligated to find an acceptable solution.

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

CarolinaNorth Community Meeting, December 13th: Ecological Assessment

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Earlier this year, I asked the Carolina North Leadership Advisory committee to do an environmental assay of the highest caliber. It will be interesting to see this phase of Biohabitats’ research.

And kudos to UNC for scheduling two (2) sessions to accommodate the public. Yes, they’re both on the same day 😉 but progress all the same. Well done Linda and crew…

Subject: Carolina North Community Meeting, December 13

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Many of you have expressed interest in Carolina North. I am writing to invite you to a review of the draft ecological assessment recently completed as part of the discovery phase of our planning process.

Chancellor Moeser has said that Carolina North will be a model of sustainability. As one of the first steps to that goal, Biohabitats, Inc. has produced an ecological assessment to inform our planning. We are eager to get your input to help us shape effective plans for sustainable development at Carolina North.

To accommodate different schedules, we will hold two sessions. The information reviewed at both will be the same so attend whichever is most convenient for you.

Both sessions will be on Wednesday, December 13th in room 2603 of the School of Government:

3:00 – 5:00 PM. Parking available in either the Hwy 54 Visitor Lot or n the Rams Head deck.
6:00 – 8:00 PM. Parking available in the School of Government parking deck.

Information on transit service to the School of Government is below.

If you are a neighborhood or community contact, please forward this to your group as well as any others who may be interested. We hope for extensive participation from the community. My apologies in advance to those who may receive duplicate emails.

Although an RSVP is not required, it would help with meeting logistics if you would contact Tiffany Clarke at tclarke@email.unc.edu. If you have questions about the review session content, please contact Mary
Jane Felgenhauer at mfelgenhauer@fac.unc.edu.

For Carolina North information, visit our web site at http://carolinanorth.unc.edu <http://carolinanorth.unc.edu/> . To learn more about our current planning efforts and our consulting team, click on Technical Workshops.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you would like more information. We know there is great community interest in Carolina North and look forward to working with you at this early stage.

Best,

Linda

The School of Government is served by numerous bus routes, including the FCX, HU, V. S and the RU. The U and G are available for the early session only. Please check the Chapel Hill Transit site at www.townofchapelhill.org <http://www.townofchapelhill.org/> for details.

Linda Convissor
Director of Local Relations

Linda_Convissor@unc.edu
CB# 6225
919-962-9245

CarolinaNorth, ChapelHill, CitizenWill, Community, environment, Government, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Rogers Road: Mapping Out the Future

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This Monday (Dec. 4th), Council will take up the composition the Roger Road Area Task Force, I posted on earlier, and the possible future annexation of the eastern side of Rogers Rd.

If you’re interested in working with the Rogers Road community to correct these longstanding problems, Monday would be a great time to turn out and let your views be heard.

Click images to expand.

CarolinaNorth, Carrboro, ChapelHill, CitizenWill, Community, EconomicDevelopment, OrangeCounty, Ruminations, Technology

GoogleEarth Experiment: RAM Development Flybys

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This is still very raw, but I thought I’d put out this demo to stir some thought within the community. Visualization tools like GoogleEarth (GE) can help remove some of the difficulty in assessing the visual impact of new development.

Our town’s planning department has the raw data needed to create a GoogleEarth representation of our town which I plan to massage and then release into the public domain for other citizens to elaborate on.

Why GoogleEarth?

While GE is a proprietary tool, the datasets it uses are exportable. So, Google owns the tool, not the data.

Our planning department should be creating GE or NASA Wind World representations of Chapel Hill as a matter of course – it would help both them and the community create a common visual-based framework for development discussions.



The free and OSS tools used:

GE has a movie making module but that requires an upgrade to GE Pro at $400 per year (not quite ready for that…)

Carrboro, ChapelHill, Community, Government, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Rogers Road Small Area Plan: It’s about time…

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The Rogers Road community has taken it in the chin for way too long. The promises extended these residents when the landfill expanded into their backyards have never really been fulfilled. Decades old problems with sewage and other infrastructure continue to persist.

Finally, a structured process is being developed to deal with some of Chapel Hillian’s closest neighbors:

11/30/2006 — The public is invited to an open house from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 7, at the Faith Tabernacle Oasis of Love located at 8005 Rogers Road to discuss planning for the Rogers Road area.

In the coming months, the Town of Chapel Hill will launch the discussion to begin the process of drafting the Rogers Road Small Area Plan, which is expected to involve intensive community participation. The plan would provide a vision and guidelines for the future development of the area, including the Greene Tract, and take a detailed look at the impacts of providing public services, especially sewer, and of developing an affordable housing site.

The Greene Tract is jointly owned by Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County. In 2002 the Chapel Hill Town Council adopted a concept plan for the Greene Tract which stipulated that about 18 acres of the 170 acres in the Greene Tract would be set aside for affordable housing and about 86 acres would be set aside for open space.

The Chapel Hill Town Council is soliciting residents to serve on the Rogers Road Small Area Plan Task Force. The composition of the task force, to be approved by the Chapel Hill Town Council, will include residents from the Rogers Road area, elected officials from Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County, non-profit housing representatives, and other citizens of the greater community.

Planners anticipate that the Town Council will appoint members to the task force in January 2007, with the first meeting to be held shortly thereafter. The process to develop the Rogers Road Small Area Plan may take approximately 17 months to two years. Residents interested in serving on the task force are encouraged to call the Chapel Hill Planning Department.

Anyone unable to attend the open house may contact the Town of Chapel Hill Planning Department to express their views, to gather more information, or to apply to serve on the task force.

Contact Frost Rollins at (919) 968-2728 or e-mail frollins@townofchapelhill.org.

Community, Media, OrangeCounty, Ruminations, Technology

Herald-Sun Editor Robert Ashley gets an earful from CitizenWill…

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Went to an interesting Downtown Partnership sponsored Safety Forum this morning, the notes of which I’ll post later…

While there I had the pleasure of meeting the Herald-Sun’s Robert Ashley.

Poor guy. He probably wouldn’t have sat next to me if he’d known I was going to give him an earful about the Herald-Sun’s on-line linking policy.

As I recently wrote, cutting the community off from their historical narrative is not only selfish, it is bad business. Robert disputed my “bad business” assertion, telling me the HS makes plenty from their archival content.

Ouch! I’ll bet whatever paltry sum they’re making from paywalling, the ill will they’re generating amongst both their on-line readership and those, like myself, that are FREELY steering customers (“eyeballs”) their way far outweighs the traditional business value of hiding content from the greater ‘net-world.

Already folks who want to reference HS articles are either, one, skirting fair-use provisions excerpting enough of the content to bolster their points or two, turning to other media outlets with far friendlier community-service oriented policies.

Doc Searls, always an entertaining and insightful commentator on new media, wrote recently about the cracks forming in the paywall and why, sans community service, paywalling is dumb business:

That’s why I’ve tried to limit the argument to the real trade-offs involved. This has nothing to do with “citizenship.” It has everything to do with the facts of publishing life, where the Web is a larger and larger context. Newspapers and magazines make some money by selling old stories through Lexis-Nexis and Dialog. But they make most of their money from advertising and subscriptions, which might both increase if archives are exposed to the Web.

Robert, if you’re reading this, I want to emphasize that I’m your ally.

I want to strengthen all our local journalistic enterprises – to help your institution make the leap from a manufacturer of paper and ink products to a valued community service provider. But you need to make the move soon…new media is moving at Internet speeds and it won’t be long before your backwards policy is irrelevant.

At the end of it all, if the Herald-Suns and News Observers of the world want to cut off their “long tail”, so be it…

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

Election Day 2006: Hogan Farms and Beyond…

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Covered Hogan Farms from 6:45am to 9:45am. BOCC candidate Jamie Daniels was handing out material until roughly 9am. Stein supporters covered the precinct from 7ish on. The Democrats staffed a table handing out sample ballots the whole time I was there…

As of 9:35am, 300 confirmed voters with another 10-15 milling about waiting to go. When I called in to report the numbers to O.C. Democratic headquarters, was told the 10am figure was 369.

Hogan Farms has a nice setup – including hot coffee. A welcome bit of hospitality considering the temperature and rain began falling in earnest as I left. Judge Baddour was getting some good support. So to folks voting NO on the districting referendum. A welcome surprise.


2AM Chapel Hill Library – Prepping Signs

[UPDATE: ] Moved the rest of the photos here.

The rain has let up a bit. I’m hoping most of it has swept through by 4:30pm when Elijah and I start working Chapel Hill library (Estes Hills – my home precinct).

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

Please Vote Tuesday, November 7th, 2006

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For my RSS reading readers ;-)!

Find your precinct HERE .

Please vote Tuesday, Nov. 7th. Polls are open 6:30AM until 7:30PM.

  • Vote NO, NO, NO on either of the divisive Orange and Chatham county districting referendums.
  • Vote YES for Baddour and Anderson Superior Court District 15B.
  • Vote YES for Vanderbeck commissioner Chatham District 4.
  • US Congress District 4: Wish I could write-in Kanoy
  • State Supreme Court Chief Justice: Parker
  • State Supreme Court Associates: Timmons-Goodson, Martin and Robin Hudson (over Calabria based on tenor towards capital cases)
  • State Court of Appeals: Bob Hunter and Stephens
  • State Senate: Kinnaird
  • Orange County Sheriff: Pendergrass (like Parker’s emphasis on reducing turnover and using technology but unsure about other issues)
  • Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor: Snipes and Shooter

Precinct locations for Orange County and SAMPLE BALLOT
Precinct locations for Chatham County and SAMPLE BALLOT

Note precinct changes: More information here.

  • Battle Park precinct votes at the Chapel Hill Senior Center 400-A S. Elliott Road Chapel Hill for the November 7, 2006 Election only.
  • Coles Store precinct have been split into two precincts.
    The School Districts divider line determines your precinct and voting location:

    • If you live in the Orange County School District (to be known as Coles Store 1 Precinct), you will continue to vote at the Union Grove Methodist Church, 6407 Union Grove Church Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.
    • If you live in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro School District (to be known as Hogan Farms Precinct), you will now vote at the Lake Hogan Farms Clubhouse, 101 Commons Way Dr, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.

The Superior Court District 15B candidates are:

Baddour and Stein 3rd Quarter campaign finance reports.

Fox’s 3rd quarter report [PDF] was available by Friday.
Anderson’s 3rd quarter [PDF] just today (Nov. 6th) [UPDATE:] Tom Jensen on OP informs us that the report was available Saturday.

Videos and commentary on Oct. 11th’s Superior Court District 15B UNC Young Democrats forum.

Videos and commentary on Oct. 16th’s Superior Court District 15B Bar members forum.

Carrboro, ChapelHill, Chatham, CitizenWill, CivilLiberties, Community, Elections, Government, Hillsborough, LocalPolitics, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Sign, Sign Everywhere a Sign…

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This time last year I was catching 14 winks in preparation for election day.

Earlier in the evening I had made the rounds collecting my outlying signs for redeployment. About 3 hours from now, I was leaping out of bed to fill some balloons, say a hasty goodbye to the family and rush to pick up local activist Tom Jensen ( thanks again Tom for kindly assisting with the last round of sign deployments at every municipal polling station).

It was the start of one of the longest days in my life. Exhilerating, enjoyable, extraordinary, engaging – the hospitality and good cheer of the citizens of Chapel Hill made the long hours fly by.

The beautiful fall weather was an incredible bonus.
Continue reading Sign, Sign Everywhere a Sign… →

Chatham, CivilLiberties, Elections, environment, LocalPolitics, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Election Signs 2006, Care And Feeding

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Maintaining election signs feels like an art form.

During the 2005 election season, I plotted various energy saving routes to “care and feed” for my signs as I drove around town on regular errands. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

I didn’t just fix my own signs. Heck, at one point I’d repaired or reset more of Ed Harrison’s signs than mine and every other candidates combined! Why? While to some the signs are just so much roadside rubbish, to me they represent not only a major campaign investment ($2-$8 per sign) but a valuable, if limited, form of communication.

Folks gained name recognition from my catchy slogan, read various intended and unintended meanings into my “daisy” design and followed my website URL ( now campaign.willraymond.org ) to find out more about my positions (and to get a real-time report on my finances).


Election 2005

Every candidate, as long as they follow the generally reasonable rules of signage, deserves the courtesy of publishing that limited message without interference. Sure, the “message” is sometimes lost due to poor implementation – like Ed’s short-staked slanted signs that easily tilted and wilted and fell under the merest of pressure – but, unfortunately, the weather doesn’t account for all sign damage.

While focusing on sites with Judge Baddour’s and Anderson’s signs, I’ve continued to repair all candidates’ signs – whether I support them – like Ellie Kinnaird – or don’t – like Steve Acuff. Baddour’s signs, some up for the whole duration, have weathered well. To date, my worst problem has been keeping ones up both on the corner of Estes/MLK and at the end of Mt. Bolus Rd. Those signs, unlike others I find in the woods or ditches, vanish. Anderson’s have done fairly well, though the cardboard they’re made of seems to get awful droopy in the wet.

Continue reading Election Signs 2006, Care And Feeding →

Carrboro, ChapelHill, CitizenWill, CivilLiberties, Elections, LocalPolitics, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Vote No on Orange County Districting Referendum, Another No from Katz

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A resounding NO from former Orange County Democratic Party chair Barry Katz in his Oct. 28th LTE to the Chapel Hill News:

I will vote no on the ballot referendum to restructure the Orange County commissioners.

First, there hasn’t been enough public debate on the merits of change, and I oppose change without voters’ understanding its consequences. Second, since the mid-1930s, The Chapel Hill News has reported countywide contests between candidates in favor of funding schools, health clinics, etc., and candidates who oppose raising taxes to fund such services. Most years the pro-funding candidates win and they do it with support from all parts of the county, albeit with greater support in southern Orange. So this is an old story.

Third, my six years on the county Planning Board suggests to me that underlying the push to change how county commissioners are elected are residents who are concerned about “restrictive” land-use planning and the rights of landowners to do what they want with their land. I joined the board as a skeptic regarding land-use planning and left a confirmed proponent of strategic land-use planning. We have only to look at Wake County to see how unregulated growth leads to urban sprawl, a lack of public transportation and too little public open space.

Orange County has been in a decades-long urban-suburbanizing transition that will continue past my lifetime. Agriculture now accounts for about 1 percent of the county’s economy, but the value of agricultural land has skyrocketed in recent decades due to residential housing demand. “Recent residents,” i.e., people whose grandparents weren’t born in Orange County, constitute a strong majority of voters and now determine the outcome of local elections, as is only proper. Not only would new and future Orange residents benefit from planning, but agricultural landowners would enjoy sustained maximum land values if the quality of life stays high in the county, as would occur under a thoughtful land use plan.

I hope landowners recognize the practical truth in this notion. — Barry Katz, Chapel Hill

CivilLiberties, Elections, Government, LocalPolitics, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Vote No on Orange County Districting Referendum

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Thank you Orange County League of Women Voters for sponsoring tonight’s forum.

There were 15-20 folks in the audience this evening, including former BOCC candidate Artie Franklin, current BOCC candidate Jamie Daniel and Superior Court District 15B candidate Chuck Anderson.

Fright-night, referendum style, came a day late as Moses Carey pretty much reprized his earlier “debate” performance pulling out the legislature as bogeyman. In Moses’ scenario, the legislative demons will swoop in if the referendum dies, reject the voters will and steal our ability to choose alternatives.

Backing off an earlier claim that independent runs would be easier, tonight he just claimed it would be slightly easier. It won’t be. Technically it’ll take %5 of 88944 registered voter signatures to even get on the ballot. Strangely enough, that’s more signatures than it would’ve taken to win a District 2 spot in this year’s primary.

Once again, he asserted the best way to unite the county is to divide it, contrary to the lunacy our southern neighbors in Chatham county are going through…

Though he acknowledged helping craft a 1993 recommendation to use this alternative voting method, he characterized my claim that cumulative voting opens doors to minority voices as pure speculation. Further, he rejected my claim, once again saying it was pure speculation, that evidence to the contrary and in spite of wide usage throughout the world – our country – in corporate governance, the method is better than districting in apportioning representation.

He did recant and admit that the expansion of the board and districting could be voted on separately.

He also agreed that the “1 person, 1 vote” didn’t accurately capture the real exercise of voting power – a side-effect which allows fewer voters in District 2 to elect a candidate than candidates in District 1 (this given that winning the Democratic primary is “de facto” winning the general election).

Moses did surprise me with his suggestion that Orange County citizens weren’t up to understanding cumulative voting – that it was too confusing – and that they couldn’t be educated.

After presenting the only option in defeat as sticking with what we have, I asked him directly what would stop the BOCC, 24 hours after the referendum’s defeat, from starting over and incorporating the best ideas for selecting and electing a diverse slate of candidates.

He ducked that direct question and a subsequent one from the audience: “What will you do if the referendum is defeated?”

When asked the same question I made the following pledge:

If the referendum is defeated I will appear at the first BOCC meeting after the election and ask for:

  • Expansion of the board to seven members
  • Non-partisan elections
  • Cumulative voting
  • Immediate implementation of rural and urban super-precincts

If we pass this referendum, additional reforms will not be implemented. If we pass this referendum, rejecting proven and practical alternatives which emphasize coalition building, then we’ll have consciously created a house divided.

Please don’t be fooled by the sugar-coating, board expansion, around this bitter pill, institutionalized divisiveness and disenfranchisement.

Vote NO on the Orange County districting referendum.

Community, Elections, Government, LocalPolitics, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Judge Calabria, FairJudges.net and the problem of 527 monies

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From todays New & Record (11/01/06):

An independent political organization called FairJudges.Net began airing the ad this week. By promoting four Supreme Court candidates, it upsets a system meant to create a level playing field in judicial contests. Watchdog groups are up in arms.

“Democracy North Carolina believes the activities of FairJudges.Net are a disturbing and unhealthy development for judicial elections in North Carolina,” director Bob Hall said.

The N.C. Center for Voter Education called on “those responsible to stop airing these advertisements,” executive director Chris Heagarty said.

Even a beneficiary, Chief Justice Sarah Parker, wasn’t pleased. “If I had my druthers, I’d prefer to run my own campaign and plan my own strategy without unsolicited help from outside parties,” she said. “It would suit me fine if the ads did not run.”

The ad promotes “fair judges,” naming Parker, Mark Martin, Patricia Timmons-Goodson and Robin Hudson.

Judge Calabria is so far the only judge to respond to my email on the possible deceptive campaigning practices over at Morehead Planetarium.

The injection of big money in judicial races is a concern – that’s why NC switched to “voter-owned” judicial elections (at least for some judicial positions).

The complaint puts a major test on the state’s public financing system, adopted two years ago and touted as a way to remove partisan and big money influence from the courts.

Participants in public financing are allowed to raise a maximum of about $70,000 in contributions. The state then chips in, giving candidates for Court of Appeals about $144,000 and Supreme Court chief justice hopefuls about $217,000.

WRAL5, 11/01/06

The end-run, legal though it may be, around these limits is troubling – something acknowledged by the chair of the organization former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Burley Mitchell:

FairJudges.Net, chaired by former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Burley Mitchell, says its mission is to provide “positive, accurate, bipartisan information about judges.”

That isn’t how Levinson sees it. In asking the state for additional funds, he protested that 527 spending bypasses “public financing restrictions and guidelines …”

He’s right. The playing field has tilted. This also pushes judicial politics into a potentially troubling realm, where special-interest groups can spend millions to sway voters.

In West Virginia two years ago, a 527 group funded with more than $2 million from a coal company executive helped defeat a Supreme Court justice. It prompted the legislature to enact tougher restrictions. North Carolina might have to do the same, at least barring 527s from pouring money into last-minute ad campaigns.

Mitchell conceded Wednesday that “527s generally should be of concern to people” but defended the ad as “nothing but positive.”

It may be, but the prospect of big-money, special-interest influence in judicial elections should raise a hue and cry every time.

N&R, 11/02/06

ChapelHill, CivilLiberties, Elections, LocalPolitics, NationalPolitics, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Fool me once, shame on you…: Possible Republican Judge Election Trickery

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According to WCHL1360 some kind of organized tomfoolery is going on at the Morehead Planetarium polling place

Some students from UNC Chapel Hill are working to get votes for Conservative judges, but are not always transparent in their efforts.

Chapel Hill attorney Bob Epting says a young woman approached him outside the polling place and asked if he was a Democrat.  When he said yes, she gave him a list of candidates.

The implication was the list was of progressive judges (essentially Democrats) in this non-partisan race.

Fred Black relates the following over on OP:

Yesterday when I voted at Morehead (#996 since Oct. 23d), there was a young lady on the edge of the parking lot. She asked me if I was going to vote and I replied that I was. She handed me a small piece of paper that listed Duke, Martin, Levinson, Calabria, Bailey, and Stroud. With the DTH and the WCHL story as background, I asked if the named people were all Republicans. She said that she thought so but their’s are nonpartisan races. I asked her what organization she represented and she said she was just helping her friend who was in class.

More information on this BlueNC and OrangePolitics threads.

With the current vote flipping problems in Arkansas, Missouri, Texas and Florida – all biased towards Republican candidates – one has to wonder if the Morehead trickery is the least of election 2006 problems.

That said, I’ve gone ahead and contacted the campaigns of Duke, Martin, Levinson, Calabria, Bailey, and Stroud in case they weren’t aware of folks scamming the electorate in their name.

Their handling of this mess will be a great indicator of their willingness to cultivate public trust both in the election and judicial process.

Contact information:

  • Judge Duke – www.rustyduke.com judgeduke@rustyduke.com
  • Justice Martin – www.justicemarkmartin.org mmartin@justicemarkmartin.org
  • Judge Levinson – www.justicelevinson.org campaign@justicelevinson.org
  • Judge Calabria – www.calabria4judge.com amcalabria@nc.rr.com
  • Judge Bailey – www.judgekrisbailey.com judgekdb2006@nc.rr.com
  • Judge Stroud – www.judgestroud.com JudgeStroud@aol.com

Mailto link: MAIL the JUDGES.

My email:

RE: Apparent organized effort to deceive Orange County voters
TO: Judge Duke, Justice Martin, Judge Levinson, Judge Calabria, Judge Bailey, Judge Stroud

According to local media reports (WCHL1360 – http://www.wchl1360.com/details.html?id=2124 ) and several eyewitness reports ( http://orangepolitics.org/2006/11/republicans-attempt-to-deceive-orange-county-voters/#comment-65383 ) , an organized effort is being made in Orange County to deceive voters in your name. A list of your names is being presented to Democratic voters in a fashion meant to mislead uninformed voters into voting for you.

Given your current standings as judges, given the responsibility you’ve been entrusted with, given the tenor of all your campaigns, I imagine this tomfoolery comes both as a surprise and a disappointment.

Now that you are aware of the problem, would you please publicly ask the participants to desist? A quick resolution to this problem will serve the public well.

Thank you for your prompt attention,

Will Raymond
Independent, Orange County

CivilLiberties, Community, Government, LocalPolitics, OrangeCounty, Ruminations

Nov. 1st: Carey, CitizenWill and the 2006 Redistricting Referendum in Hillsborough

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I’m once again on the hot seat tomorrow as pro-referendum Orange County Commissioner Moses Carey (and legions of staffers) try to counter my pro-democracy arguments against local election redistricting 😉

Seriously, if folks walk away understanding how this redistricting actually diminishes “small d” democracy, distorts voter-power, potentially overweights rural influence and that other, better, alternatives were not adequately entertained, I’ll be satisfied.

Since the last “debate”, Commissioner Carey has reversed his previous assertion that the expansion of the board to seven members and the districting must be done together – it doesn’t. He did assert, evidence to the contrary (look southward to Chatham for instance), that districting isn’t divisive and that this referendum is the best way to promote minority representation. Again, alternatives, like cumulative voting, do a much better job promoting minority voices without sacrificing “small d” democracy.

Finally, based on this WCHL1360 [MP3] interview, Moses appears to have no idea or desire to carry forward with increasing local democratic access to our government if this referendum should fail.

Hey, at least he didn’t use the NC legislature as bogeyman argument.

ELECTION FORUM — The League of Women Voters-ODC will host an educational forum on the November referendum on district elections for Orange County commissioners at 7 p.m. in the Orange Water and Sewer Authority conference room, 400 Jones Ferry Road in Carrboro. A second forum is scheduled for Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. in the F. Gordon Battle Courtroom, 106 E. Margaret Lane in Hillsborough.

Map to tomorrow’s meeting.