Candidates for school board get far less attention than the mayoral and town council races. Yes, yes, providing quality education to the next generation, those who will be in charge of generating revenue to fund your dotage, is important to all of us, whether or not we have children. But the decisions the school board […]
All posts for the month July, 2011
School board matters (corrected)
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 29, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/07/29/school-board-matters/
Mayoral slate
Voters have three choices for mayor in November. Here they are, in alphabetical order: Watching Mark Kleinschmidt shake off his Gang of Five mentality and open himself to learning from all of his colleagues has been refreshing. He has held a seat on the dais since he was first elected to Town Council in 2001. […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 27, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/07/27/mayoral-slate/
Challengers
In alphabetical order, here are the non-incumbents running for Town Council: Jason Baker brings experience from serving on the town’s Planning Board, the Comprehensive Plan Initiating Committee and the Transportation Board. Previously, he served on the board of the Orange Chatham Sierra Club and was an officer in the Orange County Democratic Party. In 2008, […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 25, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/07/25/challengers/
Correction and apology
In an earlier post I said that Donna Bell had missed more council meetings than anyone on the dais. But I received the official attendance record today from the town, and Gene Pease won the contest by a long shot. Since January 2010, when Pease and Bell joined the council, through June 27 of this […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 20, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/07/20/correction-and-apology/
Incumbents
Let’s dispel rumors right from the get-go: Sally Greene’s decision not to seek a third term on Town Council probably had nothing to do with freeing up her Monday nights to watch “The Bachelor/Bachelorette” series. Rather, Greene said she has accomplished what she set out to do: convening the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness; […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 19, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/07/19/incumbents/
Court goes to the dogs
Government by gut feeling has spread from the Town Council dais to the District Court bench. Last week Lunsford Long, the newest District Court judge in North Carolina’s District 15-B, covering Orange and Chatham counties, presided over a case in which a pet owner sued Orange County to exempt her dog from a state-mandated six-month […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 18, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/07/18/court-goes-to-the-dogs/
Condo giveaways
You can tell that the real estate market has tipped from a buyer’s market to a seller’s once builders and developers begin to give gifts to buyers who close on one of their homes. The last time the real estate market edged away from the seller’s end of the spectrum, and builders were looking at […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 15, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/07/15/condo-giveaways/
Know where your name goes
A well-designed website can give a veneer of legitimacy to any venture. Just ask the visitors to a sham website that looked convincingly like a site to buy DPAC tickets. Buyers who purchased tickets through the sham site paid more than double the price they would have paid on the official DPAC site. A website […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 13, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/07/13/know-what-youre-signing/
Who controls the condo market?
Whenever a development that includes residential condos comes before Town Council, count on a small but vocal contingent to object to condos being included in the affordable housing mix. Families with children want single-family detached houses surrounded by lawn, this group claims. Adding one- and two-bedroom condos to the workforce housing pool amounts to substandard […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 11, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/07/11/who-controls-the-condo-market/
Goodbyes and good bets
Yet another pizza shop closed last month. Camos Bros. in The Courtyard turned off its ovens in June. The proprietors also own Fuhgettaboudit pizzerias in Raleigh and Cary; the owners are working through some debt issues. The closing marks the back-to-back demise of pizzerias in that hidden enclave of The Courtyard. L’incontro closed less than […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 6, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/07/06/goodbyes-and-good-bets/