VOE now DOA

11 Comments

1. 

   George Entenman

    /  July 23, 2012

   Pretty much the worst grab-bag of arguments that I’ve seen in a long time. Getting rid of public financing is supposed to help working class candidates? Get rid of public financing because the town has some wasteful programs – how does that follow? Only family and friends supported publicly-financed candidates? Who won?

   Please take some summer courses in journalism school. (But thanks – sincere – for reporting on the town council.)

2. 

   Terri Buckner

    /  July 24, 2012

   C’mon George. It’s entirely possible to support the concept of voter-owned elections (which I do) but recognize that Chapel Hill has never been a good candidate for the experiment. To the best of my recollection, Jason Baker is the only candidate who actually needed VOE in order to run for office and he lost. The others who used it either have personal sources of wealth or already had name recognition which is more important than cash as Jim Ward has shown.

   Campaign money has never been an issue in Chapel Hill or Carrboro politics. The highest price election in the town’s history came about after VOE was instituted.

   VOE hasn’t brought more diversity to council as it was intended to do either. It might in other communities, but as long CH council meetings last 6+ hours and the outside time obligations make it difficult for someone to work a full time job and have quality time with family, campaign money isn’t the source of our problem. Until time commitments are addressed, we could double or even triple the public funds for campaigning and still wouldn’t attract working class citizens to the job.

   As for Nancy’s journalistic skills, I appreciate the fact that she is willing to step outside the main stream and challenge certain “progressive” issues like VOE. I get incredibly tired of the attitude that anyone has the political courage to step on “progressive” toes, like Nancy and Matt C do, is either conservative or inept.

3. 

   DOM

    /  July 25, 2012

   Well said, Terri.

4. 

   Anita Badrock

    /  July 25, 2012

   Ditto Terri.

   And I have to say that I personally do not understand why Council meetings run so long. I think this is a real problem that the Council should spend some of its lengthy meetings addressing. I’ve regularly attended Council meetings in Asheville and they don’t last this long–and Asheville sure has plenty of business to attend to, a very active citizenry, and is considered a pretty groovy and happening place by most.

   The length of meetings is a real barrier to true citizen participation.

5. 

   JWW

    /  July 26, 2012

   “VOE hasn’t brought more diversity to council as it was intended to do either. ”

   I am usually unclear what folks mean when they use the word “diversity”. Are you simply talking about skin color differences?

   Or would “diversity” include religious affiliations and/or age differences and/or political viewpoint and/or socioeconomic and/or education attained or ??

6. 

   Nancy Oates

    /  July 26, 2012

   Good point, JWW. As I wrote in my column for last week’s The Weekly, when was the last time we had a Republican on council?

7. 

   Terri Buckner

    /  July 26, 2012

   To me, diversity means variation in ethnicity, political perspective, age, length of time living in town, socioeconomic status. I’m sure there are other important criteria too. Political perspective and socioeconomic status are most important to me,

8. 

   Nancy Oates

    /  July 26, 2012

   We definitely need someone on council who knows what it’s like to live on a budget, either through personal experience or a sensitivity to how tight money is for some folks, that a tax increase equivalent to “a couple of lattes a week” might mean giving up meat or shampoo or driving to Raleigh to have Sunday dinner with Mom. Plenty of people practice priority budgeting in their own lives; it would be nice for council to understand the importance of that, too.

9. 

   JWW

    /  July 27, 2012

   Interesting replies to the diversity question. Thank you.

10. 

    Nancy Oates

     /  July 29, 2012

    Here’s the link to my column on diversity in The Weekly: http://www.chapelhillmagazine.com/blogs/chapel-hill-magazine-blog/council%27s-limited-rainbow

11. 

    Chris Weaver

     /  August 7, 2012

    …Republican? on the town counsel(s)?
    That is an interesting Q. Has there ever been one?
    I know there has never been on on the County Counsel.
    Yikes…but I suppose I should have guessed.
    cw