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 […]
Correction and apology
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/
To hope or to plan?
Those of us who watched a fireworks display last night did so on some other taxpayer’s dime. The experience gave us a chance to feel, for 20 minutes or so, like the Orange County taxpayers who want to use our new and improved library for free. Much as I love fireworks, I understand when the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 5, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/07/05/to-hope-or-to-plan/
Supreme Court on VOE
The Supreme Court struck down a portion of Arizona’s Voter Owned Election law on Monday. North Carolina is one of four other states that have a provision similar to what the nation’s highest court deemed unconstitutional. But town attorney Ralph Karpinos said the ruling won’t affect Chapel Hill’s VOE program. The ruling did not invalidate […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 30, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/06/30/supreme-court-on-voe/
Reverse charges
Words I never thought I’d hear a lawyer utter: “Vagueness is your friend.” That sentiment came from Sally Greene during Monday night’s final council meeting of the fiscal year during the discussion on whether to charge Orange County residents who live outside of Chapel Hill for a library card. At the May 25 meeting, the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 29, 2011
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/06/29/reverse-charges/