All posts in category Public Works

Rogers Road victory

The historically black Rogers Road neighborhood crossed the finish line this past week on quality-of-life improvements years in the making. Town Council approved rezoning that would protect the neighborhood from the over-development expected once the sewer line extends into the area. The neighborhood, north of Homestead Road and east of Rogers Road, sits just south […]

The Deciders

Recently I asked the town manager for an organizational flow chart of town staff that would show who was in charge of what. I received 18 pages of charts in response, most of which broke out the hierarchy of positions in each department. The collection led off, however, with a master chart of management levels. […]

On ice

The calls started coming in Sunday before the sun had reached high noon. Constituents who live on what’s known as “tertiary streets” phoned me because they knew I’d understand their cabin fever. All of us were iced in, and our good humor had begun to fray. Tertiary streets are those out-of-the-way neighborhoods that are the […]

Wasteful spending

No one wants their legacy to be trash, Maria Palmer told her colleagues at the April 8 Town Council meeting. Yet the time, effort and budget commitment for upgrading the solid waste convenience centers in Orange County and mandated curbside recycling lead voters to think otherwise. At the Assembly of Governments meeting on March 26, […]

On the road

As many of us sweat a dive off the impending fiscal cliff and recession that likely will follow, the Town of Chapel Hill has stirred a little economic stimulus in the Public Works Department. Tucked unobtrusively in the consent agenda for tonight’s Town Council meeting is a resolution to haul our trash to a Durham […]

Trash talk

A psychological construct has it that some people who have a hard time enduring separation will pick a fight before leaving. Stalking off angry provides a cushion against the loneliness of being apart. That could explain the near unilateral churlishness of council members at their June 26 meeting. Or maybe the sour note they ended […]