Age discrimination reared its ugly head at last week’s Town Council meeting. And this time, because we were talking about edifices, the youngster took the hit. Staff made two proposals — the first to donate town-owned land to be used to relocate nearly century-old tiny houses to be used for affordable housing; and the second, […]
All posts in category Spending
How old is too old?
Posted by Nancy Oates on October 15, 2018
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/10/15/how-old-is-too-old/
What happens in Lawrence …
At the very last session on our intercity visit to Lawrence, Kan., participants stood up, Quaker meeting style, to say thank you to someone or to commit to something. It had been a jam-packed, eye-opening, exhausting three days, and we were trying to synthesize all we had learned before climbing back aboard the bus and […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on October 1, 2018
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/10/01/what-happens-in-lawrence/
Quintessential Chapel Hill Fan
When friends and I would go to baseball games at Yankee Stadium, we always scanned the crowd for nominees to our Quintessential Yankee Fan Hall of Fame. Yankee fans were quite different from Mets fans, I noticed on my very rare trips to Shea Stadium. Perusing crowds became a habit, and when I’m out and […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 23, 2018
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/07/23/quintessential-chapel-hill-fan/
How Generous Can We Afford to Be?
Richard Jenrette snagged his dream job right out of college — sportswriter for the N&O. A few years into it, though, he looked around and noticed that newspaper people didn’t make much money. He enrolled in Harvard Business School to learn a more lucrative trade. Jenrette, the “J” in the enormously successful brokerage firm DLJ […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 11, 2018
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/06/11/how-generous-can-we-afford-to-be/
DOLRT bills: woulda, coulda, shoulda
Think of the transformative impact $14.5 million could have had on Orange County if we had spent it on extending bus lines so the modestly paid could commute to work and fewer people would have to rely on cars. Instead, Orange County commissioners gambled it away on studies, design and engineering for a light rail […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 4, 2018
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/06/04/dolrt-bills-woulda-coulda-shoulda/
Honor Council
Not long ago, a few members of Duke University’s Honor Council spoke with students at McDougle Middle School about the roles of morals and ethics in making good decisions. Honor Council members set up a scenario for the moral dilemma all of us have faced more than once in our lives — You see someone […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 21, 2018
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/05/21/honor-council/
The value of green
To hear business leaders and major investors speak in favor of the need for greenspace as density increases gave me hope. At the Eggs With Elected Officials gathering on April 18, sponsored by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, the topic of what to do with the 36 acres the town had purchased from American […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 7, 2018
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/05/07/the-value-of-green/
Reverse Town Hall
North Carolina has 77 pages of gun laws on its books. But can they be enforced? A panel of 16 high school and college students discussed gun violence at a reverse town hall organized by the UNC Institute for Politics. The IOP invited four legislators from the N.C. General Assembly to pose questions to the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 23, 2018
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/04/23/reverse-town-hall/
Fear trumps finances
Last week Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents swept through the Triangle and snatched up more than two dozen Latinx residents suspected of being in the U.S. without proper documentation. An ICE spokesman claimed that the majority of those taken into custody had criminal convictions. But anecdotally, those in Chapel Hill were law-abiding, gainfully employed […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 16, 2018
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/04/16/fear-trumps-finances/
Master Fleecing
When I read the editorial by Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce head Aaron Nelson proposing what he called “master leasing” as a solution for high housing prices, I had to double-check the byline. Was this the same Aaron Nelson who stood before Town Council in 2014 swearing that Berkshire Apartments (then called Alexan) would be […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 2, 2018
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/04/02/master-fleecing/