Chapel Hill’s reputation as a community of tree-huggers took a beating last night as citizens speaking against proposed changes to the tree protection ordinance far outnumbered those supporting a new law. A few Town Council members took credit for leading the charge for change after Jim Heavner took advantage of a loophole in the town […]

Some nitwit phoned in a bomb threat against the Greenbridge construction site on Thursday. Chapel Hill police responded to the report and work was suspended at the West Rosemary Street site. According to a news release from Greenbridge, the threat didn’t affect the project’s schedule – only caused a two-hour delay in starting the workday […]

At a recent Town Council meeting, several members encouraged Chapel Hill voters to put the county commissioners candidates’ feet to the fire about the public library funding inequities. It was great political theater, hearing Jim Ward and Laurin Easthom bob their heads and look at one another and do their “Uh huh! Yeah! It’s an […]

On Monday night, the executive director of the Orange County Visitors Bureau, Laurie Paolicelli, gave the Town Council scads of information about how important tourism is for Chapel Hill, how the town has a lot of features that visitors look for when considering a destination, and how much money tourism generates for town businesses and […]

Last week, The News & Observer sold its office space at 505 W. Franklin St. to Franklin Junto, a group of investors led by Top of the Hill’s Scott Maitland who will turn the space into a distillery. The N&O will pay rent to Maitland for a corner in the building where the dozen or […]