Good thing January has five Mondays, otherwise council members wouldn’t have stumbled out of last week’s meeting until the break of dawn. Tonight’s meeting is a continuation of last week’s meeting that Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt called time on after midnight. Fortunately for all of us, he had committed to participate in the homeless census that […]

The council picks up where it left off last Monday after citizen input on petitions and the proposed zoning changes in the Northside Neighborhood Conservation District pushed the meeting past its 10:30 p.m. target for adjournment. Tonight council will hear a financial and economic update, vote on the consent agenda, and hear reports on the […]

President Obama occasionally sends me emails: “Nancy, let’s have dinner,” or “Nancy, I need your help.” But he has never once said, “Nancy, I have an extra ticket to a Carolina game. Would you like to join me?” But this being Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt’s lucky week — he won re-election in a landslide — he […]

Never turn your back on free money. And half of the items on tonight’s consent agenda involve receiving money from the state or federal government (remember those ARRA funds?) or insurance payouts. Money to upgrade some police cars with idle-reduction technology; aide to meet federal mandates to inspect bridges; freeing up money from the bond […]

Last night’s Town Council meeting was one for the record books – three public hearings, completed in 1 hour and 18 minutes. But the agenda items – food trucks, expansion of a building and parking lots at Carol Woods, and a proposed amendment of stormwater management rules for new development – posed little controversy. All […]

My mom died last week. She did not take her last flight, meet her final deadline, leave her mortal coils behind; she was not promoted to Heaven or beamed to a new galaxy; nor did the Angel of Silence claim victory over her. She wanted her obituary to say simply that she died. I know […]

George Cianciolo reports on the Chapel Hill 2020 kickoff: The first meeting of Chapel Hill 2020, the process designed to develop a new Comprehensive Plan for Chapel Hill, kicked off this evening at East Chapel Hill High School. It started with an open house from 5 to 6 p.m., followed by introductory remarks by Mayor […]

Stop reading this and get back to work, so you can leave before 3 p.m. today and get to Morehead Planetarium in time for the first in a series of specialized tours of campus. This afternoon, UNC historic preservationist Wendy Hillis takes you on a walk around campus to point out architectural features that you’ve […]

Town Council set the bar high last night – its meeting adjourned at 9:20 p.m., a relief to all who slogged through those meetings last fiscal year that ran over into the next day. Mayor pro tem Jim Ward, conducting the meeting in the absence of Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt who was ill, all but picked […]

One year for Christmas my children got me a bumper sticker that read, “Hang up and drive,” so tired were they of hearing me mutter that phrase to other drivers making airhead moves while talking on the phone. In April, Penny Rich proposed a ban on cell phone use while driving on town roads. (The […]