You don’t see this every day: Roger Perry ceding to “a small group of people who make noise about everything.” What his phrasing lacked in graciousness, his gesture made up for in integrity. Perry said he’d pay for the street that connects his proposed apartment complex to Elliott Road, a road that from the onset […]
All posts tagged Ephesus-Fordham
A peek behind the curtain
You’d think with all the 5-hour-plus meetings Town Council has racked up lately, and the abstruse decisions that have come out of them, somewhere in there council members would have explained why they voted the way they did. Instead, we’ve watched council members pass over professionals with strong expertise for advisory board positions in favor […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 30, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/06/30/a-peek-behind-the-curtain/
Is the thrill gone?
I had a conversation not long ago with a musician, a mixed-race man in his mid-20s working a day job unrelated to music as he got his career started. At one point he asked where I was from, and I told him I lived in Chapel Hill. His eyes lit up. “I call it Chapel […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 23, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/06/23/is-the-thrill-gone/
Breaking inauspicious
You know how you approached the start of every episode of “Breaking Bad” with the feeling that something was going to happen that you didn’t want to know about, but you watched it anyway? I get that feeling lately when I turn on the TV to watch a Town Council meeting. “Breaking Bad,” said to […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 16, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/06/16/breaking-inauspicious/
Chapel Hill politics, Chicago style
My sister in Chicago periodically sends me articles about the shenanigans of Chicago politicians: ex-convicts who have served time for bribery, tax fraud and corruption running against one another; and a “visionary leader/advocate” filing to run again now that he’s out of prison for getting $40,000 of home renovations done in exchange for zoning changes […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 2, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/06/02/chapel-hill-politics-chicago-style/
Keeping pace with community
Ed Harrison understands that you can’t be a leader without followers. And if you get too far ahead of your followers, your nothing more than a guy on a road by himself shouting, “This way, really, I know what I’m doing.” At Town Council’s May 12 meeting, Harrison was one of three council members to […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 19, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/05/19/keeping-pace-with-followers/
Get it right first
UNC researcher and Chapel Hill native David Schwartz turns his analytical eye toward some of the factors that may be fueling our mayor’s apparent urgency to approve Form-Based Code initially in the Ephesus-Fordham area. Schwartz realizes there is more going on with the Ephesus-Fordham issue than simply the mayor wanting to impress his colleagues in […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 12, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/05/12/get-it-right-first/
Office-retail only
Ellie Kinnaird’s voice was drowned out during her final years in the N.C. Senate by affluent colleagues who, having reached a high level of creature comfort, put in place policies that closed off that path to others. After several years of advocating for laws that made life better for residents in all socio-economic classes, Kinnaird […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 14, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/04/14/office-retail-only/
Plans vs. promises
At its March 10 meeting, Town Council passed an Affordable Rental Housing Strategy that was such a foregone conclusion it should have been on the Consent Agenda. But without the fanfare of a staff-narrated PowerPoint and a time for public comment, council members and town staff would have been deprived of a feel-good moment. And […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 24, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/03/24/plans-vs-promises/
Hounding town staff
Town planning director J.B. Culpepper and I* went to see “The Great Gatsby” at the library, rather than attend the Planning Board meeting taking place at the same time. Culpepper evidently had confidence, as did I, that town planning department staff would do their job in presenting the revised plan for Timber Hollow to the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 17, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/03/17/hounding-town-staff/