People love to feel special. Sales agents make a living by understanding the power of “just for you”: “I don’t usually do this, but just for you, I’ll …” It closes the deal and mitigates buyer’s remorse. But “just for you” would lose its value if there were no standards or rules to push back […]
Bargaining Power
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 13, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/03/13/bargaining-power/
The Gift of Rezoning
Town Council gave the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools a gift last week. But school board members, perhaps dismayed that they didn’t get what they came for, may not have noticed what they got instead. The school board has proposed expanding the existing building at Lincoln Center to centralize preschool classes now spread out across the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 6, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/03/06/the-gift-of-rezoning/
Raising children or the flag?
Whether the Confederate flag symbolizes racial oppression or Southern pride may hinge on the difference between desegregation and integration. A group of parents has asked the Orange County Board of Education to ban images of the Confederate flag, calling it a racially inflammatory symbol that disrupts learning. So far, the board has remained as silent […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 27, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/02/27/raising-children-or-the-flag/
DOLRT’s Cost-Plus
If anything could sway me toward taking on the crushing debt of the Durham-Orange County Light Rail it would be the promise of getting some affordable housing in return. And sure enough, in its presentation about planning DOLRT stations, GoTriangle reps dangled that yarn ball before Town Council — including affordable housing in the mix […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 20, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/02/20/dolrts-cost-plus/
Welcome to the club
Some of us spend so much time thinking about stormwater runoff and traffic jams and other indications of overdevelopment that we forget quality of life goes beyond whether an apartment has granite countertops or who has to shovel the sidewalks. So I consider it a gift that I was invited to a tour of Club […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 13, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/02/13/welcome-to-the-club/
Dry county
Mayor Hemminger declared a state of emergency in Chapel Hill when OWASA warned all of its customers not to drink, cook or wash with its water this past weekend. After reading the news release that concluded: “They [the Emergency Operations team] anticipate that this situation is temporary …” a friend emailed: “Well, that’s reassuring … […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 6, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/02/06/dry-county/
Dry reading worth wading into
Have you read the Lower Booker Creek Subwatershed Study Report? The tome is the type of reading you do only when the roads are iced over and you can’t leave your house for three days. But it contains critically important information that could save our town from washing away downstream. Stormwater management experts give this […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 30, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/01/30/dry-reading-worth-wading-into/
We the people
After the U.S. Department of the Interior retweeted a pair of aerial photos comparing the size of the crowd at President Obama’s inauguration in 2009 with the much sparser attendance at Donald Trump’s ceremony, Trump ordered the department’s Twitter accounts to be shut down. Soon after, all pages on Whitehouse.gov that made reference to civil […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 23, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/01/23/we-the-people/
I have a dream; do you?
Chapel Hill’s town manager Roger Stancil nailed it in his remarks at the close of the town employees’ celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The event took place at Hargraves Center just before lunch last Friday. The program included a dramatic re-enactment of Rosa Park’s story, starring Myra Evans of Parking Services; a musical […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 16, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/01/16/i-have-a-dream-do-you/
In the Big Muddy
A friend looked over GoTriangle’s newest plan to pay for the ever-escalating cost of the Durham-Orange Light Rail and said Pete Seeger had it right: “We’re waist deep in the Big Muddy, and the big fool says to push on.” Seeger’s ballad tells the story of an Army captain leading his platoon to cross a […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 9, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/01/09/in-the-big-muddy/