Chapel Hill has the potential to be someplace really special, if we could only articulate it. The town’s former planning director, Roger Waldon, who now makes his living guiding developers through the town’s rezoning and special use permit approval process, discovered that the articulation part is harder than it looks. In an editorial published last […]
All posts in category Council Members
Waldon’s world
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 28, 2014
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/07/28/waldons-world/
Money talks
Council sank to a new low Wednesday night in its decision to sell 523 E. Franklin St. to the UNC College of Arts & Sciences Foundation, not because of who council sold it to but why. The foundation’s bid was the lowest and the only one of the three bids that would keep the property […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 7, 2014
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/07/07/money-talks/
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
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/06/30/a-peek-behind-the-curtain/
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
https://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
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/06/02/chapel-hill-politics-chicago-style/
Housing hypocrisy
I couldn’t help but wince when council members began their remarks at the May 19 Town Council meeting after nearly a dozen community members made impassioned pleas for money to support affordable housing. One organization played a 9-minute video of interviews with people who had benefited from affordable housing programs in Chapel Hill, perhaps assuming […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 26, 2014
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/05/26/housing-hypocrisy/
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
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/05/19/keeping-pace-with-followers/
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
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/03/17/hounding-town-staff/
Snow day
“Work from home,” Gov. Pat McCrory told North Carolinians, in a well-meaning entreaty to keep people from traveling on icy roads last week. And the governor and I did work from home, and maybe you did, too. But what about the people who work at grocery stores or fast-food places or who rely on tips […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 17, 2014
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/02/17/snow-day/
Who’s the boss?
A while back, someone I know made a disparaging comment to a Town Council member about town manager Roger Stancil. The council member responded sharply, “Don’t talk about my boss that way.” Pause while you think about what’s wrong with that statement. Not long ago, I gossiped to another council member about the other council […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 13, 2014
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/01/13/whos-the-boss/