Consider the irony: At the same time town staff are making considerable efforts to encourage more people to get involved in the town decision-making process by applying to advisory boards and commissions, the Council Committee on Boards and Commissions has proposed limiting the number of people who will actually be considered for appointment. And, after […]
All posts in category Committees
Exclusive boards
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 30, 2019
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/09/30/exclusive-boards/
Kneecapping our best intentions
Chapel Hill residents take housing affordability seriously. Are we on Town Council poised to undermine progress we’ve made? The budget we passed last week included a property tax increase that would fund the $10 million bond voters approved last year to be spent on increasing the supply of affordable housing. Some years back, council approved […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 17, 2019
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/06/17/kneecapping-our-best-intentions/
Our tenuous link to history
I haven’t been inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame since I went sightseeing after running the Paris Marathon some 30 years ago. Yet when I heard about the fire that destroyed the ceiling and spire of the 800-year-old church, it felt like a personal loss. In his book Why Old Places Matter, Tom May, the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 22, 2019
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/04/22/our-tenuous-link-to-history/
Sanctuary city
A couple of years ago, after Donald Trump had taken office and begun threatening punishments to sanctuary cities, a member of the Justice in Action Committee proposed that Chapel Hill take a stand and declare itself a sanctuary city. After all, the committee member pointed out, we behave like one. My response at the time […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 15, 2019
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/04/15/sanctuary-city/
Views across the board
When my computer failed last month, I spent a few hours at the Apple Genius Bar, a sort of emergency room for digital devices in distress. As I waited for new software to install itself very slowly, I got to hear snippets of people’s lives as told through their troubled phones and iPads and MacBooks. […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on November 19, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/11/19/views-across-the-board/
What’s worth preserving
Would a time traveler from the turn of the 19th century into the 20th, walking through one of Chapel Hill’s historic districts, recognize the neighborhood? Amber Kidd, a preservationist with the N.C. Historic Preservation Office who advises local governments on how to set up and run a Historic District Commission, put that question to Chapel […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 22, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/01/22/whats-worth-preserving/
Sitting on the Historic District Commission
In an interview aired on National Public Radio recently, Magazine Editor Hall-of-Famer Tina Brown described her desk-on-a-treadmill, noting, “Sitting is the new smoking.” That shot a little dart of fear in my heart, because my role as a Town Council member requires me to sit a lot. Council meetings, work sessions, committees, task forces and […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on October 23, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/10/23/sitting-on-the-historic-district-commission/
Fitting in our dreams
Chapel Hillians tend to go big or go home, and that proved true in feedback we got after Town Council authorized buying the American Legion property. When we asked residents how to use the 36-acre parcel (only about 23 acres of which are developable, due to topography, stream buffers and resource conservation regulations), we received […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 19, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/06/19/fitting-in-our-dreams/
Historic professionalism
Days after the Historic District Commission meeting last week, the unsettling exchanges have stayed with me. Once again — and this happens routinely — an applicant requesting a Certificate of Approval treated the commissioners with disdain, as though they were something that must be scraped off the bottom of a shoe. I’ve been to meetings […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 24, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/04/24/historic-professionalism/
To a Healthy New Year
My husband and I gave each other matching colds for Christmas this year, not the gifts we had intended, but a result of getting out and into the community more than I have in years past. When it comes to germs, especially in the holiday season, I’ve tried not to give back. And that means […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 2, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/01/02/to-a-healthy-new-year/