How many times have we heard, usually from people who make money by developing or selling real estate, that affordable housing is not possible in Chapel Hill? That we might as well admit defeat and build only luxury apartments in town, thus forcing out the modestly paid and the middle class? Yet towns similar to […]
All posts in category Committees
Think of the possibilities, then plan
Posted by Nancy Oates on August 29, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/08/29/think-of-the-possibilities-then-plan/
Fireworks at stadium, not council meeting
Viewers expecting fireworks at the last Town Council meeting of the 2015-16 season turned off their TVs and computers disappointed. Though we had reserved time on June 29 for a spillover meeting should we not finish our agenda before the hour grew too late, the June 27 meeting got over comparatively early, thanks in part […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 4, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/07/04/fireworks-at-stadium-not-council-meeting/
Ask the experts
Lead, follow, or get out of the way. When it comes to working on the problem of not enough affordable housing, town and county elected officials would do well to choose Door #3. At the joint board meeting of county commissioners and Town Council members on June 2, county commissioner Bernadette Pelissier suggested forming a […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 20, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/06/20/ask-the-experts/
What makes a house historic?
Last week, the Historic District Commission reluctantly pulled the plug on a house in the Gimghoul Historic District by approving a request by the owners of 704 Gimghoul to demolish the home. The couple had purchased the house in March 2015 and had come to the HDC with a plan to make it live better […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 16, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/05/16/what-makes-a-house-historic/
Walking the talk
Every once in a while an insight emerges from those early-morning meetings that makes them worth getting up for. Take the Community Prosperity Committee meeting last Friday morning (8 a.m., first Friday of every month, in Room C at the library; public is welcome). We’ve been working on strategies to attract more commercial development to […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 7, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/03/07/walking-the-talk/
What we do best
Decades ago, a running coach told me, “The only way to run faster is to run faster.” Pre-empting Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan by nearly a generation, the coach’s advice has proved useful in all sorts of situations in my life. Now it appears I can apply it to Town Council work. The town has […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 18, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/01/18/what-we-do-best/
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/
Good data
Garbage in, garbage out they teach you in business school, though maybe not in those exact words. The idea is that a decision is only as good as the information backing it up. Rely on inaccurate or incomplete data or misinterpret or ignore the information available, and the mistakes will show themselves in the outcomes. […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 15, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/07/15/good-data/
Save Del Snow
If you had told me six months ago that someday I would lead the cheering section for Planning Board chair Del Snow, I would have called you crazy. And now look. After Town Council’s Feb. 27 vote approving Bicycle Apartments, Snow wrote a letter to council questioning why council members didn’t postpone the vote until […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 6, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/03/06/save-del-snow/
Off to a fun start
No full moon Monday night. Nevertheless, two unusual discussions bookended the Town Council meeting. Early on, council discussed a petition to remove stop signs from three all-way stop intersections where streets teed into Umstead Drive. The signs had been taken down during recent street construction along Umstead, and the petitioner cited that as a golden […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 16, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/01/16/off-to-a-fun-start/