I’ve never been one to turn down free money, so when Chapel Hill Public Library director Susan Brown proposed changing the library’s Internet policy to block access to certain sites in exchange for becoming eligible for spending federal grants on technology, the tradeoff seemed reasonable. But she took ill the day she was to present […]
All posts in category Community life
Free access or free money?
Posted by Nancy Oates on December 12, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/12/12/what-price-freedom/
Parking — It’s not just for cars anymore
Chapel Hill’s parking problem extends beyond where to put your car when you go downtown. A truly vibrant downtown needs spots for pedestrians to park their bodies when they are fatigued or simply want to people watch or absorb the ambience. Last Tuesday, University of Kentucky Professor Ned Crankshaw came to town and shared some […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on December 5, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/12/05/parking-its-not-just-for-cars-anymore/
Living Stronger Together
The racial equity workshop I signed up for couldn’t have come at a better time — two days after the American people elected a president who campaigned to deport a large chunk of the workforce because of their ethnicity and to close our borders to Muslims and non-white refugees. For the most part, the workshop […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on November 28, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/11/28/living-stronger-together/
How we can win
Heaven help us, we have elected a hatemonger as our next president. The day before the election, I accompanied some foreign journalists, many of them from the Asia Pacific, to a Donald Trump rally in Raleigh. It felt like we were on a movie set for a gladiator film. With lies and innuendo, Trump kept […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on November 14, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/11/14/how-we-can-win/
The modestly paid are people, too
Swiss novelist Max Frisch’s quip, “We asked for workers; we got people instead,” applies as much to affordable housing as it does to the immigration issue he addressed in his day. At a council work session on Oct. 19, town staff presented the findings of David Paul Rosen & Associates, a consulting firm that we […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on November 7, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/11/07/the-modestly-paid-are-people-too/
Talk, listen, change
Former UNC Police Officer Keith Edwards, the first black woman on the force, objected to a less-experienced white male officer getting a promotion and raise ahead of her. One day when she walked into the campus police office, she overheard two white male officers complaining about the ensuing court case. “I wish Keith had never […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on October 31, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/10/31/talk-listen-change/
Chapel Hill’s Arab Spring?
More than five years ago, a few weeks after the Tunisian Revolution that launched the Arab Spring, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad told The Wall Street Journal: “When there is divergence between your policy and the people’s beliefs and interests, you will have this vacuum that creates disturbance.” I hope we won’t someday look back on […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 26, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/09/26/chapel-hills-arab-spring/
Powering through
Have we learned nothing? Last week a female student at UNC held a news conference to claim that a classmate, a member of the football team, raped her. She was pursuing misdemeanor charges against him because the campus police had refused to file charges, and the district attorney’s office declined as well (though after the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 19, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/09/19/powering-through/
How much is that rent, really?
Trying to find an apartment in Chapel Hill affordable to your typical Chapel Hill worker takes diligence and a roommate. An apartment complex may advertise rent at one price, but by the time the management adds up all the additional mandatory fees — valet garbage pick-up, package delivery acceptance, weight room access, and Internet and […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 12, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/09/12/how-much-is-that-rent-really/
Best practices, best officers
In North Carolina, a barber needs 1,000 hours of training to get licensed. A law enforcement officer receives 616 hours. As society and circumstances change — think the closing of mental health facilities at the turn of this century that left law enforcement officers to intervene when a mentally ill person posed harm to the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on August 22, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/08/22/best-practices-best-officers/