In 2003, as a taxpayer I voted against spending more than $16 million to expand and renovate the Chapel Hill Public Library. The town had a small but functional library, surrounded by the woods and trails of Pritchard Park, and while the demand would only grow as the town grew, it seemed to me we […]
All posts in category Library
Park, Housing: Not an Either-Or
Posted by Nancy Oates on December 4, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/12/04/park-housing-not-an-either-or/
The Confederate flag: Whose heritage?
I have never heard any black Southerners defend the Confederate flag as a symbol of their Southern heritage. The heritage defenders seem to be an exclusively white group, often with the “I used to be somebody” mindset of people hanging onto the glory days of their ancestors. On May 20, a Saturday morning with made-to-be-outside […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 29, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/05/29/the-confederate-flag-whose-heritage/
News on the Move
When the Chapel Hill News began publishing recipes on its front page — sometimes recipes from restaurants in Raleigh — we knew its marriage to The News & Observer was on the skids. Today the breakup becomes official. As you read this, the sole reporter and her editor are cleaning out their desks and moving […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 27, 2017
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/03/27/news-on-the-move/
Free access or free money?
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 […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on December 12, 2016
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/12/12/what-price-freedom/
We did what this year?
What a ride 2013 turned out to be. Yet despite the ups and downs, we moved forward. We began the year with Town Council members choosing Sally Greene over 10 other well-qualified and diverse candidates to fill the seat Penny Rich vacated a couple months before. In the November election this year, Greene was elected […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on December 30, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/12/30/we-did-what-this-year/
Budget busters
The town can’t afford to keep the larger library open as many hours a week as the pre-renovated space without raising taxes or cutting other services. From the beginning the plan for funding the increased operating costs was to raise taxes, but the economy hasn’t exactly bounced back. Now state laws are hitting some of […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 10, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/06/10/budget-busters/
Price vs. value
When I heard about the 120 or so taxpayers who showed up at the County Commissioners meeting on May 23 pleading to pay more in taxes to fully fund the schools budget, I recalled a scene from Crocodile Dundee wherein New York City street thugs brandish a switchblade in an attempt to rob the protagonist […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 3, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/06/03/price-vs-value/
Putting the priority in budgeting
My husband has wanted a new couch for years. And I agree we could use one. But something always elbows ahead of it on our priority list. An immediate emergency – the washing machine breaks and the estimate for the repair equals the cost of a new one. A capital improvement – our very expensive […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 27, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/05/27/putting-the-priority-in-budgeting/
Tax increase
I told you so. Not that I like rubbing anyone’s nose in bad decisions, but going ahead with the library renovation without thinking through what we would have to give up to make it happen was a bad decision you could smell before you stepped in it. On the last lap of what was a […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 22, 2012
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/05/22/tax-increase/
Pile on the public hearings
Stock up on the popcorn. Tonight’s public hearing will likely be a two-bagger. First up, St. Paul’s AME Church wants to build a village on Purefoy Road, across from Phoenix Place, to serve the Rogers Road community. The proposed mixed-use development on a 20-acre parcel would consist of a church, a health center, a cultural […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 21, 2012
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/05/21/pile-on-the-public-hearings/