Participate?

Lifelong Democrat Garrison Keillor announced he was going to switch parties to become a Republican because he didn’t want to have to care anymore.

Taxpayers who participated in the grueling CH2020 process and small area plan meetings know the feeling. After eight months of public participation in CH2020 – more than a year for the volunteers who made up the initial task force – the first project to come before council post-CH2020 completely ignored the new comprehensive plan. When Matt Czajkowski urged developer Roger Perry to come back with a plan for Obey Creek that followed the CH2020 recommendations, Jim Ward interjected that CH2020 was only a “placeholder.”

At this week’s Thursday night council meeting – rescheduled due to Monday being the Jewish holiday Simchat Torah, and the first council agenda item being a public forum on the bus ad controversy that some observant Jews might want to weigh in on – staff will report on the progress of the Estes Small Area Plan. Over the past couple of months, between 30 and 50 community members, some developers and their entourages, and planning department staff have held four meetings to define the focus and impact area and decide on a structure going forward, including the composition of a steering committee.

Four nights of paying a babysitter and giving up time to rejuvenate after a long day at work to think through and negotiate development issues that will affect their quality of life and most likely their annual property tax bill. Only to be ignored by staff who swept aside community recommendations to make room for their own.

The two major points of difference come from the steering committee composition and the borders defining what constitutes the Estes Small Area. Community members wanted 16 members on the steering committee: one representative each from UNC, a nearby public school, and a member of the planning board and the transportation board, along with eight residents of the planning and impact areas and four owners of businesses or land in the planning or impact area.

The planning department staff recommended a 17-member committee with fewer neighbors. Planning staff reduced the number of residents to six, and dictated that one be a renter, added a Chamber of Commerce member, a public housing resident and a wild-card from outside the planning and impact areas.

Community members took pains to draw the planning area boundaries of neighborhoods ripe for redevelopment. Planning department staff erased the lines and redrew them only around parcels that line a major transportation artery.

And yet, a few days ago, town staff sent out another cheerful email announcing “Participate Chapel Hill!” and inviting residents to “share your ideas!” (Exclamation points courtesy of the town.)
– Nancy Oates

by on October 8, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in CH2020, Land Use
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Posted by Nancy Oates on October 8, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/10/08/participate/

ACLU v. Chapel Hill

The next lawsuit shaping up could pit Chapel Hill against the ACLU. On Friday, town attorney Ralph Karpinos received a letter from the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina warning that constitutionally the town can’t bar the ad placed on town buses by Church of Reconciliation that advocates for the U.S. to stop military aid to Israel.

Furthermore, the ACLU says, a suggested solution to the controversy – banning all noncommercial or political ads altogether – would not be acceptable. The Salt Lake City school board tried a similar tactic – banning all student clubs as a way to stop gay-supportive students from meeting – and a Utah court shot that down.

The ACLU’s letter goes on for six pages giving examples of court cases around the country similar to Chapel Hill’s bus ad controversy. All rule in favor of this form of free speech.

Did you ever think that the ACLU would take Chapel Hill to task, that Chapel Hill and Utah might be mentioned in the same sentence, and Utah come out looking good? Chapel Hill, that liberal bastion some claim ultra-conservative Sen. Jesse Helms suggested fencing in to serve as a zoo. Where did we drift astray?

One conservative influence may come from a change in our demographics. More wealthy people live in town now. Chapel Hill grew up as a university town, populated by people who spent their time thinking, and there wasn’t much money in that back then. But in recent years, as the town has reached its growth limit, real estate prices have shot up, skewing new residents toward the wealthy class. You have to have a lot more money to buy into town now than even a decade ago.

As a gross generalization, the wealthy often have a greater sense of entitlement. They’ve worked hard and acquired enough wealth to shield themselves from the unpleasant – a gated community appeals to them, for instance, or hiring someone to clean the bathrooms and mow the lawn. I see Lexus SUVs, not Toyota Tercels, idling empty in the supermarket parking lot with the air conditioning on so that the driver doesn’t have to endure a few minutes of blistering heat after grocery shopping. And now, some Chapel Hill residents feel entitled to ride a bus, paid for by their ample property taxes, without being affronted by an ad for an idea they disagree with.

Look where we’ve come. Is this really where we wanted to go?

To weigh in on the debate, attend the meeting in Town Council chambers at Town Hall at 7 p.m. next Thursday, Oct. 11.
– Nancy Oates

by on October 1, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Courts, Ethics, Transportation
Tagged
Posted by Nancy Oates on October 1, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/10/01/aclu-v-chapel-hill/

Thank you, Gene Pease

Last night’s Town Council meeting ended at 12:25 this morning. And that was after Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt pushed a couple of items and appointments over to another meeting. Ed Harrison was right that, although only one agenda item invited public comment, people signed up to speak on several issues. Only one item – the transportation report that opened the opportunity to lobby for using either Meadowmont Lane or George King Road as a thoroughfare – brought out people to line up and deliver the same message. That group numbered only about a half dozen, and the mayor worked the red light masterfully throughout the evening.

For the most part, the council meeting was devoid of squabbling or dilly-dallying. Council members showed a satisfying tendency to engage their brainpower to consider implications and ramifications, rather than acting only on how they “feel.” They took matters seriously, even as they rubbed their eyes to stay alert, and asked questions that brought out information that clarified rather than colored issues.

Even so, collecting all that information took time. Council gives itself the option of not taking up business after 10:30 p.m. UNC wound up its main campus report shortly before 11 p.m. and prepared to begin its report on Carolina North. The mayor urged council to continue through a few more items, and council members reluctantly agreed to soldier on. Gene Pease chided the mayor and town manager for packing the agenda.

Earlier, Pease asked UNC to use a larger font on the PowerPoint presentations it so loves. The numbers on the charts were too small to read even by those of us who pressed our noses to our TV screens, and they’ll likely be illegible in the online video of the meeting. Due to the late hour, presenters hurried through their material and did not read the numbers, so no one but council members and the two presenters still waiting to speak know important information about campus housing capacity, for instance.

The final presenters, Duke Energy’s use of herbicides in its vegetation management program, didn’t begin until midnight. This was an important issue that affects the environment and health of residents, and Laurin Easthom and Jim Ward hung in there to ask pointed questions. But everyone was tired, including the youngest member of council best able to pull an all-nighter.

Not only do late meetings quash public participation, but fatigue makes for poor policy. Presenters rushed through material; council members apologized to their colleagues for asking questions that needed to be answered. Good information makes for better decisions, and council members need their minds to be sharp.
– Nancy Oates

by on September 25, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Environment, Transportation, UNC
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 25, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/09/25/thank-you-gene-pease/

Monday medley

Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt set a packed agenda for tonight’s meeting. Not that he has grown accustomed to meetings that last until midnight or beyond. But there are decisions to be made and work to be done.

The taxi ordinance is the only item on the agenda that invites public comment. The proposed changes seem pragmatic and appear fair to the taxi company owners and drivers, as well as customers. But this being Chapel Hill, someone is bound to quibble.

The agenda holds something for everyone:

The Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood Task Force is looking for support for a proposed community center, in the form of waived permitting and utility connection fees and free utilities for the first year. On Sept. 6, the Orange County Commissioners asked the county manager to find $380,000 to add to the $120,000 in a fund to build a community center for the Historic Rogers Road neighborhood. The neighborhood also needs sewer service, but as that would be “more complex to navigate” – i.e., would not be resolved while county incumbents were still in office – the board wants to accomplish something to show its commitment to the neighborhood. Approving funds for a community center, with or without a system to handle flush toilets, would make everyone feel better.

For an eye-opening understanding of the cost of commercial construction, take a look at UNC’s to-do list in its main campus development report. The big-ticket items to be paid for completely through gifts – $36 million for the Rizzo Center expansion approved by Town Council earlier this month, $7.5 million to renovate the student union and $3.5 million for an addition to the clubhouse at Finley Golf Course – underscore why Carolina will mourn the loss of its very successful fundraiser.

Council’s agenda includes a number of items that amount to housekeeping – Grubb Properties’ request for direction on what path to take to implement the Glen Lennox plan, a request from the Rural Road Safety Coalition to endorse its guidelines for car and bike safety on rural roads, and a vote on yet another reading of Charterwood’s application for a zoning amendment.

Expect the Town Hall auditorium to be packed with Charterwood opponents, all giving council members the Evil Eye in an effort to sway the vote. Glaring, once it reaches critical mass, can be a form of intimidation.
– Nancy Oates

by on September 24, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Business, Land Use
Tagged , , ,
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 24, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/09/24/monday-medley/

Gloves off

It didn’t take long for the magic to wear off. Last week, Town Council clicked through its agenda effortlessly, ending the meeting a minute shy of 8:30 p.m.

Last night, council began at a similarly brisk pace. No one from the public signed up to speak at the first four public hearings on the agenda – a LUMO text amendment that replaced every reference to “Comprehensive Plan” with “CH2020”; a proposal to begin new stormwater management practices earlier than the state requires; and two hearings to enable Meadowmont to replace a plan for a drive-thru bank with a child development center.

Laurin Easthom recused herself from the Meadowmont hearings and the Obey Creek concept plan review, as her husband belongs to the law firm representing the developer of each, and she skeedaddled early on. Donna Bell and Lee Storrow were absent due to work commitments. Lucky them. Only two agenda items remained, but one was Obey Creek. The meeting would not end until nearly midnight.

Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt dressed for a long meeting, in a Mr. Rogers cardigan that looked as comfy as jammies. But sometime into the third hour of back-and-forth with Roger Perry, prospective applicant to develop Obey Creek, even he showed his ire. Council members got testy with one another and Perry, who lost his usual bonhomie and was downright rude to council members. Ed Harrison, recipient of a new knee, also showed some spine in not backing down in the face of Perry’s frustration.

Bottom line: Perry does not yet have buy-in from surrounding neighborhoods, and everyone is entrenched at this point. Council agreed that a process similar to the development agreement that got Carolina North unstuck would be the way to go with Obey Creek, rather than drag everyone through a special use permit process. Perry agreed to make a true effort to work with surrounding neighborhoods and start with a clean sheet of paper.

What was to have been a 15-minute concept plan PowerPoint presentation surged to the brink of war and ended with a grudging détente. No timeframe was imposed.
– Nancy Oates

by on September 20, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in CH2020, Land Use
Tagged
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 20, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/09/20/gloves-off/

Storm of public comment

If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought town planners had arranged the past couple of days of torrential downpours just to set the stage for Town Council’s discussion of stormwater management rules tonight.

Last fall the town had new wording ready to go in the Land Use Management Ordinance that would comply with new Jordan Lake Nutrient Management Strategy Rules mandated by the state. The rules delineated stormwater management methods to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous entering Jordan Lake. The town had everything in place to enact the new ordinance by August of this year. Then the state General Assembly proposed postponing the deadline for enacting the changes by two years, and the governor agreed. Her and the General Assembly’s rationale was that the new rules would cause hardship to developers who had suffered mightily during the Great Recession of the past few years.

But the Legislature wouldn’t prevent any town from enacting the rules sooner than 2014. Chapel Hill is considering going ahead with the ordinance changes by December of this year. The public hearing tonight will entertain viewpoints for and against moving ahead with the changes faster than the state requires.

A major argument for moving quickly comes in the form of saving the town money. Once the ordinance is passed, the developer is responsible for the cost of installing stormwater management methods and devices to satisfy the ordinance. The town would be responsible for making sure that nitrogen and phosphorous would not enter Jordan Lake beyond what is allowed by the new rules. The longer the town puts off enacting stringent rules, the more developments with insufficient stormwater management, causing higher levels of nutrients the town must prevent from entering Jordan Lake, meaning the town will have to spend more to get the job done. The sooner the town enacts the ordinance, the less nutrient load it must contend with and the less it will cost taxpayers.

Expect beleaguered developers to lobby for putting off the proposed ordinance.

And that’s only one of four public hearings on tonight’s agenda. The hearing to swap out “Comprehensive Plan” references in LUMO with “Chapel Hill 2020” should be fairly straightforward. Likewise, the two hearings connected with replacing a space designated for a drive-thru bank in Meadowmont to allow for a child-development center shouldn’t raise many hackles.

The evening will end with two concept review plans: an expansion for Ephesus Baptist Church and a revised plan for Obey Creek. Public comments will be heard. Expect to make a night of it.
– Nancy Oates

by on September 19, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Land Use
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Posted by Nancy Oates on September 19, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/09/19/storm-of-public-comment/

Charterwood threepeat

The Charterwood project has all the buildup and letdown of a Barry White song. If you’re old enough, you remember the cadence – first the muttered low growl, then the music swells, and you’re sure he’s going to burst into song. But then, the music fades, and the growling and mumbling resume.

Last night, Charterwood came back before council for a second reading and third vote. The first vote, last spring, was hit with a protest petition that required a super-majority of council ayes to pass. It failed to pass, 5-4; then it immediately failed to fail, 5-4. The smart-growth, mixed-use development came back to council for another vote on the last Town Council meeting of the 2012 fiscal year in June. Redrawn property lines nullified the protest petition, and Charterwood won a simple majority of the votes. But because it was approved by only a one-vote margin, it had to return for a second reading and vote at the next business meeting, which wasn’t until the new council season began last night.

In the five years or so Charterwood has been working through the approval process, it has received a cumulative 83-3 “yes” votes from all the boards and commissions and council members required to weigh in on the project. And Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt was ready to vote again.

But first, town attorney Ralph Karpinos had taken a course over the summer and learned that the issue of whether a plan complies with the town’s Comprehensive Plan (aka CH2020) should be voted on separately from whether to grant a special use permit. So the mayor prepared to call that vote.

But first, Ed Harrison had to get in his digs against the developer, not the project. Calling it “not the worst project I’ve seen,” Harrison nevertheless objected to the visual impact the development would have on its backdoor neighbors. Harrison said he wouldn’t go so far as to say the developer was “screwing” the neighborhood, but of course, that’s exactly what he did say. Once Harrison had finished his diatribe, the mayor tried once again for a vote.

But first, Matt Czajkowski proposed that with Gene Pease tied up at a work commitment, creating the potential for a tie vote, the applicant be allowed to postpone the vote until all nine council member were present. Karpinos weighed in again that, if the vote were tied, council would vote on it again at its next business meeting. So the mayor once again cocked an eyebrow to signal a vote on whether the applicant’s proposal complied with the Comprehensive Plan.

Four council members said it did; four disagreed, putting Charterwood back on the agenda for Sept. 26.

And at 8:29 p.m., Mayor Kleinschmidt banged down the gavel to close the first council meeting of the 2012-13 season.
– Nancy Oates

by on September 13, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Housing
Tagged
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 13, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/09/13/charterwood-threepeat/

No vacancy?

Town Council holds its season opener this Wednesday, Sept. 12, and I can’t seem to rally the excitement I usually have for local politics. It’s not that the decisions council makes aren’t important – in fact, council members are set to vote once again on Charterwood, and the outcome could tip council’s hand for what we can expect on approvals for numerous development projects already filed with the Planning Department.

My lack of enthusiasm for local bickering over building color, signage and unenforceable ordinances stems from the realization that we have much bigger issues to decide in the next couple of months. The presidential election this year presents a sharp distinction between the two parties in vision and implementation.

As I’ve been knocking on doors in all types of neighborhoods this summer, campaigning to re-elect President Obama, my view of the “average American” has broadened. I’ve talked with folks from the middle class, as well as from the low-income and wealthy classes. The assumptions about what makes a good life and how to get there differ markedly among each class. Across the board, people in all three classes value self-sufficiency. So if we expect people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, we can’t institute policies that keep smacking people down as they try.

Chapel Hill increasingly is becoming a haven for the wealthy. CNN Money Magazine ranked our town as one of the Best Places for the Rich and Single, and reported that the median family income here is $105,327. As our demographics skew from middle class to wealthy class, our values will change, too. We’ll shrug at redeveloping apartment complexes affordable to teachers, town employees and international graduate students into housing for the wealthy. A decade down the line, will any of us be left in town who remember when Chapel Hill paid less attention to appearances and more to improving the lot of all its residents?

The results of the presidential election will decide whether the federal government will shield boot-strappers from the sharp elbows of the wealthy who don’t believe there’s room in their class for more inhabitants. Likewise council members will make decisions in the coming months that show whether Chapel Hill wants to make room for more than just the wealthy.
– Nancy Oates

by on September 10, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Elections, Housing, Lifestyle
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 10, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/09/10/no-vacancy/

Talk and ride

If Church of Reconciliation didn’t know it before, it knows it now: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Last month, the Presbyterian church that formed in support of the civil rights movement and since has taken controversial stands on a number of issues in the name of peace and unity put up ad posters in Chapel Hill buses with the tag line “End U.S. Military Aid to Israel.”

A handful of people in town let council members know how deeply offended they were by the message. The town pulled the ad because the posters listed the website address of a national peace-in-the-Mideast organization instead of contact information for Church of Rec, a violation of the town’s policy. Church of Rec said it intends to add the required contact information and put the ads back up. The church has a contract with the town to run the ads for a year.

The poster downplayed the politics and focused on peace. It pictured a Palestinian man and his grandson and an American grandfather and grandson under the heading “Join with us.” It did not depict any of the carnage the Israelis and Palestinians have wrought on each other.

Yet the message stung some to a depth I can’t understand, and out of that, I hope will come a dialogue, some edification for those of us who see the Israeli/Palestinian fight as a conflict that needs a truce. Not that I’m advocating for a bus-ad war, but silencing those who posit a different viewpoint doesn’t seem to be the answer.

One thing is apparent: The town needs to have clear parameters about what it will and will not display in taxpayer-sponsored buses. Could Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan put up an ad: “Join us. Stop Medicaid and Medicare insurance to the elderly and poor” or “Join us. Stop undocumented workers from picking our produce”? Would the town allow those, regardless of whom they offended, as long as the posters listed Mitt’s office phone number?

I don’t know that bus ads are where we want dialogue about important issues to play out. But Church of Rec succeeded in one of its aims: It got people talking.
– Nancy Oates

by on September 4, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Politics, Transportation
Tagged
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 4, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/09/04/talk-and-ride/

“Towing” the line

Maybe because I’m a rule follower I don’t get the appeal of appealing the permanent injunction issued Aug. 2 against Chapel Hill’s towing and cell phone ordinances. But last Wednesday, in a special Town Council meeting called before the Sept. 4 deadline to appeal, six of nine council members voted to file an appeal for both the towing and cell phone ordinances. (Penny Rich explained that they are treated as a package because George King, owner of George’s Towing, bundled them that way in his lawsuit against the town.)

Rich joined Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt, Ed Harrison, Jim Ward, Gene Pease and Donna Bell in voting for the appeal that on the surface looked like a move solely to protect council’s collective ego – a “we’re not gonna let a tow truck operator tell us what we can and can’t do” sort of thing.

But the mayor explained it differently.

“I supported the appeal because of the likelihood of getting answers to larger policy questions related to the scope of municipal authority,” Kleinschmidt said. “There is no significant workload or cost associated with getting answers to these kinds of questions and would not only benefit us, but also other communities across the state.”

Not that town attorney Ralph Karpinos has a lot of extra time on his hands, what with the lawsuit from the Sanitation Two and potential lawsuits from neighbors-against-growth groups that have learned council caves at the threat of well-off residents threatening legal action.

Side carnage of the town losing the lawsuit is that other municipalities now know definitively the limits of their authority to pass ordinances that interfere with commerce or go beyond state laws. The town made this mess, and I give Kleinschmidt credit for trying to clean it up.

But I give Lee Storrow even more credit. He, Matt Czajkowski and Laurin Eastom voted not to appeal. Storrow surprised everyone, because he had voted for the cell phone ordinance in the first place. But this time around, he considered the big picture.

“I knew that this was an open legal question, and that it is the role of the judicial branch to define our municipal authority in this instance,” Storrow said. “One we got a ruling from the Superior Court that we did not have municipal authority, I thought not appealing the case was the responsible thing to do.

“We have major challenges facing us over the next year, and I don’t think it’s a good use of staff time and resources to appeal the case now that we’ve been provided with legal insight.”

George’s Towing has added signs to make the consequences of illegal parking clear. He aggressively does what business owners have hired him to do. Now it’s up to the rest of us to follow the rules.

On a completely unrelated note: Penny Rich and I, who rarely find ourselves on the same side of any issue, do support the same presidential candidate. We waited in line together to pick up our convention credentials, and it took longer than I expected. She graciously saved my place while I left to add more quarters to my parking meter. Congress could learn from such civility.
– Nancy Oates

by on August 27, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Courts, Parking
Tagged ,
Posted by Nancy Oates on August 27, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/08/27/towing-the-line-2/

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