Tonight’s the night.

Not only will the Town Council approve its budget for fiscal 2011, its members also will vote on issuing $20.4 million in general obligation bonds that include $16 million and change for doubling the size of the town library.

The crucial vote is the decision on whether to issue the library expansion bonds. The council has to approve a town budget – state law says so. But the council does not have to issue those bonds. That’s completely discretionary, and were this a healthy economy in which to borrow that great an amount of money, I’d be all for it.

But times are tough, and you would expect a majority of council members to show some common sense on fiscal matters, even if the town manager is going out of his way to reassure them that the borrowing is no cause for worry. I think borrowing always is a cause for worry, but that’s just me. I’d advise the council to hold off until we see some improvement in the economy. (The town has three more years in which it could issue the bonds; that’s plenty of time to see how the economy shakes out.)

If I were a betting man, though, I’d say the vote will go 5-4 in favor of issuance. In previous discussions of the matter, Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt and council members Penny Rich and Sally Greene have shown no reluctance to borrow that money. They have enthusiastically backed issuing the bonds from Day 1. The lousy economy doesn’t faze them. And they don’t seem to understand out of whose pockets the money will come.

These folks are more concerned with the town’s image than with its fiscal health. And they certainly don’t seem to subscribe to the wisdom of not borrowing money in bad economic times unless there’s an emergency. The library expansion is in no way an emergency.

Council members Matt Czajkowski, Laurin Easthom and Gene Pease have voiced their profound doubts about the timing of the bonds, and I would bet they will vote against the issue, as it would be prudent to do.

That leaves Donna Bell, Jim Ward and Ed Harrison as the swing votes.
Bell has shown great good sense in her time on the council, and she has questioned the need for the bonds to be issued now. She would seem to be in the Let’s Wait on This camp.

Ward usually votes the same as Greene, and while he has railed against the county and its unwillingness to provide more funding for the town library, the fact that a big chunk of the money needed to run the expanded library won’t be there will not affect his decision for the bonds.

That leaves Harrison. My sense is that he will vote for the issue, if only because he sits next to Greene and would not want to have to put up with her sniping if he didn’t go along.

So come Tuesday morning, I predict the town will be headed inexorably toward a greatly expanded library as well as a whole lot more debt to pay back.
–Don Evans

Yesterday morning I woke up before dawn and got in my car and started driving. I’ve done that once a year for the past three years when I pick my daughter up from her school in New England. But the other 364 dawns in the year, I expect to be in bed asleep. So I have the highest regard for our newspaper carrier who does this every day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. When I left home in the dark yesterday, the newspaper was already in my driveway.

Our N&O carrier makes a matter of dimes per paper delivered. Out of that he has to buy the plastic bags the paper is folded and stuffed in before it’s thrown on the driveway, and he is not paid for the time he spends folding and stuffing.

It’s the sort of job you take if you’re up anyway at 3 in the morning, worrying about how you’re going to pay your bills. And the money you’d make from your route, once you subtracted what you spend on gas to deliver the papers, wouldn’t offer you much relief.

So I was outraged to learn, on one rare occasion that the paper wasn’t delivered and I called the circulation desk to see about getting one later in the day, that The N&O charges carriers $2 per paper that is re-delivered. If our carrier is sick one day or has a death in the family or his car breaks down (or more likely, hits one of the many deer darting across the road in the pre-dawn hours), and the majority of the subscribers on his route call for a re-delivery, that wipes out his earnings for a week.

If ever again I wake up to find no newspaper in my driveway, I’ll give the carrier the benefit of the doubt. I’ll go to the news box at the convenience store a few blocks away and spend 50 cents to buy a replacement. And when the end-of-the-year gift-giving rite rolls around, I’ll remember how hard it was to get up in the dark and start driving, and show my appreciation to the person who does it for me every day.
– Nancy Oates

Why has Firehouse Subs closed its restaurant on East Franklin Street and is planning to reopen in Meadowmont, right next door to Carolina Café? Not because of high rent in the heart of downtown, but mainly because of the lack of parking. Without ample and free parking, Firehouse must limit its customer base to those within walking distance. The new branch at Meadowmont has sufficient free parking to accommodate those on campus who want to zip to Meadowmont, grab a sandwich and go back to work.

When (and by “when” I mean “if”) construction begins on 140 West Franklin, parking downtown will become even more of a problem. Not only will all those cars that now park in Lot 5 have to find parking elsewhere, but all the construction workers building the high-rise will have to find some place to park. Roger Perry lucked out when he was building East 54. His construction site was located right beside the commodious parking lot for what used to be Aurora restaurant and MacLean Builders, before UNC bought the property. Presumably Perry, who is chair of UNC’s board of trustees, rented those spaces from the university. Goodness knows, with all the state budget cuts it has had to absorb, the university could certainly use a few extra bucks. But where will construction workers park during the years they work on 140 West Franklin?

At the end of the most recent Town Council meeting, council members met in closed session to discuss purchasing the property at 110 South Graham St. Presumably, the small parcel would be used for parking. Maybe council members realized the potential for building a 10-story parking deck in the narrow space. Not only would it provide some relief for the parking problem, but aesthetically it would balance out Greenbridge just down the street.
– Nancy Oates

We’ve been flying at half mast since we learned of the untimely death of civil rights lawyer Ashley Osment over the weekend. Osment battled ovarian cancer for three years, determined that it not dominate her life. In that she triumphed. Cancer may have robbed her of her life, but not of her spirit. A memorial service will be held for her at 11 a.m. today at Chapel Hill Bible Church, at the intersection of Sage and Erwin roads.

Her death comes at a time when the ugliness of mankind seems to be showing itself in full force. She was one of the lights that darkness was not supposed to overcome. In recent weeks, women in our life have been diagnosed with or succumbed to cancer, and we are struck with the arbitrary nature of who cancer chooses as its victims: mothers of children old enough to understand the depth of their loss; mothers of young children who will grow up without the foundation of the unfailing certainty of their mother’s love; daughters who will leave their own mothers’ arms and hearts empty.

What inspired us most about Osment was her willingness to give her unflagging energy to those who were nearly whupped by the fight. She took on Title VI cases, the federal law that protects individuals from discrimination based on race, color or national origin. She fought to improve the lot of the UNC housekeeping staff. She represented black DOT workers after their coworkers hung a noose in their workplace. She won the civil rights case for police officer Keith Edwards, the first black female officer on the UNC police force, after Edwards was passed over for promotion in favor of a white male with less experience and seniority.

To commemorate Osment and others who have inspired us, do something for the good of the world. Become one of the lights, if only for a moment.
– Nancy Oates

For the last two weeks, my life has been all about the census. Every day, seven days a week, I have been planning driving routes, knocking on doors and filling out the forms that are used to document the count.

Today the crew of enumerators with which I have been working will shift its focus to counting the folks who live in Durham. Our work in Chapel Hill seems to be done. Yesterday we hustled to finish the few remaining unenumerated questionnaires. These were the residences that had been visited a few times already but no one answered the door. In most cases it was the last address that would finish a booklet of several score addresses.

It’s hard but rewarding work. Sometimes the difficulty is in the energy it takes to climb the steps to the second or third floor of an apartment building or to lug around a satchel full of forms and notebooks.

Sometimes it’s dealing with the fact that in any one visit to a street or apartment complex, odds are the enumerator will clear from 20 percent to 33 percent of the questionnaires he takes with him. That makes for a lot of revisits.

I’ve encountered many different residents, from the woman who seemed to know everyone in her apartment building (very helpful for the enumerator who just couldn’t seem to find anyone home when he visited) to the fellow who took more time complaining about being visited by an enumerator than it would have taken for him just to answer the seven questions from the questionnaire.

The vast majority of the people I have visited have been very gracious and understanding and helpful. I have been thanked by residents for making the count. Meeting folks who make every effort to help is a kick. I’ve been offered water and a place to sit and rest while asking the questions. Makes me feel more like we are all counting together.

–Don Evans

Council member Gene Pease said he wanted a better understanding of the Northern Area Task Force’s reasoning on why it deemed certain areas appropriate for higher density. So after the public hearing on the Bridgepoint development last month, he asked town attorney Ralph “Don’t ask me, I only work here” Karpinos for more information. Karpinos told him that that was something Pease had to ask and have answered in the public domain and reportedly told Pease to bring the topic up at a Town Council business meeting.

So, Monday night, Pease brought it up and was met with silence. When Pease asked Karpinos how he could get answers to his questions, Karpinos said, in effect, “Someone should have provided that to you tonight.” But alas, no one did.

Pease’s frustration was visible. The time had come to vote on whether to approve the rezoning and special use permit application for Bridgepoint. Pease wanted more information before he could make a well-reasoned decision. He went through channels; he followed the rules; he came up empty. In the end, he voted against Bridgepoint, one of only two council members to do so.

Monday night was an experiential lesson in learning the ropes of town government. Here’s what we’ve observed in our first year of council watching:

When Karpinos, known for his whistle-clean deniability, is asked for an opinion, he wordsmiths an answer that slipknots the problem and the solution onto someone else.

When town planning director J.B. Culpepper, who puts the “chipper” in “civil servant,” can’t take care of a matter by denying there is a problem, she’ll promise a report.

When town manager Roger Stancil chews his cheek, you’ve lost the fight.

Pease didn’t explain why he voted against Bridgepoint. But we’re firm believers that more information leads to better decisions, even if it means giving up a little of the control. We wish we could convince town staff of that wisdom.
– Nancy Oates

Lucky would be the restaurant that was so popular its customers would cause traffic congestion severe enough to persuade the council not to approve it being built.

Rezoning the land at the corner of Weaver Dairy Road Extension and Homestead Road to make way for the mixed-use development of Bridgepoint came up for vote at last night’s Town Council meeting. Jack Smyre, the planning consultant representing the developer, presented revisions that addressed the concerns voiced by council and the public at the public hearing last month, in particular the impact of commercial space in the midst of heretofore residential neighborhoods. Smyre showed a detailed analysis of the number of residential units needed in a 2-mile radius for commercial establishments to succeed. Then he performed a “stress test” – cutting out all residences to the east of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The number of existing homes remaining still met the recommendations for business success.

But residents of a section of Northwoods (a neighborhood west of MLK Jr. and north of Weaver Dairy Road Extension) opposed adding commercial space, fearing the impact of additional traffic that might be drawn to Northwoods. Council member Laurin Easthom, who disclosed that she lived in that area, pulled out all the stops in her objections to the proposed commercial development. Weaver Dairy Road Extension is a neighborhood road, she said. (Other council members who regularly travel along Weaver Dairy Road Extension disagreed.) Could council wait for the Schools Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance to weigh in first? (No, Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said, because council could make so many changes before approval that it would look nothing like what SAPFO approved.) How would lighting, such as in the parking lot or from neon signs on stores, affect nearby Vineyard Square residents? (LUMO will keep it in check, said town planning director J.B. Culpepper.) Could council see a sketch of what the project exterior would look like? (That will be presented after the special use permit is approved, and then to the Community Design Commission first for approval.) There is no large development expected along Homestead, Easthom said. (That’s because council shot down a large development recently proposed across the street from Bridgepoint.)

Smyre contended that the businesses would not need to draw in additional vehicular traffic because they would be supported by people already in the nearby neighborhoods. Are you saying, Easthom grilled, that a restaurant built there would not draw in any people from outside the area?

Smyre kept his cool. Not to the point it would have a significant impact on traffic, he said.

In the end, the council voted 6-2 to approve the rezoning and the application for an SUP. Council members Easthom and Gene Pease voted against both measures.
– Nancy Oates