More than 35 years after women marched around with “Government: Get your hands off my body” signs, I may have to print up a new batch. In the early 1970s, the signs were to stand up for a newly pregnant woman’s right to choose what to do with her body. We won that fight. On Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court, decided in favor of Jane Roe in Roe v. Wade, making first-trimester abortions legal again.

For years, the government has chipped away at my freedom by patting me on the head as it passed patronizing laws about what was in my best interest. But now the government wants to take away my salt, and it’s time to fight back.

I do understand the need to balance free choice with public safety. If I choose to smoke in public, the government can tell me where I must stand because my right to smoke in public ends where someone else’s lungs begin.

I’m less sympathetic when it comes to making sure I buckle my seat belt or wear a helmet when I ride a motorcycle. It should be my choice whether to live as a vegetable.

But not an unsalted one.

The government took away my trans fats, and Oreos and Entenmann’s are no longer worth eating. Shouldn’t I be the one to judge how much I’m willing to risk on that carcinogen?

The government says Americans eat too much salt. It leads to high blood pressure, and that’s unhealthy. So the government is urging food manufacturers to cut the amount of salt they use in processed foods.

Will Big Brother now make Morton’s available only by prescription? Or will I be reduced to skulking in dark corners of the park to blow my paycheck on a couple of grams of salt slid to me in a baggie?

Granted, on average, we Americans are a nation of fat slobs. We eat the wrong foods and too much of them. We don’t move our muscles enough. We would rather text someone than have a voice-to-voice conversation. We prefer the fantasy life of TV shows and online games because having a real life with real friends is too hard.

But shouldn’t that be our choice?

It’s time for us to take back the night. I’ll start with the Fritos.
— Nancy Oates

Got a little card in the mail from the Orange County tax office yesterday. The card was one of those fold-here-tear-here-do-it-in-this-order constructions that are so evocative of governments everywhere.

The card was to tell me that my request to have the assessed value of my property lowered had been denied. I applied for the reduction this year after having an appraiser come out to assess the value of the house. His estimate of its worth was substantially lower than what the county’s assessor believes. So I thought it would be a good time to remind the county that it still has the value of my property way overvalued.

Last year the property was assessed during the county’s revaluation at 30 percent higher than its appraised value. The values of a lot of houses in my neighborhood were adjusted by one-third or more. That seemed rather excessive, even for an assessment that comes around every four years.

My first attempt to get the county to see reason brought me a 3 percent reduction in the increase. My second attempt brought me nothing but a lot of wasted time spent in the county tax office waiting to go before a panel to debate that value.

That interview didn’t change a thing except my perception that someone in the county tax office is doggedly holding onto an extremely skewed view of county property values. Mistaken or not, that view is unlikely to go away unless county residents continue to apply a lot of pressure.

I know many readers probably are rolling their eyes right now and muttering that we just don’t want to go through that again – we had that Tax Revolt thing right after the revaluation, and it got us mostly nothing. But I believe residents of Orange County should be aggressive in their efforts to get their government to see reason and to make decisions that are practical. I’d like to see property owners in the county apply for a reassessment every year. You have until March 31 to do that, so why not try again next year? I intend to submit an appraisal again next year.

There’s no telling what mischief tax office workers will get up to if taxpayers don’t do something to keep them busy.
–Don Evans

It’s hard enough to make council members happy with a new development project, even more so as the clock moves toward midnight on a night that council members already had listened for more than three hours to impassioned citizens making their cases for or against urban archery, followed by an hour and a half of discussion about a proposed new church complex on Homestead Road at Merin Circle. So give the developers of Bridgepoint credit for cheerfully presenting their vision for a new mixed-use development on the corner of Homestead and Weaver Dairy Extension — and for council members for doggedly pursuing their concerns.

You had to figure that some of the newest members, sitting through their second meeting in a month that ended long after midnight, were wondering why they wanted that seat in the first place.

Before the Bridgepoint presentation began, Town Manager Roger Stancil warned council that this particular development falls in an area cited by the Northern Area Task Force as both an environmentally sensitive area and a Development Opportunity area. The objectives of each conflicted.

Bridgepoint developers proposed 23 townhouses (with the option of expanding to 32 units via condos), most with attached two-car garages, totaling about 50,000 square feet on the west side of the property and two commercial buildings totaling 27,400 square feet with 87 parking spaces on the south and east edges of the lot. Robert Dowling, director of the Community Land Trust, hung in there past midnight to comment on how accommodating the developers had been in working with his organization.

But neighbors to the proposed project also stayed late to voice objections to the additional traffic congestion that the commercial area would bring. One called it “the Caryfication of Chapel Hill.” Council members were divided on whether the commercial buildings would be an attribute or a detriment, but they united over the need for a traffic signal or roundabout at the Homestead-Weaver Dairy intersection.

Traffic Engineer Kumar Neppalli took the microphone post-midnight to explain that a traffic signal, which would cost about $65,000 to $75,000, would be more affordable than a roundabout, which could run from $200,000 to $400,000. Carolina North plans call for a roundabout to be constructed there in the future. Council members felt strongly that the intersection needed amelioration now, but hesitated at the thought of putting in a traffic light only to have Carolina North take it out at some point in the near or distant future.

The discussion will continue at the May 24 council meeting.
— Nancy Oates

The list of what downtown needs to thrive ran off the page by the time Chapel Hill residents and downtown business owners had had their say. About 150 participants between the morning and afternoon discussions last Thursday threw in their ideas at public planning sessions sponsored by the Town of Chapel Hill and the Downtown Partnership, held at Top of the Hill.

One glaring omission from the list? Consumers, specifically consumers who can bring their spending dollars downtown without having to drive there.

We can plan all we want — and evidently do, from the number of planning reports a consultant from KlingStubbins said he has been wading through. Will Raymond, who has served on a number of boards and task forces that have produced those reports, said he was gratified someone is actually reading them.
Perhaps if the task forces charged for their reports, the town would pay more attention.

The town has hired three consulting firms already to help with the transformation of downtown: KlingStubbins, a global architecture, engineering and planning consultant with an office in Raleigh (as well as Cambridge, Mass., Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington and Beijing); Stewart Engineering, with offices in Raleigh, Charlotte and Wilmington; and Strategy 5, an economic development firm that has offices in Maryland and Utah, in addition to Raleigh.

The discussion facilitators asked that participants not talk about parking, panhandling or the development review process. The town and Downtown Partnership are aware of those issues, said Dwight Bassett, Chapel Hill’s economic development officer, and are working toward improvements. Just last week the town signed a lease for an additional 20 parking spaces on West Franklin Street, Bassett said. “It may seem like baby steps sometimes, but they’re still improvements,” he said.

Discussion participants brainstormed a wide range of ideas: space for offices and business incubators, along with an office supplies store and other sorts of merchants to support those businesses; a grocery store; an elementary or middle school; pocket parks; architecturally significant buildings; a traffic circle to prevent Rosemary Street from being the fast-lane downtown bypass. Some people spoke in favor of more dense residential infill; one very vocal participant spoke against it. Redeveloping the NationsBank building got murmurs of approval.

The complete list of ideas should be posted later this week on the town’s Web site, townofchapelhill.org, as well as the Downtown Partnership Web site, downtownchapelhill.com.
In early June, the team will be back to hold a daylong charette. Bassett would like to see another 150 to 200 people come out to comment on how the planning team implemented all these concepts and ideas. Maybe everyone will go out to eat or shop on Franklin Street over the lunch break.
— Nancy Oates