How lonesome is that whistler? Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on Garcetti v. Ceballos appears to have closed the door on public employees, at all levels of government, safely reporting governmental malfeasance.
I’ve asked a Council Member what this ruling means for Chapel Hill and our town staff.
Do we need additional employee protections to encourage reports […]

I proposed a downtown parking task force both as a citizen and a candidate for Council. Working, shopping and living (near) downtown for many years, I have seen the parking dynamic shift as development, transit and demographic trends progressed.
Currently, I believe the key parking problem is not supply but allocation of existing resources.
I have […]

Representative Price’s response to my May 11th complaint about NSA snooping.

11PM local news:

WTVD 11 leads with today’s Powerball snafu problems.
WRAL 5, after leading with nearly 4 minutes of ‘Canes news, covered the glitch.
NBC17, bless their hearts, led with about 5 minutes of ‘Canes game review and didn’t make it to the State’s newest con-game until 6 stories in .

NBC17 also deserves kudos for being […]

I’ve recently been reviewing some of my old links covering the evolution of UNC’s Carolina North development.

Nice post by TerriB on her outreach adventure with Chay, the P-lot kitty.

Let the frenzy begin: Powerball tickets go on sale today.
And if you plan to play, please consider throwing in another buck for the Powerplay option just to irritate Scientific Games, whose (now former) lobbyists brought such high ethical standards to our little State-sponsored con-game.

There are many paths to Concerned Citizen.
Last night I had a visitor stumble in via the Google search: “robert oppenheimer vindicated”.
Hope they found what they were looking for…

The four horseman of the North Carolina Lottery continue to ride roughshod over the body politic:
Compulsion

Saw my first “problem gambling” commercial this evening on Channel 50 (Fox50). The station’s owner, Jim Goodmon, fought the lottery. That didn’t stop another of his Capital Broadcasting properties, WRAL, from bidding on and winning the $340,000 a […]

The construction of a special I-40 interchange for Carolina North has been a persistent rumor.
Over the last 5 years, I heard UNC officially deny any such plan more than a dozen times. The last time for me, I believe, was when UNC’s liason to the Horace Williams Citizen’s Committee (HWCC) said she hadn’t heard anything […]

From today’s Rob Shapard Herald-Sun article covering a Carolina North “October surprise” :
The Board of Trustees voted unanimously Thursday for a resolution that set the October ‘07 date a day after trustees chafed at the pace of the latest Carolina North committee and said they were keen to “get off the dime” and get […]

As I noted in Chafing: Prevention and Treatment, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees has always been a wildcard in the potentially disastrous development of Carolina North.
Yesterday’s meeting unsettled Mayor Foy, at least enough for him to defend the initial delay in Carolina North’s Leadership Advisory Committee’s getting to substantive discussions.
Foy observed:
You […]

The HWCC chair presented our few, final (?), thoughts for Council on the Carolina North project and a response UNC’s Chancellor Moeser letter of Jan. 25th.
The most important recommendation, I believe, was that of the HWCC’s environmental sub-group (of which I was a member).
I lobbied hard for the elements that appear in the […]

Here’s the HWCC’s (Horace Williams Citizen’s Committee) response to Chancellor Moeser’s January 25th Letter on Carolina North development.
I drafted the original response, which was further refined by myself and Joe Capowski and finally tightened up and approved by the whole of the HWCC.
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: Comments on UNC January 25, 2006 letter […]

Following in the footsteps of Bush’s Justice department, the FCC has thrown in the towel on further investigations of allege crimes by Bellsouth, Verizon and others.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will not pursue complaints about a spy agency’s access to millions of telephone records because it cannot obtain classified material, the FCC’s chairman said in […]