My Nov. 4th Chapel Hill News column was kind of choppy this week. I guess one of the “nots” I can add to the list is a paragon of brevity. Some folks use the term “citizen journalist” to describe what I’m doing on CitizenWill - a description that hasn’t quite jelled into a term of art.

Whatever I’m doing, both the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation are working hard to protect my right to do it, please consider
supporting Bloggers’ rights.

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I am not a journalist.

Sure, I’ve written guest columns for the Herald Sun, the Daily Tar Heel, and now, full circle, for the Chapel Hill News. But that does not make me a journalist.

Self-published, some of my online work falls under the rubric of “citizen journalist.” Yet that loosely applied classification carries little gravitas in the world of politics and governance.

My ruminations require primary research, occasional interviews, analysis – behaviors associated with trained journalists. But my posts, though sometimes grist for the news, lack the institutional news outlet imprimatur.

And, always, I bring my acknowledged point of view. Not crafted by publishers, editors, advertisers, media marketers — my interests and passion dictate my content.

At Greensboro’s recent unconference ConvergeSouth, professional journalists, online activists, performers and readers, discussed the current consequences of new media enterprises — the corrosive, even subversive, effects of the personal printing press on the venerable Fourth Estate – and speculated on what is yet to come.
Continue reading ‘Fish, Fowl, Eyeballs, Journalist: None of the above?’

District referendum won 18703 (68.52%) to 8593 (31.48%). The negative consequences of this decision will not be fully apparent until 2010 and beyond.

With reform in the air, with winning candidates Nelson and Gordon both saying there’s more to be done, with every media endorsement suggesting further action, the next phase of broadening electoral participation should be easy to initiate.

When the new Orange County BOC first meets, I’ll be there asking for:

• Non-partisan elections
• Cumulative voting
• Super-precincts, especially for campus, NOW
• Voter-owned elections (to mute the money problem)
• Caps on contributions
• Adoption of standards and procedures to incorporate the widest citizen counsel on district realignments

With a good year to hash out the details, passage of these key reforms should take some of the sting out of the divisive districting scheme.

Covered Hogan Farms from 6:45am to 9:45am. BOCC candidate Jamie Daniels was handing out material until roughly 9am. Stein supporters covered the precinct from 7ish on. The Democrats staffed a table handing out sample ballots the whole time I was there…

As of 9:35am, 300 confirmed voters with another 10-15 milling about waiting to go. When I called in to report the numbers to O.C. Democratic headquarters, was told the 10am figure was 369.

Hogan Farms has a nice setup - including hot coffee. A welcome bit of hospitality considering the temperature and rain began falling in earnest as I left. Judge Baddour was getting some good support. So to folks voting NO on the districting referendum. A welcome surprise.

[UPDATE: ] Moved the rest of the photos here.

The rain has let up a bit. I’m hoping most of it has swept through by 4:30pm when Elijah and I start working Chapel Hill library (Estes Hills - my home precinct).

For my RSS reading readers ;-)!

Find your precinct HERE .

Please vote Tuesday, Nov. 7th. Polls are open 6:30AM until 7:30PM.

• Vote NO, NO, NO on either of the divisive Orange and Chatham county districting referendums.
• Vote YES for Baddour and Anderson Superior Court District 15B.
• Vote YES for Vanderbeck commissioner Chatham District 4.
• US Congress District 4: Wish I could write-in Kanoy
• State Supreme Court Chief Justice: Parker
• State Supreme Court Associates: Timmons-Goodson, Martin and Robin Hudson (over Calabria based on tenor towards capital cases)
• State Court of Appeals: Bob Hunter and Stephens
• State Senate: Kinnaird
• Orange County Sheriff: Pendergrass (like Parker’s emphasis on reducing turnover and using technology but unsure about other issues)
• Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor: Snipes and Shooter

Precinct locations for Orange County and SAMPLE BALLOT
Precinct locations for Chatham County and SAMPLE BALLOT

Note precinct changes: More information here.

• Battle Park precinct votes at the Chapel Hill Senior Center 400-A S. Elliott Road Chapel Hill for the November 7, 2006 Election only.
• Coles Store precinct have been split into two precincts.
  The School Districts divider line determines your precinct and voting location:
  • If you live in the Orange County School District (to be known as Coles Store 1 Precinct), you will continue to vote at the Union Grove Methodist Church, 6407 Union Grove Church Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.
  • If you live in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro School District (to be known as Hogan Farms Precinct), you will now vote at the Lake Hogan Farms Clubhouse, 101 Commons Way Dr, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.

The Superior Court District 15B candidates are:

• Judge Allen Baddour - current sitting judge (and a candidate I strongly endorse for November)
• Judge Charles Anderson - who I endorsed in the primary.
• Judge Carl Fox
• Attorney Adam Stein

Baddour and Stein 3rd Quarter campaign finance reports.

Fox’s 3rd quarter report [PDF] was available by Friday.
Anderson’s 3rd quarter [PDF] just today (Nov. 6th) [UPDATE:] Tom Jensen on OP informs us that the report was available Saturday.

Videos and commentary on Oct. 11th’s Superior Court District 15B UNC Young Democrats forum.

Videos and commentary on Oct. 16th’s Superior Court District 15B Bar members forum.

This time last year I was catching 14 winks in preparation for election day.

Earlier in the evening I had made the rounds collecting my outlying signs for redeployment. About 3 hours from now, I was leaping out of bed to fill some balloons, say a hasty goodbye to the family and rush to pick up local activist Tom Jensen ( thanks again Tom for kindly assisting with the last round of sign deployments at every municipal polling station).

It was the start of one of the longest days in my life. Exhilerating, enjoyable, extraordinary, engaging - the hospitality and good cheer of the citizens of Chapel Hill made the long hours fly by.

The beautiful fall weather was an incredible bonus.
Continue reading ‘Sign, Sign Everywhere a Sign…’

Maintaining election signs feels like an art form.

During the 2005 election season, I plotted various energy saving routes to “care and feed” for my signs as I drove around town on regular errands. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

I didn’t just fix my own signs. Heck, at one point I’d repaired or reset more of Ed Harrison’s signs than mine and every other candidates combined! Why? While to some the signs are just so much roadside rubbish, to me they represent not only a major campaign investment ($2-$8 per sign) but a valuable, if limited, form of communication.

Folks gained name recognition from my catchy slogan, read various intended and unintended meanings into my “daisy” design and followed my website URL ( now campaign.willraymond.org ) to find out more about my positions (and to get a real-time report on my finances).

Every candidate, as long as they follow the generally reasonable rules of signage, deserves the courtesy of publishing that limited message without interference. Sure, the “message” is sometimes lost due to poor implementation - like Ed’s short-staked slanted signs that easily tilted and wilted and fell under the merest of pressure - but, unfortunately, the weather doesn’t account for all sign damage.

While focusing on sites with Judge Baddour’s and Anderson’s signs, I’ve continued to repair all candidates’ signs - whether I support them - like Ellie Kinnaird - or don’t - like Steve Acuff. Baddour’s signs, some up for the whole duration, have weathered well. To date, my worst problem has been keeping ones up both on the corner of Estes/MLK and at the end of Mt. Bolus Rd. Those signs, unlike others I find in the woods or ditches, vanish. Anderson’s have done fairly well, though the cardboard they’re made of seems to get awful droopy in the wet.

Continue reading ‘Election Signs 2006, Care And Feeding’

A resounding NO from former Orange County Democratic Party chair Barry Katz in his Oct. 28th LTE to the Chapel Hill News:

I will vote no on the ballot referendum to restructure the Orange County commissioners.

First, there hasn’t been enough public debate on the merits of change, and I oppose change without voters’ understanding its consequences. Second, since the mid-1930s, The Chapel Hill News has reported countywide contests between candidates in favor of funding schools, health clinics, etc., and candidates who oppose raising taxes to fund such services. Most years the pro-funding candidates win and they do it with support from all parts of the county, albeit with greater support in southern Orange. So this is an old story.

Third, my six years on the county Planning Board suggests to me that underlying the push to change how county commissioners are elected are residents who are concerned about “restrictive” land-use planning and the rights of landowners to do what they want with their land. I joined the board as a skeptic regarding land-use planning and left a confirmed proponent of strategic land-use planning. We have only to look at Wake County to see how unregulated growth leads to urban sprawl, a lack of public transportation and too little public open space.

Orange County has been in a decades-long urban-suburbanizing transition that will continue past my lifetime. Agriculture now accounts for about 1 percent of the county’s economy, but the value of agricultural land has skyrocketed in recent decades due to residential housing demand. “Recent residents,” i.e., people whose grandparents weren’t born in Orange County, constitute a strong majority of voters and now determine the outcome of local elections, as is only proper. Not only would new and future Orange residents benefit from planning, but agricultural landowners would enjoy sustained maximum land values if the quality of life stays high in the county, as would occur under a thoughtful land use plan.

I hope landowners recognize the practical truth in this notion. — Barry Katz, Chapel Hill

Thank you Orange County League of Women Voters for sponsoring tonight’s forum.

There were 15-20 folks in the audience this evening, including former BOCC candidate Artie Franklin, current BOCC candidate Jamie Daniel and Superior Court District 15B candidate Chuck Anderson.

Fright-night, referendum style, came a day late as Moses Carey pretty much reprized his earlier “debate” performance pulling out the legislature as bogeyman. In Moses’ scenario, the legislative demons will swoop in if the referendum dies, reject the voters will and steal our ability to choose alternatives.

Backing off an earlier claim that independent runs would be easier, tonight he just claimed it would be slightly easier. It won’t be. Technically it’ll take %5 of 88944 registered voter signatures to even get on the ballot. Strangely enough, that’s more signatures than it would’ve taken to win a District 2 spot in this year’s primary.

Once again, he asserted the best way to unite the county is to divide it, contrary to the lunacy our southern neighbors in Chatham county are going through…

Though he acknowledged helping craft a 1993 recommendation to use this alternative voting method, he characterized my claim that cumulative voting opens doors to minority voices as pure speculation. Further, he rejected my claim, once again saying it was pure speculation, that evidence to the contrary and in spite of wide usage throughout the world - our country - in corporate governance, the method is better than districting in apportioning representation.

He did recant and admit that the expansion of the board and districting could be voted on separately.

He also agreed that the “1 person, 1 vote” didn’t accurately capture the real exercise of voting power - a side-effect which allows fewer voters in District 2 to elect a candidate than candidates in District 1 (this given that winning the Democratic primary is “de facto” winning the general election).

Moses did surprise me with his suggestion that Orange County citizens weren’t up to understanding cumulative voting - that it was too confusing - and that they couldn’t be educated.

After presenting the only option in defeat as sticking with what we have, I asked him directly what would stop the BOCC, 24 hours after the referendum’s defeat, from starting over and incorporating the best ideas for selecting and electing a diverse slate of candidates.

He ducked that direct question and a subsequent one from the audience: “What will you do if the referendum is defeated?”

When asked the same question I made the following pledge:

If the referendum is defeated I will appear at the first BOCC meeting after the election and ask for:

• Expansion of the board to seven members
• Non-partisan elections
• Cumulative voting
• Immediate implementation of rural and urban super-precincts

If we pass this referendum, additional reforms will not be implemented. If we pass this referendum, rejecting proven and practical alternatives which emphasize coalition building, then we’ll have consciously created a house divided.

Please don’t be fooled by the sugar-coating, board expansion, around this bitter pill, institutionalized divisiveness and disenfranchisement.

Vote NO on the Orange County districting referendum.

According to WCHL1360 some kind of organized tomfoolery is going on at the Morehead Planetarium polling place

Some students from UNC Chapel Hill are working to get votes for Conservative judges, but are not always transparent in their efforts.

Chapel Hill attorney Bob Epting says a young woman approached him outside the polling place and asked if he was a Democrat.  When he said yes, she gave him a list of candidates.

The implication was the list was of progressive judges (essentially Democrats) in this non-partisan race.

Fred Black relates the following over on OP:

Yesterday when I voted at Morehead (#996 since Oct. 23d), there was a young lady on the edge of the parking lot. She asked me if I was going to vote and I replied that I was. She handed me a small piece of paper that listed Duke, Martin, Levinson, Calabria, Bailey, and Stroud. With the DTH and the WCHL story as background, I asked if the named people were all Republicans. She said that she thought so but their’s are nonpartisan races. I asked her what organization she represented and she said she was just helping her friend who was in class.

More information on this BlueNC and OrangePolitics threads.

With the current vote flipping problems in Arkansas, Missouri, Texas and Florida - all biased towards Republican candidates - one has to wonder if the Morehead trickery is the least of election 2006 problems.

That said, I’ve gone ahead and contacted the campaigns of Duke, Martin, Levinson, Calabria, Bailey, and Stroud in case they weren’t aware of folks scamming the electorate in their name.

Their handling of this mess will be a great indicator of their willingness to cultivate public trust both in the election and judicial process.

Contact information:

• Judge Duke - www.rustyduke.com judgeduke@rustyduke.com
• Justice Martin - www.justicemarkmartin.org mmartin@justicemarkmartin.org
• Judge Levinson - www.justicelevinson.org campaign@justicelevinson.org
• Judge Calabria - www.calabria4judge.com amcalabria@nc.rr.com
• Judge Bailey - www.judgekrisbailey.com judgekdb2006@nc.rr.com
• Judge Stroud - www.judgestroud.com JudgeStroud@aol.com

Mailto link: MAIL the JUDGES.

My email:

RE: Apparent organized effort to deceive Orange County voters
TO: Judge Duke, Justice Martin, Judge Levinson, Judge Calabria, Judge Bailey, Judge Stroud

According to local media reports (WCHL1360 - http://www.wchl1360.com/details.html?id=2124 ) and several eyewitness reports ( http://orangepolitics.org/2006/11/republicans-attempt-to-deceive-orange-county-voters/#comment-65383 ) , an organized effort is being made in Orange County to deceive voters in your name. A list of your names is being presented to Democratic voters in a fashion meant to mislead uninformed voters into voting for you.

Given your current standings as judges, given the responsibility you’ve been entrusted with, given the tenor of all your campaigns, I imagine this tomfoolery comes both as a surprise and a disappointment.

Now that you are aware of the problem, would you please publicly ask the participants to desist? A quick resolution to this problem will serve the public well.

Thank you for your prompt attention,

Will Raymond
Independent, Orange County

I’m once again on the hot seat tomorrow as pro-referendum Orange County Commissioner Moses Carey (and legions of staffers) try to counter my pro-democracy arguments against local election redistricting

Seriously, if folks walk away understanding how this redistricting actually diminishes “small d” democracy, distorts voter-power, potentially overweights rural influence and that other, better, alternatives were not adequately entertained, I’ll be satisfied.

Since the last “debate”, Commissioner Carey has reversed his previous assertion that the expansion of the board to seven members and the districting must be done together - it doesn’t. He did assert, evidence to the contrary (look southward to Chatham for instance), that districting isn’t divisive and that this referendum is the best way to promote minority representation. Again, alternatives, like cumulative voting, do a much better job promoting minority voices without sacrificing “small d” democracy.

Finally, based on this WCHL1360 [MP3] interview, Moses appears to have no idea or desire to carry forward with increasing local democratic access to our government if this referendum should fail.

Hey, at least he didn’t use the NC legislature as bogeyman argument.

ELECTION FORUM — The League of Women Voters-ODC will host an educational forum on the November referendum on district elections for Orange County commissioners at 7 p.m. in the Orange Water and Sewer Authority conference room, 400 Jones Ferry Road in Carrboro. A second forum is scheduled for Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. in the F. Gordon Battle Courtroom, 106 E. Margaret Lane in Hillsborough.

Map to tomorrow’s meeting.

Local ‘blogger Mark Kleinschmidt (and fellow 2005 Council candidate) alerts Chapel Hillian’s to an upgrade (?) in our image.

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I’m hooked on the ‘blog CreditSlips, “A blog on all things about credit and bankruptcy. We are seven academics who will use this space to do what we like to do when we get together–discussing and debating what does happen and what should happen when consumers and businesses borrow money.”

Local UNC law professor, Japanese internment expert and battler of the Malkinator, Eric Muller (isThatLegal.org), turned me on to these wild-n-wacky debt analysts last year.

One of their more interesting and disturbing threads involves Judge Leif Clark, a man of conscience, driven to criticize the precipitous dissipation of our civil liberties. Turns out that the Judge exposed himself to censure for practicing his First Amendment right to declaim the Bush madministration’s actions.

Over the past two weeks, I have been following a story about Leif Clark, a bankruptcy judge in San Antonio (see here and here). As regular Credit Slips readers will remember, Judge Clark wrote a letter to National Public Radio responding to an interview. In the letter, Judge Clark made remarks highly critical of the Bush Administration’s attitude toward civil liberties. At the time, I thought we had the proverbial tempest in a teapot about whether Judge Clark’s comments violated the Canons of Judicial Ethics which forbid judges from engaging in “political activity.” The San Antonio News-Express has reported that Judge Clark’s comments are now “under review by the chief judge of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, the tribunal that disciplines federal judicial misconduct in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.”

Further commentary over on CreditSlips.

PleadTheFirst’s PotatoStew documents the unfolding drama of Greensboro’s Chief Wray RMA report debacle.

PotatoStew is an excellent political cartoonist with a great sense of humor (his ‘blogs tagline is “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of an unnecessary blog, or prohibiting the free posting therein.”).

There were 20+ folks tonight - with a couple from the media - maybe 4 or 5 organizers - some town staff and the balance being interested citizens. I was already convinced that District 15B voters have a heck of slate of candidates before them - tonight I was more impressed than ever.

Very simply - we can’t lose. Of course, we have to pick and the candidates did a good job differentiating their philosophies, approaches, procedures and performance.

Due to what turned out to be poor placement of the camera and some technical issues I botched Adam Steins opening statement. In my defense, I set my camera up early - on a tripod as per BrianR’s excellent recommendation - well away from onlookers and the moderator. But then “dancin’ Doyle” decide to move stage right. By that point, my bobbing photographic nemesis for the night had taken the high ground.

Opening statements in reverse order appearance on the ballot. Essentially, Adam Stein reviewed his service before the bar, his work on the Mel Watt and Daryl Hunt cases and laid out his career as per the first forum.

I apologize for cutting Judge Fox off during question on political parties influence: essentially he gave a reprise of his answer on parties and politics from the 1st forum.

• Opening statements.
• Closing statements.
• Stein’s pre-determined short term on the Superior Court bench.
• High profile cases.
• Judicial temperament.
• Electing judges.
• Staying current with the law.
• Work ethic and punctuality.

Some interesting highlights.

• Anderson on reforming the system for selecting judges - especially the perception of the public about what the effect of money has on jurisprudence.
• Anderson on keeping current with the law.
• Stein taking up the transition challenge with his closing statement.
• Stein on why he’s punctual now - great story of his youth.
• Fox on managing high profile cases.
• Baddour on how a short term can hurt our system of justice.
• Baddour on direct outreach and keeping the “common Joe” in the picture.

Again, I apologize to the candidates for weaving around, botching the focus, not anticipating “dancing Doyle” and, in Mr. Stein’s case, completely zapping a segment. I’m working to get better at this vLog business.

And to my readership, thanks for the feedback. I wasn’t sure if these videos would have any utility.

Opening statements. I botched Mr. Stein’s statement. Later this week I hope to retrieve a video copy from the cable telecast.

youTube link to opening statements.