During the campaign and since the election, we have had board meetings  that touched on various important issues affecting the town.  Shortly, I will write a post to summarize these items.  In the meanwhile, we have a special meeting called for this Tuesday, November 29 to consider the profiles of several candidates for the Town Manager position.  It is nice to be able to focus fully on board business again.

-We have spent a great amount of time on our local and regional transit and greenway plans.

-We received a $74,000 grant from the Southeastern Energy Alliance/U.S. Department of Energy (in partnership with the Town of Chapel Hill),  implemented our Carrboro WISE (“Worthwhile Investments Save Energy”) program (approving the design of a residential retrofit program), and approved our first energy efficiency revolving loan.

-We approved various developments under our stalwart Land Use Ordinance, including a unique development (Veridia) that is proposed to be LEED certified with many environmental features, such as a solar photovoltaic array to offset community electrical usage, solar water heaters, a rainwater capture and reuse water system and a community garden.

-We have encouraged walking and biking by the construction of sidewalks and bike lanes.

-We constructed a new Town fire station, complete with many environmental features such as extensive use of daylighting, energy-efficient lighting, flushless toilets and a solar water heater.

-We filed a bill in the North Carolina General Assembly to ask to operate under the new N.C. Building Code requirements (these will contain required energy efficiency standards) a year early.  The new requirements are scheduled to take effect in 2012; we asked to have them effective for us in 2011 (unfortunately, the bill has not moved forward).

-We approved and supported Town staff’s participation in environmental restoration efforts along the Bolin Creek Watershed and Baldwin Park.

-We authorized and received a comprehensive Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report (prepared by a class at the University of North Carolina), a report analyzing community and municipal GHG emissions and ways to reduce these.

-We have been working to improve protection of the riparian buffers and streams that flow into Jordan Lake by making revisions to our ordinances, pursuant to the Jordan Lake Rules.

I am proud of this work we have done and know that we will continue these types of efforts.

Lydia Lavelle announced that she will file to run for a second term on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen. Lavelle was first elected in November 2007.

During her first term, Lavelle has not only been a steady presence on the Board, but has also been actively representing Carrboro’s interests in several other capacities.

This year, she is serving as the chair of the regional Transportation Advisory Committee of the Durham/Chapel Hill/Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization (TAC-MPO), a group composed of elected officials from Orange, Durham and Chatham counties responsible for addressing and planning for transportation needs for the region. In addition, she sits on the Transit Partners Committee, a work group of elected officials and staff that discusses issues related to Chapel Hill Transit. She also represents Carrboro on the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitor’s Bureau Board of Directors, and is the BOA liaison to the Planning Board.

Lavelle has lived in the triangle area for 28 years, and at her current address for seven years. She became a member of the Town’s Planning Board and chaired its New Horizons Task Force after her neighborhood became a part of the town in January 2006. An attorney, Lavelle is employed as an Assistant Professor at the North Carolina Central University School of Law in Durham.

“I am grateful to the voters of Carrboro who elected me four years ago to serve as an alderman. During my first term, I have established a reputation as a person who listens and makes well-reasoned decisions. I work hard to be accessible to my constituents and colleagues. Further, I actively represent the interests of Carrboro in a variety of regional settings. I have enjoyed getting to know many fine people who also care about Carrboro during my tenure. If I have the opportunity to serve the Town of Carrboro with a second term of office, I will continue the local leadership that I have established these first four years.”

Lavelle has a history of service in her communities. Before serving on the Board of Aldermen, she worked for the city of Durham for eight years, after which she became a member of the City of Durham Recreation Advisory Committee and the Durham Open Space and Trails (DOST) Commission. She was vice-chair of the DOST for several years, and also a member of the Trails Committee, which planned and routed many of the trails and greenways in Durham.

Her continuing priorities will be to work to improve transportation options, to represent Carrboro’s concerns and interests with regional partners, and to steward Carrboro’s growth and development with an eye towards diversifying the town’s tax base.

On June 3, a trail opening ceremony was held near Morris Grove Elementary School for the Jones Creek Greenway.  This Orange County project was funded with ARRA funds and recently completed.  The greenway is a .62 segment of path through the woods near the site of the future Twin Creeks Park.  It ends abruptly a short distance from the back of my neighborhood (Fox Meadow) as well as Lake Hogan Farms, but neighbors have found ways to get to it for pleasant walking and running and for kids to ride their bikes to school. Draft plans are for it to continue on to Homestead Road someday.  What a great project!

Another bit of news is that our town manager, Steve Stewart, announced that he will be retiring at the end of the summer, and so we have begun the process of hiring a search firm to help us fill this most critical position.  In my opinion (and I am not alone), Steve has done a fine job as town manager, and our task will be challenging as we seek to find someone who brings his level of skill and experience to the position. 

Speaking of the Town Manager, Steve masterfully presented another tax-increase free budget to us this month for the upcoming fiscal year.  He accomplished this predominantly by cost cutting where possible, keeping some positions vacant, and delaying some capital purchases.  These are not options we can do every year, but as the economy improves, hopefully we will be able to restore money in areas where we have had to cut or delay expenses.

We voted at one of our meetings to a rezoning for a property off of Hillsborough Road so that the County could consider an option to purchase the property to build a Carrboro branch library on the site.  Many residents came out to speak in favor of the project, but there were also several residents (mostly neighbors) who spoke who did not want the site rezoned for a library.  Although we ended up voting for the rezoning (a supermajority vote of six affirmative votes out of the seven members was required because a protest petition had been submitted by neighbors), we also expressed concern about the plans for traffic flow to the library and the impact on the streets surrounding the property.  When the site plan comes before us in the future, we will be looking at this closely. 

Finally, at one of our meetings, we reviewed the parking deck that will be constructed at the East Main Street project.  We gave comments and feedback to the developer, and were told that they hoped to break ground later this summer on both the parking deck and the hotel on the property.  This is a much anticipated project in Carrboro, one that will be a key to our plan for growth in the downtown area.

It has been a busy spring!

El Centro Hispano held a community meeting on April 13, 2011 at their Carrboro office located in Carrboro Plaza Shopping Center.  At the meeting, El Centro president and CEO Pila Rocha-Goldberg (pictured above) informed the community at large about El Centro’s accomplishments during the eight months they have been open in their Carrboro office. Colleen Blue, El Centro Programs Director, pictured above with me and Mayor Chilton, helped with the presentation. The occasion also marked the opening of an art exhibit comprised of a collection of traditional masks from Guerrero, Mexico and the work of painter Cornelio Campos, as well as art from ECH’s “Art Workshop for Children” and of students of “Mi Escuelita Spanish Immersion Preschool.”

There was an event held at Baldin Park as part of the Creek Action Tour held in Carrboro/Chapel Hill on April 9, 2011.  The tour was a collaborative effort of many organizations and individuals, and includeds municipal, residential, educational, and community garden sites. Sites throughout the towns were on the tour which ran from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon.   The kickoff of the event occurred at Baldwin Park along the municipal boundary, where construction for a restoration project was just completed; to mark the occasion, there was a tree planting ceremony at 9:30 am.  While there, attendees also saw the area where the community garden is being established.  It was a wonderful event where all present learned a bit about the rich history of the land comprising Baldwin Park.

Statement from Lydia Lavelle and Alicia Stemper:   

Today is the 100^th anniversary of Carrboro.  On this day, our town celebrates our accomplishments over this past century, and our evolution from a small, working mill town into the progressive thinking, equality-for-all Carrboro of 2011. 

In 1994, Carrboro demonstrated its forward thinking nature by becoming the first municipality in North Carolina to offer domestic partner registration, only a decade behind the earliest on record in the United States (Berkeley, California in 1984). 

 As a couple, we said our vows in front of family and friends in a commitment ceremony several years ago. The ceremony was conducted by one of the ministers of our church. At that time, we could not register as domestic partners because our neighborhood had not yet been annexed by Carrboro.  Once we were annexed, we did not register for two reasons.  First, neither of us needed this as a condition for health insurance, the most common reason for these types of municipal registrations.  Second, domestic partner registration can also serve as a symbolic declaration of relationship. However, we decided that the declarations we made at our private commitment ceremony were enough.

But times change. Domestic partnership, civil union or same-sex marriage recognition is now available in most major countries around the world, and in sixteen (nearly a third) of our states.  This number continues to grow on a yearly basis.  According to a recent survey conducted by Elon University, more than half of North Carolina residents support legal recognition of same-sex couples.  However, in North Carolina, there are no state-wide domestic partnership or civil union benefits, and marriage is already denied same-sex couples by state law. But this is not enough for our North Carolina Senate.  Just last week, a bill was introduced in the Senate to amend the North Carolina Constitution to not only define marriage as between a man and a woman, but to make it the only  domestic legal union to be valid or recognized in our state.  In other words, not only will gay and lesbian couples continue to be denied the right to marry, they will also lose the ability to have those relationships recognized in any public way – even a symbolic one – and they will continue to be denied the legal responsibilities and benefits of marriage.

Those introducing the bill call it “Defense of Marriage,” but that is a misnomer. They are not looking to defend marriage, which would imply that marriage was being threatened. Instead, they are looking to exclude gay and lesbian citizens from having the same protections, the same responsibilities, the same recognition, and the same benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy. They are also aiming to keep same-sex couples from even having the ability to be symbolically recognized by their own communities as a valid couple.  We feel that this anti-gay bill is wrong.

Carrboro as a town has long stood against bigotry like this. It struck us that we are so grateful for this town, so proud of its leadership, and so humbled by its courage, that we wanted to make a symbolic gesture of our own.  Therefore, we chose to register as domestic partners on this date, tying our personal history to the history of this town as a way to say, “Thank you, Carrboro!”  We did this as a commemoration of the spirit of our town on its 100^th anniversary. We did this as a statement of gratitude to Carrboro. And we did this as a statement of outrage to our legislators. The state of North Carolina should not be in the business of passing laws that exclude many of its citizens from the rights and the privileges that other citizens enjoy.

Congratulations, Carrboro. Thank you for taking leadership on matters of equality and fairness. Thank you for supporting and valuing your lesbian and gay citizens. We are proud to live here and proud to be registered as domestic partners.

Happy Anniversary!

Carrboro received the League of American Bicyclists’ Silver Level Bicycle Friendly City award in fall 2010. Carrboro was the only town in North Carolina, and one of only two in the southeast, to receive the silver award.  On Saturday, February 26, 2011, Bill Naspar, the director of the League’s Bicycle Friendly America program, presented Carrboro with this award at the Looking Glass Café.  There was a large, enthusiastic group of supporters in attendance.  What an honor for our town!   This picture includes members of the Board of Aldermen as well as the Town’s Transportation Advisory Board at the event.