The McClatchy Company today announced the winners of 10 McClatchy President’s Awards in the community newspaper division, an annual competition designed to recognize the best journalism at McClatchy’s non-daily papers.

Eight newspapers collected the 10 awards, which honor work published in 2011. The Chapel Hill News won two President's Awards, sweeping the features category with first- and second-place finishes.

First Place: The Chapel Hill News (North Carolina)
Exonerated Man
Dave Hart
Associate Editor Dave Hart delivered his readers a spellbinding account of William Michael Dillon’s odyssey through 28 years of imprisonment in some of Florida’s harshest prisons and his 2008 release based on DNA evidence, which exonerated him of the murder for which he was convicted. But the narrative, which Hart crafted so well, takes us to a point of rebirth for the wronged man who survived the injustice of those years through a journey into the sweetness of music. He has now released a CD, “Black Robes and Lawyers,” which is the poetic testimony of the prison experience, made possible through the persistence of Jim Tullio, a Grammy Award winning producer. The “Exonerated Man” is a worthy winner.

Second Place: The Chapel Hill News (North Carolina)
House Is Home
Mark Schultz
This is a compassionate telling of the latest evolution in the long history of AIDS in the world, told so well by Editor Mark Schultz, who takes his readers on the road that Raymond McDaniel has traveled to these lingering days in a home for people with AIDS in Carrboro, N.C. For 15 years he has seen his friends die, and then has seen the little plaques placed in the dirt behind the back patio with the simple dates of their birth and death. But McDaniel, who thought for years that his plaque would have been placed in those ranks, has survived far beyond his expectations. To some, the plaques came to be painful reminders of those who had passed away. “House Is Home” helps readers realize that those with AIDS are living with their disease, not dying from it, and that the residence in Carrboro is helping them to survive

After some confusion on Orange County's position, plans for the light-rail line between Chapel Hill and Durham got unanimous approval this morning from a bi-county transportation committee.

Today's vote for a "Locally Preferred Alternative" route keeps the project on schedule to apply for a federal grant this year. It also moves the project along to another round of public hearings, on environmental effects, in the spring.

By Tammy Grubb

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen has named a municipal budget and management veteran from Arizona to fill the town’s vacant manager post starting March 15.

David Andrews, 51, is a native of Freeport, Texas, and the youngest of nine children raised in Tyler, Texas. Carrboro’s Assistant Town Manager Matt Efird, also a finalist for the job, has filled the position since Steve Stewart retired in August and will help with the transition.

Alderwoman Randee Haven-O’Donnell said the board made its “carefully deliberated” decision after a long process that included reviewing phone interviews with 15 candidates and holding face-to-face meetings with three finalists. Richmond, Va.-based Springsted Inc. was hired to lead the search, which cost the town more than $15,000.

Orange County commissioners approved preliminary plans to bring more bus service and light rail to the county, giving the local transit authority the go-ahead to apply for federal funding for the project.

Commissioners voted 5-2 Tuesday night to approve a "locally preferred alternative" for a rail and bus plan that would connect Orange County to Durham County.

The preliminary plan includes a rail line that would run along N.C. 54, connecting UNC Hospitals to Alston Avenue near Duke University and downtown Durham.

The commissioners' vote will inform the the transportation committee of the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization during their meeting Wednesday morning.

Commissioner Alice Gordon will represent Orange County commissioners at that meeting, and was advised to inform transit advisers on the vote and express a preference for a route that would not go through Meadowmont on N.C. 54.

Commissioners Earl McKee and Steve Yuhasz voted against moving ahead with the rail and bus options, both saying light rail would not benefit the whole county.

"My no vote is not again transit, it is a no vote against this particular technology in this particular corridor," Yuhasz said,

A group of demonstrators that briefly occupied a building at 201 N. Greensboro St. Saturday say they'll plant a garden on the property to protest a CVS store planned for the site.

The group called Carrboro Commune includes members of the local anarchist community and Occupy Chapel Hill-Carrboro movements. On Monday, Occupy said it did not endorse the building takeover, which ended when police ordered the demonstrators out or said they would arrest them. (Read that story here.) 

On Sunday, demonstrators huddled in the cold outside the building and decided to plant the garden as the next step in their protest against the 24-hour drug store, which would replace the CVS across the street in the Carr Mill Mall shopping center. They plan to announce the "guerilla gardening" project at a meeting with developers at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Town Hall.  The developers plan to present the latest version of their plans for the store at the meeting.

We have received two letters so far on Sunday's extended interviews with Chapel Hill Town Manager Roger Stancil and Police Chief Chris Blue on the Yates Motor raid:

From A. Carter Linstead: "Perhaps the questions the CHN interviewer posed could be characterized as 'asking the hard questions.' But to me the interview appeared to reflect an apparent strong bias on the part of the reporter. Virtually every question sounded more like an accusation."

From Niklaus Steiner: "Thank you for the excellent interview with Town Manager Roger Stancil and Police Chief Chris Blue. Thanks to probing questions from the interviewer and honest answers from Stancil and Blue, I am now assured that they acknowledge mistakes around these concerns and are taking necessary steps to address them." 

Tell us what you think about these interviews, the police raid or anything else about our coverage of local issues at editor@newsobserver.com.

Over the weekend Chapel Hill Town Manager Roger Stancil released a 14-page report responding to the questions in the Community Police Advisory Committee petition to hire a private investigator to review the Yates raid. The entire report is attached below.

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