Here is the statement Carrboro resident and community volunteer Sharon Cook has released:

"Over the past decade I’ve been an advocate for a wide range of issues facing Carrboro’s residents including neighborhood preservation, pedestrian safety, and environmental protection. I’ve worked on many more issues as a member of the town’s Planning Board for the past three and a half years.(CORRECTION: Sharon Cook has asked us to revise this sentence to read ... since March 2007.)

As a candidate for a seat on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, my overriding concern is whether or not the citizens living in Carrboro today will be able to afford to stay here.

Two years ago I ran for alderman with that question in my mind, based upon conversations with residents from throughout town. I was concerned that our town government was on an unsustainable economic path, one that would force many long time residents to move out of Carrboro. Over the past two years that’s become increasingly clear.

I’m an optimist, and I believe that it’s not too late to change our direction. I’m running for a seat on the Board of Aldermen to put us on the path that will make it possible for Carrboro’s citizens to remain in their homes as long as they choose to do so through balanced growth and development.

I look forward to thoroughly discussing and debating this issue and the many other issues facing our town in the weeks and months to come."

Today, Brian Voyce became the third to file to run for the next mayor of Carrboro. 

Yesterday, we wrote that pet store employee and political newbie Amanda Ashley filed to challenge incumbent Mark Chilton, who is seeking a third term.  

Voyce also ran for mayor in 2007, when he garnered about 18 percent of the vote (Chilton won with 75 percent).

Tim Peck, 54, became the latest to file for a seat on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen. He joins Sammy Slade, Sharon Cook, and incumbents Jacquelyn Gist and Randee Haven-O'Donnell. There are three seats up for election Nov. 3.

Filing closed at noon today. 

If you're a voter in Carrboro, you can expect to see a little more of Board of Aldermen candidate Sammy Slade on his bicycle with a flier.  

Sharon Cook, an unsuccessful 2007 candidate for the Board of Aldermen, filed Thursday afternoon.

 Before Cook filed, Slade had an easier shot to succeed retiring Alderman (and Mayor Pro Tem) John Herrera. 

 Herrera threw his support behind Slade when he announced his retirement several weeks ago.

 You may remember seeing Cook's name in the news recently. As a member of the planning board, she had proposed a text amendment to the Carrboro Land Use Ordinance that would affect farms.

 Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton has all but dismissed Cook as a rabble-rouser. He has said Cook and others "continually disparage the town... claiming Carrboro is 'anti-farm.'" Chilton has also said Cook's motives were to provide "campaign fodder for her next campaign."

Cook, 55, and Slade, 34, are the two challengers (although filing doesn't close until noon) for three seats up for re-election. Herrera is not seeking re-election, but incumbents Jacquelyn Gist and Randee Haven-O'Donnell have already filed.

 Chilton is also seeking a third-term. So far, one challenger, Amanda Ashley, has filed to run for mayor. 

The Carrboro mayor’s race has its first challenger.

Political newcomer Amanda Ashley is a 53-year-old pet shop employee who wants to keep Carrboro a small community.

“Willy-nilly growth is not the answer,” she said.

Ashley talks of limiting the population at 25,000 people. As of July 2007, the town population was 19,178, said Randy Dodd, of the Planning Department. Ashley says Carrboro can be a “western wall” against development in Chapel Hill and Durham. She also wants to keep southern Orange County “rural and green.”

Mayor Mark Chilton has been a good caretaker, she said. “I’m not running against him,” she said, but added that she sees the need to present ideas that may not be looked at. She wants more public transportation and said the town should impose a fee on vehicles “simply moving through Carrboro.”

She is concerned about Carolina North adding to the traffic moving through the town. Ashley says she walks everywhere in downtown Carrboro, and that the 25 mph speed limits are ignored. “I’m against more cars,” she said. She believes town taxes are high enough and should not rise over the next couple of years.

She also wants to look at possibilites for supporting arts, music and film.

Ashley has lived in the Carrboro town limits since 2000 and in Orange County since 1984. She works at Phydeaux pet store and earned an undergraduate degree in political science from Guilford College. She is openly transgender and has two children from a past marriage to a woman. She says she hopes that will not detract from the issues.

Carrboro Aldermen Dan Coleman recently wrote to Sen. Kay Hagen on the board's behalf. Here is the letter:

Dear Senator Hagan,

I am writing on behalf of the Mayor and Alderman of the Town of Carrboro Board to urge you to give your full backing to the public option for health insurance sought by President Obama.

Municipal governments in North Carolina are struggling with double-digit annual increases in health insurance costs while county social services are hard-pressed to meet the needs of the uninsured and under-insured. We desperately need your help to achieve needed reform.

It is our belief that the health care crisis in the United States will ultimately only be solved by a single-payer national system. We encourage you, for the sake of the citizens of North Carolina and the nation, to do all you can to achieve such a system.

Yours,
Dan Coleman

Dan Coleman, on behalf of
Alderman Jacquelyn Gist
Alderman Joal Hall Broun
Alderman John Herrera
Alderman Randee Haven-O'Donnell
Alderman Dan Coleman
Alderman Lydia Lavelle
Mayor Mark Chilton

She went to Julliard and played viola in Mozart’s motherland, but she was best known for her muffins, staff writer Jesse DeConto writes in this Sunday's Chapel Hill News.

Margaret Alice Middleton died last month, just three weeks shy of her 65th birthday. From 1987 to 1997, “Maggie” and her life partner Jane Hamborsky built a business from selling muffins at the Carrboro Farmer’s Market to running Maggie’s Cafe & Espresso Bar, a European-style eatery famous for Jane’s espresso milkshakes and Maggie’s chicken salad sandwiches.

“She got her juniper berries from Yugoslavia for that,” Jane said this week. “She was real picky about what went into it. The juniper berries were her magical little secret that a lot of people wouldn’t even think of.”

Maggie fought off cancer beginning in 1998, but a recent MRI found a tumor on her spine. Hamborsky said she died of a heart attack in her sleep. A celebration of life service and funeral will be held at 3 p.m. on her birthday, Friday, July 10, at Chapel of the Cross.

Read more about Maggie in Sunday's Chapel Hill News. 

Carrboro Alderwoman Randee Haven O’Donnell announced her re-election bid Monday at a solar panel installation on the Town Commons.

She said the partnership between Communities in Schools of Orange County and Solar Tech South shows the town doing its part to prepare for a greener future. ,

Carrboro isn't just jumping on the bandwagon when it comes to solar energy,” she said in a statement. “Before the national economic decline, before “green jobs” became a catch phrase, I started conversations and plans to forge partnerships like this one to propel Carrboro into viable solar energy use, solar business development, workforce training, and consumer use.”

Among her accomplishments, Haven-O’Donnell said
-- She has worked through the Greenway Summit and the Greenways Commission to foster dialogue, get community input, and enact the town’s greenway plan.
-- She has worked with the county commissioners to reconstitute the Orange County Library Services Task Force “to advance the cause of County branch libraries in general and a southwest branch library in downtown Carrboro specifically.”
-- She has worked to preserve Bolin Creek, serving as one of the town's representatives on the Leadership Advisory Council to UNC for Carolina North. “Note that while UNC would not promise preservation in perpetuity, as I had advocated, they have agreed to preserve the Carolina North tract in Carrboro for the next 50 years,” she said.  

She said she also has sought to promote business and workers, as a member of Carrboro's Economic Sustainability Commission, the Local Living Economy Task Force, the emergent Greater Carrboro Business Community group and in the town's efforts to locate a site for day laborers.

Four seats on the Board of Aldermen are up. Mayor Mark Chilton, running for re-election, faces a challenge from community organizer Sammy Slade. Alderman John Herrera has decided not to seek another term. Alderwoman Jacquie Gist has said she probably will. (She may have made this more definite in the week I was away.)  The official filing period opens Monday.

Main Street Properties, the developers of the 300 East Main Street redevelopment project, now expect to break ground around the first of the year.

Partner Laura Van Sant says construction of the hotel -- one of five buildings planned for the shopping center that houses the Cat's Cradle and The ArtsCenter -- should take place in early 2010. Developers had previously said the project might begin in the second half of this year.

The hotel would be a Hampton Inn or Hilton Garden Inn. Van Sant they are leaning to a Hampton Inn.

The developers have also requested a meeting with town of Carrboro staff to see if the town would like to lease spaces in the planned parking deck. The deck will have more spaces than tenants need in the early stages of the project, Van Sant said.  

Carrboro Alderman John Herrera, the board's mayor pro tempore, made the following statement tonight:

"I will not be running for reelection. I'm delighted in Sammy Slade. He's a Latino who will continue bringing a voice to this community. I think Sammy brings so many things to this town. He is a community organizer and has planted many seeds. And I look forward to him becoming the second Latino alderman in the town of Carrboro. I've gone from three kids to six kids and I really want to spend more time with my family."

POSTED BY STAFF WRITER JULIAN MARCH

Sammy Slade has become the first challenger to jump into the Carrboro Board of Aldermen race.

In an outdoor gathering under a soft patter of rain, Slade announced his candidacy tonight to about 45 supporters in the Carrboro Community Garden off Hillsborough Road. Slade helped found the garden, located in the town's Martin Luther King Jr. Park.

"I believe I have much to offer Carrboro," he said. Expanding participation in the town's decisions will be a mainstay in his campaign, he said.

Slade, 35, is a community organizer, urban farmer and a carpenter and estimated he spends 60 percent of his time volunteering. He is the co-founder and co-coordinator of the Carrboro Greenspace, a group that promotes community, sustainability and public space that all can enjoy. He has been involved with the Orange County Democratic Party, including serving as a precinct chairman.

After growing up in Chapel Hill and Carrboro and then doing some traveling, Slade decided, "this is one of the best places I can be."

Slade read from a prepared statement but otherwise deferred comment on particular issues. "I plan to spend the summer laying out the details of my platform," he said. "I look forward to an active campaign in the fall, meeting the voters, and discussing the issues with them."

The Carrboro mayor and three alderman seats are up for re-election in November. The official filing period starts July 6.