Jon Wilner is retiring as executive director of The ArtsCenter in Carrboro effective June 30.

Wilner, 63, will stay on as interim director through Sept. 30 while the board seeks a replacement and has agreed to work as the center's community relations person after that for $1 a year. 

"It's really what I wanted," Wilner said this morning. He said he has lost the energy The ArtsCenter needs after illness struck his wife, he underwent open heart surgery and his mother died, all within the past two years.

"I love the people I work with," Wilner said. "I don't think I am able to lead them in the way they need to be led."

Wilner joined The ArtsCenter in 2002 as an instructor in acting and directing for the camera. In 2003 he became director of children's and family programming and less than three months after that was named interim executive director.

He took the ArtsCenter from a $600,000 annual budget to about $1.5 million, creating several new programs including a youth performing arts conservatory.

Wilner also pushedhard to make Chapel Hill-Carrboro and UNC an arts destination. He spoke often of Bucks Fever, a multi-month arts festival in Pennsylvania where he came from that he said could boost tourism and visitor spending. The effort never panned out, in part, he says, because it relied on volunteers. He said without having to lead the ArtsCenter, that is a job he would be willing to take on if the community wanted.   

This is a critical time for The Artscenter. The agency struggles along with all nonprofits in the recession. Wilner recently had to let go a part time community outreach person. The East Main Street shopping center the ArtsCenter is located in is slated for redevelopment, and the ArtsCenter, which owns its space, is planning a major fundraising campaign for a new building.

If anything, that big project gave Wilner more reason to step down now. "Some people don't know whne to get off the bus," he said. "I do."        

The Carrboro Free Press, a free weekly paper, is becoming a cooperative.

On its blog, the paper, sort of a “zine,” announces it is being sold by the current publisher, AEA Media, to West Main Press.

The Carrboro Free Press (CFP) has put out 82 issues since debuting in October 2007. In March it added The Distillery, a monthly arts and literature supplement.

“I believe that the recent macro-corporate newspaper model has led to the overall corruption and decline of the newspaper industry,” founder Ashley Atkins said on the blog. [personal aside: ouch!] “Something radical must happen, but the answer is more involved than a sweeping transition to online-only publications. This is the perfect opportunity to try something completely innovative with the community journalism model: make Carrboro Free Press a cooperative.”

The CFP Co-op is currently governed by a five-member Board of Directors. Annual memberships are available with benefits including voting power, free annual content contribution and discounts on advertising. The first membership drive event will be held June 19 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Open Eye Café. Personal memberships are $40; professional memberships are $100.

Read more here.

Our story today about the Carrboro Citizen newspaper's request for a loan from a Carrboro small business development fund prompted a few questions. So here are a few tidbits that didn't make the story that may help.

 The 2-year-old weekly newspaper, distributed free in 160 locations in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the surrounding area, asked for $100,000 in order to expand its staff and headquarters and to increase its press run. It currently prints 6,000 copies and wants to expand its circulation to 10,000.

The town and an advisory board that reviews loan applications countered with $50,000. I spoke today with Peter Lee, who chairs that advisory board - the Economic Sustainability Commission. He told me the decision not to grant the newspaper's entire, $100K request was made for several reasons, including a desire not to deplete the town loan fund too much. 

The fund is fed by loan and interest payments; currently, there are a dozen active loans and the fund has about $164,000 in it now, according to James Harris, Carrboro's economic development chief.

Here's how the loan process works: The business owners, in this case Robert and Victoria Dickson, who publish the newspaper, work with UNC Small Business and Technology Development Center to prepare the loan application. During that process, the business owner must provide financial information, business statements, cash flow documentation and information on the intended use of the public money.

The advisory commission reviews the materials and can ask questions of the business owners. It then makes a recommendation to the board of aldermen, who ultimately decide whether to make the loan.

The commission also considers the business and its impact on Carrboro.

"We don't just loan money to anyone," Lee said today. "You have to look at what the business is trying to do. The town is not a bank. It's purpose is to help potentially great businesses."

In its 23 years of existence, the loan fund has rarely lost money - once when a business went bankrupt and once when a business owner died.

The commission considered the newspaper a good financial bet in large part because the Dicksons put put personal property - a local condo valued at about $240,000 - up as collateral.

"The personal security and collateral makes it a reasonable loan," Lee said. "It's very unlikely for the town to lose its money."

Martha Tyson, president of The Friends of the Carrboro Branch Library, says the group has started a petition to save the library in McDougle Schools.

"It  has been heartening to hear the outcry from the public and our locally elected officials against the possible closing of the Carrboro Branch Library," she writes."To save $37,000 to compensate for the poor planning of the new main library in Hillsborough can hardly be construed in any manner or form as being equitable.

"To close a library that is open only 26 hours a week to serve the heaviest populated area of the county makes absolutely no sense."

The group is asking supporters to sign their name and Orange County address on its Facebook petition. If you want to keep the library open you can 1) go to Google and search for "carrboro branch library petition." The first link that appears should go to the created petition

"None of our libraries should be closed," Carrboro Alderwoman Randee Haven'O'Donnell says.

She and the other aldermen have called a special meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday in Town Hall to respond to County Manager Laura Blackmon's proposed closing of the Carrboro and Cedar Grove branch libraries. The Cybrary would remain open in the Century Center.

The closing would save $45,000 in the county's $177 million proposed budget. The savings would be more but Blackmon proposed moving staff from the closed branches to the new main county library opening in Hillsborough.

The mayor and aldermen are going into Monday's meeting realistic -- and sympathetic to the county, which is cutting across the board because of the recession.

"I don't want to beat anybody up," says Alderwoman Jacquie Gist. "It's a horrible year to be a municipal official with the budgets."

"I'm aware they're having an extraordinarily difficult budget year, and I just want to see us be sensitive to that fact," Mayor Mark Chilton said this morning. "I think Orange County government woulnd never talk about cutting library services unless they genuinely believed they had to do that."        

No, really. Our DOT said that. But there’s a catch.

The Carrboro aldermen last week rejected a DOT plan to widen a short stretch of Smith Level Road on the south side of town. The DOT plan also would add sidewalks and bike lanes and a roundabout at the Rock Haven Road -- the busy entrance road to Carrboro High School.

Carrboro liked most of the plan, which has been hashed over for quite a few years. But the town balked at widening Smith Level to four lanes between BPW Club Road and the Morgan Creek bridge, less than a half mile.

At a meeting Tuesday, DOT offered Carrboro three options:

(1) accept the DOT proposal, unlikely because it means reversing a 5-to-1 vote against it;

(2) scrap the road project and start all over with a new plan for sidewalks and bike lanes, starting a process that would take years with uncertain prospect of success, or

(3) let DOT build the road pretty much to Carrboro’s specifications – and then give this portion of Smith Level Road over to the town.

Option 3 means Carrboro can have its way -- if it is willing to take on the cost of maintaining this short stretch, less than a mile in all, of Smith Level Road in the future. Pothole patching, lane striping, repaving whenever the asphalt wears out, even widening it if Carrboro ever recognizes that necessity. ... [MORE]

Residents of Abbey Court condominiums on Jones Ferry Road say drugs are being sold there.

Carrboro Town Manager Steve Stewart, Police Chief Carolyn Hutchison and town department heads met with residents and management Wednesday night.

Some of the residents who attended have lived in Abbey Court for five to 10 years, according to a memo from Hutchison.

“They spoke out against the men who drink and urinate at the bus stop, in breezeways, at the tennis court, near the dumpsters, and in other areas of the complex,” she wrote in the memo, which was distributed to the town’s police officers and Board of Aldermen. “They acknowledged that many of the people who hang out in the area do NOT live at Abbey Court. They worry about their children, their grandchildren, and their wives who witness this unlawful and nuisance behavior. They want to improve the community so that their kids can play outside. They asked for our help.

Hutchison told officers to continue to ride through Abbey Court regularly and do some stationary and foot patrols there, especially in the area of the A building and in the parking lots. 

“From Friday afternoon through Monday morning, they say they suffer through loud music coming from cars in the parking lots and car horns used to “call” people from apartments to the parking lots,’ she wrote. “They are concerned, too, that there is drug dealing occurring. They are also sick and tired of the people who loiter and drink and trash the area of the bus stop. Please take enforcement action against such criminal behavior every time enforcement action is warranted.”

From correspondent Kathryn Ardizzone

Sidewalks and bicycle lanes will probably not be added to Smith Level Road, after the Board of Aldermen rejected an unpopular, $6.6 million DOT project for the area.

DOT traffic engineers have devised a plan for adding two lanes, sidewalks and bicycle paths to Smith Level Road to deal with anticipated higher traffic.

At a public hearing Tuesday night, 15 people spoke against the project.

Carrboro residents and the aldermen agreed that sidewalks are needed on the road, which teenagers often travel to get to Carrboro High School.

The board and objecting residents, however, doubted the necessity of adding two lanes to the road, saying DOT’s traffic projections were faulty.

Mayor Mark Chilton, the only person to vote for DOT’s design, said the sidewalks cannot be built without state money.

“I think the idea of a having a four-lane road through there stinks,” he said. “I think it’s totally unnecessary.”

“But it’s totally unnecessary to go on for untold years without sidewalks and bike lanes.”

DOT would contribute $6.24 million of the estimated $6.6 million price tag of the construction, with a $360,000 match from the town of Carrboro.

The aldermen acknowledged that by voting against the plan, they would likely be forfeiting the funds to build the sidewalks and bicycle lanes

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton is asking town staff to look into a local store residents say is a head shop.

In a letter in today’s Chapel Hill News, resident Judi Chatowsky says she was looking forward to a new coffee shop in town until she visited it.

“My initial excitement about having a coffee shop and potential gathering place so close to home quickly turned to dismay when I walked through the 'boutique' portion of the Looking Glass Cafe and Boutique, and discovered that it's a head shop complete with bongs, hand pipes and incense,” she wrote. “And directly across from Carrboro Elementary School!”

Resident Tyler Huntington wrote the town similary concerned.

“I realize in a free market society the choice of citizens to support or not support a business will, in the end, dictate the success of failure of any business,” he wrote in a letter to the mayor, “but as the town leaders you and the Board are setting a bad precedent for the town by allowing this type of use so close to a elementary school. “

Chilton responded to Tyler saying the Looking Glass cafe and boutique was aproved by town staff as an administrative matter and did not come before the Board of Aldermen.

"I am not an expert on the state of the law, but basically I understand that smoking devices that are intended to be used for marijuana etc. are illegal, but that it is very difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,” Chilton wrote. “In any case, I am asking the town staff to look into this matter, although I am unsure what exactly what our options are.”

From correspondent Kathryn Ardizzone:

The Board of Aldermen will consider OWASA’s new recommendations for water conservation at its work session at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Town Hall, 301 W. Main St.

WASA met with the Orange County Board of Commissioners Feb. 25 to talk about proposed changes in water conservation standards.

The recommendations retain some basic, essential conservation requirements but give consumers more choice in how they use water, even during shortages. One proposal would limit the use of OWASA water for public and private pools only in emergencies.

In a letter to the town, OWASA chairman Randy Kabrick said the changes are appropriate because customers have reduced water usage since the 2007-08 drought.

Following the discussion, OWASA representatives and town officials will work together to turn a set of standards into town law.