Mayor Mark Chilton and Alderwoman Lydia Lavelle met with Estes Park Apartments management today. The town wants the complex to open a new fence at least part of the day, to preserve a popular pedestrian path leadng downtown.

"We had a good conversation," Chilton said. "I don't think it's something that's going to be resolved all that quickly."

Estes Park erected the fence, eight feet and topped with barbed wire, to keep children from playing on the railroad tracks and to keep intruders away. Chilton said they described an incident where someone mugged an Estes Park resident, then fled across the train tracks into the woods.

Chilton said he still hasn't heard back from Chapel Hill. The fence blocks a driveway leading to Chapel Hill owned property, which the mayor thinks may make it illegal. Chilton said Chapel Hill's attorney has been out and he expects a response soon.

OrangePolitics has a good post on this with a map showing you the pedestrian path. Click here.

A man went to Wendy's for some late-night grub just before 2 a.m. on Tuesday. He was on foot and couldn't get into the restaurant because only the drive-through was open. "He asked if I would take his money and order his food in the drive-through," wrote Carrboro Police Officer L. Alvarez in an incident report. "I did, and he left the area without incident."

Tar Heel Companies will relax the "conspicuous damage" portion of its new parking requirements at Abbey Court Condomiumiums.

In a story in Wednesday's News & Observer, President Ken Lucas says the media has overemphasized that part of the new policy, which management implemented two weeks ago to reduce crowding at the complex on Jones Ferry Road. (Read a resident's support for the new policy here."

PRESS STATEMENT

The Old Well Homeowners Association dba Abbey Court Condominiums responding to criticism from media sources and officials of the Town of Carrboro regarding the parking policy at Abbey Court Condominiums emphasizes that the rules regarding appearance of vehicles has been relaxed. The decision to do so was made more than a week ago. However, continuing media coverage of the towing policy emphasizes the appearance issue as the main source of objections.

Kenneth A. Lucas, President and CEO of The Tar Heel Companies of North Carolina, Inc., managing agent for Abbey Court stated “We would ask that anyone who has been denied a parking permit due to a vehicle appearance issue revisit the office at Abbey Court. We will be reassessing any vehicle that has been previously denied due to an appearance issue. The policy regarding the need for vehicles to be properly registered to residents remains unchanged.”

Those seeking parking permits will still need to provide appropriate documentation that they are a leaseholder or authorized occupant at Abbey Court Condominiums along with registration information on each vehicle. Rules limit the number of parking permits that can be issued to each condominium to two per two bedroom condominium and three per three bedroom condominium. Lucas further stated “Many that have been denied stickers are not leaseholders nor authorized occupants. We must remember that more than 212 residents have been issued permits and feedback from those residents has been very positive.”

We're giving you another avenue to voice your views about local issues. On Sunday we launched a feedback feature we call "Agree or Disagree?" that asks you to send us a brief comment on the editorial each week. If we get some good responses we'll print some in the following Sunday's paper.

Here's last Sunday's editorial. Agree or disagree?

Tensions climb at Abbey Court

In the week-plus since the ugly situation at Abbey Court flared up, things have only gotten worse.

The management of the condominium complex, which rents mostly to
working-class Latino residents, initiated the dispute by enforcing a
policy that requires vehicles parked in the complex's parking lot be
free of "conspicuous damage."

Abbey Court has imposed an
absurdly strict interpretation of the rule, towing its own residents'
cars away from the spaces outside their homes, presumably on the basis
of "conspicuous damage" that consists of nothing more than common wear
and tear -- minor dents, scratches, windshield cracks, faded paint and
so on. The policy also calls for towing vehicles that don't have proof
of title, insurance, registration and so on -- documentation that some
residents may not have.

Desperate residents, not surprisingly, have objected. On several occasions crowds have gathered to protest, to try to stop the towing or to hurriedly move their cars before they can
be hauled off. Thursday night Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton arrived at
Abbey Court to find about 100 people engaged in a tense standoff with a
tow truck operator.

Chilton has been active in trying to help the residents. He has directly urged Abbey Court to suspend the towing policy; the answer he got, he said, was no. Truth is, there's only so
much the town can do. Abbey Court is a private enterprise and, as
Chilton told the crowd Thursday night, the town doesn't have much
authority over the management's parking and towing policies.

It does, however, have authority over housing codes. Enforcement of the
housing codes is complaint-driven -- that is, the town doesn't
arbitrarily conduct inspections of existing structures, but it will
investigate if it receives a complaint about a specific building.

Chilton told the crowd that Thursday night, too, essentially inviting anyone
with concerns about the condition of their units at Abbey Court to file
a complaint. At least one resident responded by lodging a formal
housing code complaint. Chilton has asked the town staff to respond as
quickly as possible and, if code violations are found, to act
accordingly.

Abbey Court's position is that it is merely enforcing a policy designed to prevent overcrowding of the lot and to keep the neighborhood looking nice by removing unsightly vehicles.

Give us a break. It's one thing to prohibit junked cars or abandoned heaps.
What Abbey Court is doing is something else entirely.

Some might criticize the town for involving itself in a private business's
affairs. From where we sit, though, elected officials serve the public,
and when they see members of the public --especially those with limited
resources -- being treated unfairly, they have not only the right but
the responsibility to act.

Agree or Disagree?

We've told you where we stand on this issue. Now we want to know what
you think. Send a comment of 50 words or less with the subject line
"Agree or Disagree" to editor@nando.com, or just respond in the comment boxes here on the blog. We'll print a selection of responses in the paper, and post all of them online. Thanks.

I don't know John Hoff, and he doesn't know Carrboro. Or he didn't, until we started writing about the situation at Abbey Court Condominiums on Jones Ferry Road.

Hoff blogs about abusive towing nationwide on his blog www.towingutopia.com, and our coverage caught his eye. His write-up is very even handed. He says it's easier to prove abusive towing than to prove that a specific group is being targeted. In Carrboro, the mayor and aldermen say Latinos are the targets. But Hoff says low-income people everywhere are vulnerable to aggressive or predatory towing. In Minneapolis, for example, he says it's the Somalis. (And of course, it's not just the downtrodden that get towed; ask some of the Chapel Hillians who parked in the wrong lot downtown lately.)

We have no evidence that Chandler's Towing has done anything but follow the policy laid out by Tar Heel Companies, the firm that manages the Abbey Court condominiums. But the situation has been escalating -- a man put his baby in the back seat Thursday night to keep his car from getting towed. The Board of Aldermen is scheduling an emergency meeting, possibly Thursday night, to talk about the town's towing rules.

Staff Writer Jesse DeConto is reporting that story today and we'll post it online this afternoon and run something in tomorrow's N&O. In the meantime read Hoff's post about Carrboro here.

Here is the police report of the incident Thursday night at Abbey Court Condominiums. Read more about this story in Saturday's News & Observer.

Disturbance
0810058 Society VICTIM of Disturbance (C), at 501 Jones Ferry Rd, Carrboro, NC, between 21:47, 07/24/2008 and 21:48, 07/24/2008. Reported: 07/24/2008.
LW WARD, B.
*LW8153*
On Thursday, July 24, 2008 at approximately 2148 hours I responded to building S at Abbey Court in reference to a dispute involving a tow truck driver. Orange Central Communications reported that there was a large crowd in the area. When I arrived there were approximately fifty people nearby. I saw a Chandler`s Towing tow truck with the winch cable attached to a white Nissan Sentra.

The tow truck driver, Dale Austin, stated that he was attempting to tow the Nissan for not having a parking sticker when the owner ran up to the car, opened the driver`s door and put a baby in the back seat. Austin stated that he had already started winching the Nissan backwards towards his tow truck when the subject opened the door to the Nissan. Austin stated that he stopped winching the Nissan when he heard and saw the driver`s door of the Nissan being pulled back because it was up against a GMC Yukon parked in the next space. The security guard at Abbey Court, Paul Latorre, gave the same account as Austin.

The owner of the Nissan, Saul Vargas Barroso, stated that he came to Abbey Court to visit a friend and he didn`t know that he wasn`t supposed to park outside of the building. Vargas claimed that the tow truck driver had not attached the cable
before he put his baby in the car. Witness Alfonso Hernandez gave the same account as Austin and Latorre. Hernandez stated that the tow truck driver had already attached the cable to the car before Vargas came outside and put the baby in the back seat. Hernandez stated that the tow truck driver told a crowd last week that if they got to the car before he towed it then they would be fine.

The driver`s door of the Nissan was damaged when it was bent backwards. The passenger side of the GMC Yukon sustained a dent. The owner of the Yukon, Juan Martinez, wanted to know who would pay for the damages. I told him that it was a civil matter and based on witness statements it appeared that the tow truck driver had already started winching the Nissan before Vargas opened the car door.

I referred Martinez to civil court and to his insurance company.

Vargas paid Austin the towing fee ($100) and Austin unhooked the car and left the area. About an hour after I took the report Latorre reported that a female in the crowd inititally tried to keep Austin from towing the car by pushing him. Her identity is unknown.

Turns out the company that's been towing cars at Abbey Court Condominiums may not have a license to operate in Carrboro.

According to Town Manager Steve Stewart, Chandler Towing needs a privilege license to conduct business in the town. The license costs $25 and a note will be sent to the company telling it to get one.

Stewart was responding to a request for information from Mayor Mark Chilton. Town leaders have been trying to intervene at the Jones Ferry Road complex, which began towing cars last week that had conspicuous body damage or whose owners could not provide proof of ownership and other documents. The complex has also banned commercial vehicles from the parking lot.

Chilton also wants to know how many vehicles have been towed. A spokesman for the company that runs the complex told us 12 a couple of days ago. WCHL reported 14 this morning. Residents have said more.

Read more about this issue a few posts below or here.   

Staffer Jesse James DeConto broke the story in this morning's N&O about the Carrboro condo complex towing residents' cars for looking shabby or because residents didn't have the legal paperwork to show for them. 

Now comes word that the Orange County Office of Human Rights and Relations is investigating the issue. Some residents of the complex are illegal immigrants and may not have the papers the complex is now requiring for them to use the parking lot.

One of the questions the county must answer is whether the policy is being applied equally to all residents or whether a certain group is being singled out. Here's the short update we posted this morning.    

What a difference an outcry makes.

Orange County announced this morning that hours of operation for all Orange County Public Libraries will be reinstated beginning July 28. The Chapel Hill Public Library, one of nine municipal libraries in the state, was not affected by the cuts. 

County and Library management took another look at the departmental budget and identified certain purchases to be delayed until next fiscal year and a reduction in monies budgeted for inventory replacement.  These adjustments will generate funds sufficient to cover the temporary personnel costs for hours of operation at the Main Library and its branches. 

You still won't be able to check out a book or DVD in the Carrboro Branch Library on Fridays. The library, located in McDougle Middle School, was not open Fridays to begin with. But the regular hours will return July 28: Monday-Thursday, 3:30 to 8 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m.

For more information go to the Orange County Library website www.co.orange.nc.us/library/orange/ or call (919) 245-2525.
 
 

Those trips to other college towns that Chapel Hill-Carrboro community leaders take every few years have always drawn criticism as elitist. In response, the Public Private Partnership, now the Community Leadership Collaboration, created scholarships to help nonprofit agency leaders attend along with the politicians and more prominent local business leaders.

Past trips to cities such as Madison led to the creation of the Downtown Partnership and encouraged Chapel Hill Town Council members to pursue the 8-story condo/retail project going up on parking lot 5 downtown. But now criticism of the CLC's upcoming trip to Ann Arbor is coming from another town's elected leaders.

Carrboro aldermen Dan Coleman, Randee Haven-ODonnell and Joal Hall Broun all say with gas prices at record highs and the economy in the tank (is that a mixed metaphor?), now is not the time for local leaders to be traveling to other cities to solve local problems.

"This is the wrong time to be spending on non-specific, untargeted items," said Haven-O'Donnell. "I do not think the Ann Arbor trip is a sound investment. Having continued o work with my Madison intercity visitation workgroup, I do not see that the Chamber has maximized the potential return on Madison's huge investment."

"I am not interested in going at this time given the budget and the cost of travel," said Broun. "I think we should be very mindful of whether we should send any Board member given the state of the local, state, and national economies."

OP THREAD:

Just saw the thread on OrangePolitics about this. Here's an excerpt of Ruby Sinreich's post, which summarizes some of what she's said about these trips. And here's a link to the thread itself where you can read what others have to say.