For Augustus Cho, improving race relations will require realizing there are more than two races in town.

Cho, who recently ran for mayor, spoke at Tuesday's forum sponsored by the town's Justice in Action Committee. Panelists were asked how they defined racism and what it would take to eliminate it.

"It's human nature to stick together with people of your own kind," said Cho, who is Korean. While campaigning, however, he said, "I got the sense I could be a good representative of my community, but not Chapel Hill at large."

Race in Chapel Hill is still framed as a black and white issue, even though people of Asian heritage are nearly 11 percent of the town, Cho said. Even the discussion surrounding replacing ex-Town Council member Bill Strom has focused on whether to appoint the fifth-place finisher in the election or a black applicant.

"Is there a quota here?" Cho asked.

A new poll from Public Policy Polling shows Chapel Hil voters evenly divided on whether one of the losing candidates in Tuesday's election should be appointed to fill Bill Strom's seat: 38 percent in favor, 38 percent opposed, and 24 percent unsure.
 
"Trumping that finding with the loss of Jim Merritt though is probably the question we asked about whether Chapel Hillians thought it was important to have an African American on the Town Council," says PPP's Tom Jensen.

Fifty-seven percent of voters said yes to that with just 28 percent dissenting. "I imagine given the strong support from the community that's the direction the Council will now go in with the appointment,' Jensen says.
 
Two other key findings from the poll, neither of which Jensen says is particularly surprising given the returns.  51 percent of Chapel Hill voters support publicly financed elections with only 31 percent opposed. 

"Given Mark Kleinschmidt's win and Penny Rich's first place finish it's clear there was no backlash from that and it's even possible the opposite was true," he says.
 

Kevin Wolff dropped out of the mayor’s race two weeks ago. But he’s still circulating a flier painting Town Council member Mark Kleinschmidt as a gay rights activist who has no children and doesn’t own a home in Chapel Hill.

The flier emphasizes that Wolff and Town Councilman Matt Czajkowski, another candidate for mayor, do have children and own homes and are not gay rights activists.

Kleinschmidt shot back Tuesday, saying the flier reveals Wolff as the fringe candidate. "He shows how different he is, I think, from the people of Chapel Hill by highlighting those facts,” Kleinschmidt said.

Kleinschmidt sold his condominium on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard last year after renting a townhouse off East Franklin Street with his partner. Kleinschmidt said they have not purchased a home together because his partner is still trying to sell his house near Wake Forest.

“It’s where I want to spend the rest of my life,” he said. “This is my hometown.”

We'll have more on this in tomorrow's News & Observer.

Augustus Cho is asking whether Kevin Wolff's announcement that he was leaving the mayor's race was really an attempt to get onto the council or to get Cho to drop out, giving Wolff "ever so slight a chance" of defeating Matt Czajkowski and Mark Kleinschmidt?

Wolff asked Cho to leave the race with him at last week's candidates forum sponsored by WCHL. Cho declined. 

"Could it be that if Kevin Wolff truly had withdrew and got me to withdraw with him that Matt Czajkowski -- if elected mayor -- would agree to appoint Kevin Wolff to his vacant seat on the council?" Cho asks on his blog Chautauqua.

"Worse," he continues, "is it possible that Wolff was trying to get me to drop out so that he might then not withdraw from the race, continue campaigning and, with ever so slight a chance, actually win by deception -- through the back door?"

"In any event, it is unfortunate that Wolff may have used a local media WCHL, to dramatize his perceived exit from the campaign."

Wolff, incidentally, has sent out an e-mail saying he will take his campaign signs down after the election. He says in the e-mail, posted on Cho's blog (Oct. 19), that a number of his supporters intend to vote for him even though he has withdrawn from the race.    

Mayoral candidate Mark Kleinschmidt asked Matt Czajkowski at Sunday's NRG forum why he didn't vote in local elections before 2007. Kleinschmidt said he learned the importance of civic participation when he came to UNC, his adopted hometown of 21 years, and has voted since he was eligible.

Czajkowski said at 18 he was serving in the Navy. "I think I have my [civic] credentials," he said, then offered this answer.

"I was like 85 percent of the people in this town, which is really a shame," he said. "I was disengaged. At the end of the day I didn't care too much because all in all life was pretty good."

He said that changed one day when he took his kids to Ben and Jerry's on West Franklin Street. He felt uncomfortable eating outside with them. (Note: The bench outside the store is a frequent gathering spot for street people; we did a story a while back about a former police chief's suggestion to make benches less comfortable so people would not recline on them.) Czajkowski contrasted the scene with being able to eat ice cream on the rocking chairs outside Mapleview.

Kleinschmidt is appealing to principles on the campaign trail: inclusivity, civic involvement, repeated references to his being the candidate who best represents Chapel Hill's historic values. Czajkowski is telling stories and appealing to people's pocketbooks (i.e., his calls for a two-year freeze on the town tax rate and a second look at town employee health benefits). 

Matt Czajkowski repeated his call for tougher anti-panhandling rules at Sunday's Neighbors for Responsible Growth forum.

The issue came up in the section of the two-hour meeting where candidates got to ask one another one question. Czajkowski and opponent Mark Kleinschmidt have disagreed on this and did so again.

The town already has a tough ordinance, Kleinschmidt said: no panhandling on buses, within six feet of bus stops, 20 feet of banks and ATMs. The town web site says arrests declined, from 28 in 2006 to 14 in 2007. 

"I don't think legislation is the way to get at this," Kleinschmidt said. As a former high school teacher, he added, "I'm never attracted to solutions that take a group of people, no matter who they are, and say we don't want you here."

Augustus Cho, the third candidate for mayor, said he agreed with Kleinschmidt but said if the system isn't solving the problem, the system needs to be re-examined. "We have to look at solutions that don't sacrifice the rest of us."

More from the forum in tomorrow's Chapel Hill News.    

Political observers should not be surprised by anything three-time mayoral candidate Kevin Wolff says. Still, last night's announcement that he was dropping out of the race was a stunner.

Wolff, who had run ads urging Matt Czajkowski to drop out of the race, said with two moderates running, it had just become clear to him that neither could win. Here's what he told his fellow candidates at last night's WCHL forum:

TO MARK KLEIINSCHMIDT: "Mark, I do expect you will win this race and become mayor due to the strength of the Democratic Party in Orange County."

TO MATT CZAJKOWSKI: "Matt, I encourage you to the run the very best campaign you can. But be mindful that you are running against the designted mayoral candidate of the Democratic Party, which should not be taken lightly. When you return to Town Council, I hope you will work to make allies with all the other members and work as a team toward common visions and common goals. Good luck."

TO AUGUSTUS CHO: "Augustus, I encourage you to join me and bow out of the race and let these two candidates compete against each other for the good of our town."

Kevin Wolff surprised many when he announced he had filed for public campaign financing under the town of Chapel Hill's new "Voter-Owned Election" program.

Wolff has been a harsh critic of the voluntary program, which provides qualifying mayoral candidates up to $13,000 in public money.

"In one sense, I guess it's an attempt to keep the playing field level," he explained last month." It's my tax dollars that are going to be used, and I think I'm entitled to it as much as anybody else. It doesn't change my position that I oppose the current language of the voter owned election, which I call public financing."

But Wolff will not be eligible for any public money, a state Board of Elections official said today. Wolff loaned his campaign $10,000, surpassing the maximum $6,000 candidates for mayor may raise if they want to receive public funds.

"Kevin Wolff is no longer considered to be a participating candidate," said Amy Strange, compliance specialist. "Kevin Wolff, based on the loan he made himself, has made himself ineligible for the Voter Owned Election campaign financing."  

Matt Czajkowski has passed the $21,000 fundraising threshold, triggering the release of an additional $4,000 in "rescue" funds for his chief opponent in the race for mayor, fellow Councilman Mark Kleinschmidt.

Czajkowski, who has two years left on his Chapel Hill Town Council seat, has raised $23,629.50, according to a campaign finance report filed Friday.

He has spent $12,857.77, according to the report.

Among Czajkowski's new donors are developer Carol Ann Zinn ($100); retired teacher Lillian Lee, wife of former mayor and state Sen. Howard Lee ($25); UNC political science professor Thad Beyle ($25); former Town Council member Nancy Preston ($50); and former Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Donald Boulton ($100).

Kleinschmidt, who gave a up a chance to keep his seat to run for mayor, had raised $4,505.50, according to his latest campaign finance report filed Sept. 28. He is allowed to raise up to $6,000 while receiving an initial $9,000 in public funding and now the additional $4,000 in "rescue" funding.

Kleinschmidt had spent $2,988.85, according to the report.

Mayor Kevin Foy wants the Chapel Hill Town Council to appoint someone to finish Bill Strom's term Nov. 9 -- after the Nov. 3 election, but before the new council is seated in December.

In an interview today, Foy said picking the fifth place finisher doesn't make sense since the three council incumbents chose not apply for the seat. What if one of them finished fifth, he asked.

But if the council won't go for the fifth, or sixth or seventh finisher, why not wait until December? That's what Matt Czajkowski wants.

"Absolutely, absolutely," Czajkowski said this afternoon. "The newly elected council will reflect the most recent sentiment of the voters in the town who should decide," he said.

Not so, said the mayor. The Strom seat went to the voters two years ago and the current council is going to fill it.

"This is the council that was presented with the vacancy," he said. "This council could have made the decision to appoint someone immediately. We didn't. We decided to take the election into account. But that's not the same thing as saying let the next council do it."

Look for more on this in tomorrow's News & Observer.