Food trucks are now welcome in Chapel Hill, provided vendors follow the town's new rules.

The Town Council quickly and unanimously passed new rules for food trucks and trailers Monday night with no discussion. Chapel Hill joins Carrboro, Durham and Raleigh in allowing food trucks to do business, though in Chapel Hill they are limited to private, non-residential property.

The Chapel Hill Police Department will undergo specialized training in “peaceful intervention in civil disobedience” in the wake of its raid on the Yates Motor Co. building last fall.

In a memo to the Chapel Hill Town Council tonight, Town Manager Roger Stancil stands by the tactical team raid that removed seven people from the long vacant car dealership on West Franklin Street Nov. 13.

But Stancil says the Police Department’s experiences, policies and training “did not prepare us well for this combination of circumstances.”  

Town staff have not commented on the raid since a press conference the next day.

In his memo Stancil said the decision-making process the day of the raid was compromised by “a breakdown of communications, both internally and externally.” He did not elaborate, and the council has not yet discussed the memo.

The raid has strained community relations and the town has hired Investigative Security Services to help it design new policies and training that reflect the community’s values, Stancil says.

Orange County is still looking for the best short-term solution for its garbage.

And so far, there’s snags in all the possibilities.

County leaders have decided to close its landfill and possibly truck its solid waste to Durham, but Chapel Hill and Carrboro say its too expensive.

A new task force will decide how a sewer system and a new community center will be built for residents living near the county landfill.

The Orange County Board of Commissioners, Chapel Hill Town Council, Carrboro Board of Alderman and Hillsborough Board of Commissioners consented to establish the task force during a joint meeting Thursday night.

The boards met to discuss the future of the area’s solid waste and how the county will mitigate the effects of the landfill on its neighbors.

The Chapel Hill Town Council has scheduled a closed meeting to meet with the Town Attorney before their regular business meeting Monday.

The council will go into closed session at 5 p.m. Monday to "provide an opportunity for the chief of police, senior police legal advisor, and town manager to provide information and responses to Council questions and concerns arising out of the November 13 incident on West Franklin Street and issues that have arisen related to that incident," according to Ralph Karpinos, in an e-mail to the Town Council Thursday.

Karpinos says the council and officials will discuss matters related to personnel of "an attorney client nature" in the session, which is in accordance with the state Open Meetings Law.

Karpinos asked the council members to review reports by Town Manager Roger Stancil and Police Chief Chris Blue before the closed meeting, and said the council may also discuss the possibility of appointing an independent investigator to review the Nov. 13 raid on the former Yates Motor Co. building.

The town's Community Policing Advisory Committee is scheduled to ask the council for funding to hire an independent investigator during the council's public business meeting at 7 p.m. Monday.

The proposal for a new mixed-use apartment tower on West Rosemary, has changed from its early stages, but developers still have some work to do.

Developers for the Shortbread Lofts,a 7-story apartment complex proposed at 333 W. Rosemary Street, presented their modified plan to the Town Council Wednesday night, and opened up the plan for public comment.

The Shortbread Lofts include 85 rental apartments, and 121 parking spaces on 1.4 acres on West Rosemary Street between Mitchell Lane and Church Street. The first floor of the building would include  3,560 square feet of retail.

Several council members said they thought the building, which is depicted by developers has being a mustard yellow color with a modern architectural style, didn't fit with Chapel Hill's style and looked too much like Greenbridge.

"In the end buildings like these will define the aesthetic of downtown for decades to come," said Council member Matt Czajkowski. "I look at his building and I can’t see any basis on which it reflects the nature of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina ... it does remind me very much dismayingly of Greenbridge."

The letters are still coming in pro and con on the Chapel Hill Police Department's SERT raid on the former Yates Motor Co. to remove squatters last November. (Read our most recent story here.)

We have repeatedly asked for interviews with town leaders, including the manager and police chief, to ask what we think are simple questions, including why police did not explicity warn protesters to leave before moving in. On Friday, Town Manager Roger Stancil released the following statement. (Note: our requests predate the council's decision to send Stancil's report to the new police advisory committee.)   

“Out of respect for the process that began by the referral of the Yates Motor Company review to the Community Policing Advisory Board, and the Board’s subsequent discussion about a process they could follow, the Town staff will temporarily refrain from individual media interviews about the Yates Motor Company incident.

“Weak,” “one-sided” and “insubstantial.”

A new advisory panel reviewing the Chapel Hill Police Department’s removal of squatters from a former downtown car dealership blasted an official town report that stood by the police raid this week. (See that story here.)

So you’d think Town Council member and committee liaison Donna Bell might be feeling the heat.  

Not so, says Bell, who says she asked to serve on the new Community Policing Advisory Committee.

While she can’t predict whether the council will grant the committee’s request to hire an outside investigator to review the Yates Motor Co. incident, Bell says it’s good the committee is asking questions.   

“I don’t think any report is complete until someone has read it and asked questions,” Bell says. “It is not a shock or surprise that the mayor and the police chief didn’t answer all the questions.”

The committee’s discussions speaks well of Chapel Hill, she adds.

“There are very few towns that could even have this conversation,” she says. “When extraordinary things happen we need some clear eyes to give us perspective. We’re never going to do everything right.”    

Look for more on the advisory committee's discussion coming this Sunday in The Chapel Hill News.

I tell people that IP3 is our office annex, but it's true. It's the best place for a quick conversation. Last week, Dwight Bassett ordered a cheese slice and talked about growth, taxes and driving in from Graham.

Yes, the Chapel Hill economic development officer lives in Alamance County. He couldn't afford what he wanted in Chapel Hill, which meant a lot with room for his woodshop. That's his wooden arm balancing a basketball outside Spanky's. (And yes, he's just as surprised it's still there -- after NCAA tourneys and Halloweens -- as you and I probably are.)

Bassett is concerned because the town and many citizens are now participating in the Chapel Hill 2020 planning process "and there are people in 2020 who think it's an option not to grow the tax base."  He means the commercial tax base, mostly: the kind that gives back to town and county coffers more than it takes in government services. 

Last week I reported how developer Carol Ann Zinn had sold her Aydan Court site to UNC for $410,000 after buying it for just over $1 million four years ago. Zinn was seething in a guest column  Sunday that has generated several responses (see more on that later this week). But many share her point: the town's development review process drives the cost of doing business and turns away opportunity. Two weeks ago we reported how Walmart may come to Chatham County and kill plans for commercial activity in the southern part of town.

When I suggested to Bassett it was another New Hope Commons in the making, his eyes widened. "Exactly," he said.

Orange County candidates for office in Chapel Hill and Carrboro pledged to improve conditions for day laborers, expand affordable rental offerings and work with the county to mitigate the effects of the Rogers Road landfill and an alternative for the county’s garbage during the fall meeting of Justice United, a nonpartisan community advocacy group last week.

Candidates for the Chapel Hill Town Council and mayor, Carrboro Board of Aldermen, Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton and Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education participated in the event and responded to questions individually when asked about their commitment to resolving county issues like when to close the Rogers Road landfill and how to create more lower-income housing.