A reader e-mailed to ask how much the Chapel Hill Town Council is spending for its dinner tonight at The Franklin Hotel. The council is kicking off its annual retreat tonight before moving to the Town Ops Center tomorrow.

The answer? $1,200 plus tax and service charge.

The town has 30 elected officials and senior staff members at the dinner, public information officer Catherine Lazorko said. So that's $40 and change a person.

For that the diners get roasted beet and orange salad in a white balsamic vinagrette, their choice of pan roasted Atlantic salmon with fingerling potatoes, smoked porkchop with North Carolina sweet potato or vegetarian lasagna.

Dessert is a poached pear with cinammon pancakes and vanilla bean ice cream.

Got two complaints about today's lead story in the Chapel Hill News. Jesse James DeConto wrote about density in Chapel Hill. Now that the buildings at East 54 have gone up, some Town Council members are saying constituents are shocked at what they're seeing.

The callers said it was unfair to let people criticize a project in the construction stage, before people know how it truly will look and feel. They said the article did not include the project's benefits. East 54 will boost the commercial tax base, has more affordable housing units than required and has gold LEED certification.

I told the callers they had a point. In the future we will try to mention those aspects of the project. But I also said the story was fair. The story was about density, and East 54 has become the touchstone. Jesse heard the buzz. I heard it at the Glen Lennox meeting, and we've received letters from people upset about the tall buildings along the highway.

I also pointed out to the callers that we used careful language in our headline ("Project gives Town Council pause" is hardly inflammatory). Councilman Bill Strom's context-setting quote about transit appears on the front page, not the jump of the story. And we picked developer Roger Perry's quote on why Chapel Hill needs more of this kind of construction as our "Worth repeating" quote of the day. It appears on our editorial page.

So what did you think? Was the story unfair to East 54 or, as we hoped, a timely look at an issue Chapel Hill will be discussing for months and years to come?

From staff writer Jesse James DeConto:

Tonight at its 7 p.m. meeting, the Town Council will consider another look at building branch libraries in various locations across the town.

Last fall, amid the volatile economy, the Town Council decided to put on hold a $16-million expansion project at the Chapel Hill Public Library off Estes Drive.

Some community leaders, most notably Chamber of Commerce president Aaron Nelson, had lobbied the council in the spring of 2007 to abandon the expansion and use the money to establish a new branch downtown.

At the time, the council opted to press on with the expansion plan, citing clear direction from citizens five to 10 years ago when bond funding for the project was being sought.

But with the expansion on hold now, Town Manager Roger Stancil is asking the council to reconsider other options, which could means branch libraries downtown, in Southern Village or on the future Carolina North campus.

After four years, Chapel Hill Town Council member Sally Greene is giving up her blog. 

"As I think about it, I wonder how I kept it up at such full tilt for so long," Greene writes on her blog Greenespace. "Lately I've had a lot of help from my friend and colleage Al Brophy. Many thanks, Al!"

But after three months of silence, Greene says it's "time to admit the obvious."

"A blog deferred does not explode."

"It sighs and folds."

That leaves just two council members with active blogs: Mark Kleinschmidt and Laurin Easthom, though neither posts frequently. Greene's departure is a special loss as she often mused on topics local and literary with a depth and passion more commonly found in journals than the blogosphere.

In a letter to the Orange County Organizing Committee read at Sunday's delegates assembly in Chapel Hill, Mayor Kevin Foy said he supports the group's goals but is not ready to endorse all its strategies for achieving them. Look for a story on the assembly in Wednesday's Chapel Hill News.

December 7, 2008

Dear Members of the Orange County Organizing Committee:

I appreciate the invitation to share with you some of my thoughts about your agenda, and I regret not being able to join you today. However, I have had the opportunity to speak to Ivan Parra and other members of the Committee, and I have a great deal of  respect for the careful and thoughtful way the Committee is moving forward to engage the community in specific issues.

You have asked for my public reaction to certain items on your collective agenda which I will offer in a few moments.  However, as we know, dialogue is about enriching the basis for forming ideas, so I hope you understand that I don’t hold these answers out as my rigid positions. In fact, I would welcome continuing to discuss these and other matters that affect our community.

The specific questions you asked:    

1.    Do you support the feasibility study of establishing a “housing wage” ordinance for Town’s employees and sub contractors by directing the Town Manager to continue working with OCOC in studying the issue.  

I support affordable housing in our community for everyone, not just for town employees, because I am concerned that Chapel Hill will become a homogeneous, elite enclave, which would destroy the character of our town. So I am glad to consider all ideas that lead us to diverse housing options and diverse affordability ranges.

2.    Support the implementation of a comprehensive market study to determine the Town’s affordable rental and home ownership needs over the next ten years.  

I’m not sure what this means, although I am aware that some of our housing has tended to be too narrow. For example, we apparently have built too many one-bedroom units and not enough three-bedroom units. I see this as part of the evolution of our housing initiative. The Land Trust has been a leader in building affordable housing, but leaders have to find their own paths because there is nobody to follow. That sometimes means that adjustments have to be made, based on experience. So if a market study is the best use of resources in helping to guide how affordable housing is built, then that is probably a wise thing to do.

3.    Support for OCOC’s public request for the scheduling of a Public Hearing, during the first 90 days of 2009, to discuss a moratorium on re-development at Glen Lennox for the duration of the NCD Designation Process.  

I am not convinced that the NCD process is going to be sufficient to resolve the issue of Glen Lennox redevelopment. So I would prefer to focus on what best serves the community. For example, if the NCD process ends and it is still possible to raze Glen Lennox and build all-new, three-story buildings I think that would be a tragedy. So in that case, I don’t think a moratorium would have served a useful purpose.

I think the best thing for Glen Lennox is exactly what OCOC is doing: focusing public attention and watching the NCD unfold. The result of that is that many people will be well-informed when and if another proposal comes forward for Glen Lennox.

As to Glen Lennox itself, though, this is my perspective: many times over the past several years when developers have come to my office with plans for a new project, I have told them to go drive around Glen Lennox and see a place that this community values. It has mixes of use, including office, retail, and residential; it is affordable; it is modest; it is convenient; it is walkable. So I find it difficult at this point to envision why we would want to tear it down.

Again, thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.  I look forward to continuing this dialogue with you and the rest of our community.

Kevin C. Foy
Mayor

One of the advantages of downsizing, if you like this business like I do, is that when someone calls and no one's around, you end up doing things yourself.

New Town Councilman Jim Merritt called Thursday. He wanted to know if we could cover alumni of the Orange County Training School boxing donated turkeys for the community Saturday morning. Merritt never said he was the new councilman, which I found modest and interesting.

So Saturday morning I met him and a handful of others from the days of segregated schools in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. I was surprised to learn black and white students attended separate schools here as late as 1966. ("Where are you from?" one of them asked and laughed.)

It was a chance moment. A phone call that led to a meeting some delightful people with poignant stories about a time when people looked out for one another. When, as Esphur Foster said, adults knew children from the back, "from the way they walked," -- the better to know who was out at night when they should have been home in bed or doing their homework.

We'll have a story in Wednesday's Chapel Hill News. But I told the group we'd also like to see what we can do about getting some of their stories -- about the old days and new -- in the paper on a regular basis. I hope to see them again soon.

Developers D.R. Bryan and John Fugo have pulled their proposed hotel from tonight's Chapel Hill Town Council agenda.

In an e-mail to the homeowners association, the Southern Village developers say they have removed their concept plan from council consideration tonight in response to the petition against it. More than 80 people have signed the petition and/or written letters to Town Hall opposing the developer's initial six-story design.

They have a new plan that is four stories, they announced last week. The new plan also closes Abedrdeen Drive to create a plaza connecting the hotel to the community's village green and stage.

Read more on the hotel here.

Clay Grubb, president of Grubb Properties, tried to get the Chapel Hill Town Council to hold off on new zoning rules for the Glen Lennox area last week. He lost, at least for now. But in asking for a delay in the Neighborhood Conservation District process, Grubb gave the community a better understanding of why the company wants to tear down the  cottage  apartments that for many people define Chapel Hill. We're going to run his letter to the town in Sunday's Chapel Hill News, but in the meantime here is an excerpt. 

"The apartments, initially constructed in 1949, are outdated and compete poorly in today’s marketplace. They are undersized in comparison with other competing apartments in the area and provide insufficient bathroom and kitchen space. They do not provide adequate electrical outlets for today’s technology-driven lifestyle or sufficient ambient lighting and they are extremely inefficient with respect to energy use. They do not comply with the accessibility standards set forth by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and some of the building materials used at the time of construction have since been deemed hazardous.

"All of these factors depress our rental rates and force us to offer expensive and ever-increasing concessions to maintain occupancy.
At the same time, maintenance expenses increase every year just to keep the apartments habitable. They are plagued with water infiltration issues and moisture control problems.

"If Glen Lennox is not allowed to change in a way that benefits the Town of Chapel Hill then it will continue to decline."

Two Chapel Hill Town Council members apologized Wednesday night over a recent vote to extend health insurance to outgoing members after two full terms.

"I wanted to offer an apology to anyone who was offended," member Ed Harrison said.

"I'd like to offer the same," said member Laurin Easthom.

She disagreed, however, with those who said the council was trying to pull a fast one by putting the issue on the consent agenda. The council does not typically discuss items on the consent agenda before voting. 

The council rescinded its insurance vote at the next meeting. On Wednesday, Gregg Gerdau presented a petition with 600-plus names. It criticized that vote, along with the council's tax hike and planned pilot program for publicly financed town elections.

Gerdau thanked the council for rescinding its vote and quickly sat down. Minutes later, former council candidate and frequent critic Will Raymond came to the podium to offer a stinging rebuke. He called the insurance vote "sneaky" and its placement on the consent agenda suspect.

"This might have been a mistake, but it was no accident," said Raymond. "You're off the rails. Something has gone wrong here."

Veteran council member Bill Thorpe took it in stride. He suggested Raymond and other speakers were making political hay for another run for local office.

"It looks like the political season has already opened up," he said.