The Chapel Hill Town Council will revisit the Yates Motor raid tonight when an advisory group formally tells the council it does not want to help set up a website to collect public comments about the Nov. 13 incident.

The council had proposed the website as a way to solicit anonymous witness testimony. It rejected the Community Policing Advisory Committee's request for an outside investigator, which the committee said would help it establish a factual timeline of events on which to base policy recommendations, its official charge.

The committee rejected the website 8-1 two weeks ago, saying there would be no way to verify the website comment's accuracy. (See our story here.) Instead it asked to work closely with a consultant the town has already hired to review the police response to the Yates Motor building occupation and suggest areas where policies can be strengthened. 

Eight people were charged with misdemeanors after a group of self-described "anti-capitalist occupiers" entered the long vacant building and announced plans to turn it into a community center.

Tonight's meeting begins at 7 p.m. in Chapel Hill Town Hall.

For recent opinion columns on the Yates Motor incident see:

"Police panel lacks any true oversight" By Geoff Gilson, CHN Feb. 26 (Click here.)

"An argument for commnity rights" by Barbara Trent, CHN Feb. 26 (Click here.)

The chairman of the committee asked to review the Yates Motor police raid says some members are “curious” after a majority of Town Council members indicated Monday night they will likely oppose the committee’s request for an outside investigator.

In an interview today, Ron Bogle, a retired Superior Court judge, said he disagrees that there are no new facts to be learned from the police raid that removed squatters from a West Franklin Street building Nov. 13.

“Here is what is confusing to me,” he said. “I assume the council is asking us to do more than accept or check off on the internal review. With that comes the assumption that we have to ask questions, and if we don’t get answers, then find a way to get those answers.”

“If the town doesn’t want us to make that inquiry then they should just say, ‘We don’t want you to do that.’”

“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.