Here's a look at today's local headlines:

MISSION MEETING: (which makes me think of 'Missionary Man,' which makes me think of the Eurythmics, a bright spot of otherwise forgettable '80s pop music, but I digress). The expansion of the Durham Rescue Mission has raised concern among some in the Golden Belt neighborhood. Now at least the two sides are talking.

HOMELESS CONTRACT: It's not a lot of money, but should the city be paying a worker up to $1,000 a month in expenses to work at home when original plans called for a government desk and phone? City Councilman Eugene Brown doesn't think so.

BEHIND THE CAMERA: Deirdre Haj is taking the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival to places it hasn't been before. Correspondent Matthew Milliken reports on a new camp that is training the next generation of filmmakers here in the Bull City.

Bob Wilson says DPAC's proof is in the profits, David Sterling say patience really is a blessing, and Marshall Lewis, son of former Senate candidate Ken, is back from a revolutionary ride.  

Hey, we're on Facebook now.  You can friend me for more local news and like our Chapel Hill News and Durham News pages for even more.

Thanks for reading,

Mark

The old Holiday Inn on Chapel Hill Street (more recently, Urban Merchant Center) and an old medical office a block away at 306 South Gregson have been vacant for for years and years and look it. And some city council members are tired of it.

"I've been talking about this for years," said Councilman Eugene Brown.

"You're looking at 15,000 to 18,000 cars a day going by those. It's an embarrassment to Durham," he said.

"That razor wire has driven me nuts for a long, long time," said Councilwoman Diane Catotti.

DURHAM The mayor’s chair and three city council seats are up for election this fall, and three of the four incumbents have made their intentions known.

First-term Councilman Farad Ali has not said publicly whether he will stand for re-election, but five-term Mayor Bill Bell said in December that he expects to run again.

Two-term Councilwoman Diane Catotti has said she is not running again.

This week, Councilman Eugene Brown (right) said he plans to seek a third term.

“I need the money,” he said.

Council members only get $18,835 a year, but Brown makes his living selling real estate.

The City Council had a talk about public art during its work session this afternoon.

Councilman Eugene Brown said he's all for it. He even used the second floor of City Hall as an example, inviting some members of Durham's cultured set to take a look around it.

"As you do that," he said, "you'll be passing my photography display."

Brown also singled out City Attorney Patrick Baker, who for the occasion had donned a necktie patterned in orange, purple and several shades of blue.

"Some of us like to display our art in different mediums," Brown said, "so I would like to thank our City Attorney for wearing his Jerry Garcia tie and showing the courage and leadership to do it."

The City Council got an update this afternoon on the water department's progress on automating the city's water meters. Water Director Don Greeley said about a quarter of the city's 82,000 residential customers have had the high-tech meeters -- which eliminate the need for meter readers walking house to house -- and asked for up to $5.1 million to install another 20,500.

Council members appeared inclined vote approval at their next regular meeting, Feb. 7, but Councilman Eugene Brown had one last question about the meters as Greeley held one up for all to see:

"It's not made in China, is it?"

"No," Greeley replied. "Alabama."

The City Council spent its work session this afternoon picking apart the city's new Strategic Plan. It's a scheme of "Goals," "Initiatives, "Implementation Team Structure," "Dashboard Reporting Option," etc., etc., etc.

“We have identified initiatives we think will impact the results,” said Budget and Management Director Bertha Johnson, who presented the plan for council comment.

Most of the comments were favorable and the council members expressed appreciation for the work – which, City Manager Tom Bonfield said, involved “an incredible number of employees.”

Too, some comments were kind of pointed and pithy. After the “Mission Statement” and the “Vision Statement,” the plan lays out five Goals, among them “Stewardship of city’s physical assets.”

“It's one thing to have this system of asset management in place,” said Councilman Eugene Brown. “But how in the hell are we going to pay for it?”
 

The City Council's unanimous approval for a new, improved downtown
zoning system opens the way for another step along the way of Rolling
Hills/Southside's redevelopment.

But City Councilman Eugene Brown says it's time to reconsider.

This particular step would be developer McCormack Baron Salazar's
request to bring eight acres of the 20-acre Rolling Hills tract under
the downtown umbrella, thus allowing the company to put buildings along
Lakewood Avenue that can serve as either residential or commercial
units.

Whether he realized it at the time or not, when City Council member Howard Clement moved last night to put off a decision on $175,000 for the Mok'e Jazz Cultural Center for two weeks, he was setting it at a critical time.

Oct. 5: Election Eve.

Clement and council member Cora Cole-McFadden are both up for re-election and both face multiple opponents in the Oct. 6 primary.

Both Clement and Cole-McFadden had previously expressed support for the grant, requested by Mozella McLaughlin and her three children to help renovate and expand the building she owns at 2520 Fayetteville Street for a community center with live jazz, a restaurant, rooftop garden and other amenities.

But they hedged their support at last night's council meeting, where one of Cole-McFadden's challengers and two of Clement's stated their positions on the grant and more than 20 speakers urged the council to help keep the Know Book Store -- McLaughlin's current tenant -- in business.

Cole-McFadden and Clement said they wanted a compromise that would aid both sides, and supported a delay to allow time for more negotiation between tenant and landlord, after Clement challenger Darius Little and Cole-McFadden challenger Donald Hughes spoke for the grant as community revitalization; and Clement challenger Matt Drew spoke against it as an overly risky investment of taxpayers' money.

Bookstore owner Bruce Bridges, who also runs a restaurant and holds weekly Jazz Nights at the building, has claimed McLaughlin's project could put him out of business. McLaughlin has offered Bridges a place in the Mok'e Center, but Bridges has said the increased rent he would have to pay for less space, plus giving up the restaurant operation to McLaughlin, would likely cripple his store.

Monday night, Bridges tossed a new issue into the dispute by asking the council to grant money for his business if it approved the McLaughlin grant.

Mayor Bill Bell also tossed in a new issue, wanting to know why the financial analysis that the city economic-development department for McLaughlin's grant application had not taken into account the cost of state and federal taxes her Center would have to pay as a for-profit enterprise.

Postponing a decision, Bell said, should be for the purpose of re-analyzing the Mok'e Center's reasonable cash flow and not for dealing with the Know Book Store, which he considered an issue separate from the grant, involving landlord and tenant.

But Bridges, and other speakers, made a connection in objecting to a public subsidy for one business that would jeopardize another.

Councilman Eugene Brown, who has said the Mok'e Center is not financially viable in opposing the city grant, passionately repeated that point during the council deliberation.

Councilman Farad Ali was equally passionate in supporting the grant, saying, "This is project that has life," and maintaining that the council had unfairly subjected the McLaughlin application to terms and scrutiny it had not applied to other grants under the city's Neighborhood Commercial Revitalization program.

One Durham politician at least has taken a stand on visual litter ­­-- campaign signs, that is.

Rob Griffin with Scientific Properties wrote the mayor and council members to complain about candidates' signs in the public right-of-way near his firm's Venable Center at Pettigrew and Roxboro streets. Griffin said the signs' placement suggested that Scientific Properties is supporting those candidates, which is not the case: “We, as a company, remain neutral.”

Councilman Eugene Brown answered: “There is legally no reason why we should allow political signs, including mine, to visually pollute our city. … There is a propensity for such signs to linger far after the election is over, especially by those candidates who lost. As a result, the public could be forced to live with such a nuisance for months. Denver [Colo., where Brown's twin brother is a city councilman] only allows home owners to display political signs, hence the term, yard sign. In my judgment, this demonstrates real grass root support and not just the ability of a candidate to flood our streets, landscapes and parks with personal advertisements. Here's to a cleaner environment! Now all we have to do is convince my colleagues of the folly of the status quo.”

Brown, of course, is not up for re-election this year.

City councilman Eugene Brown, known as "Sound-Bite Brown" by some of his colleagues, took his stand on Durham's long-running chicken question just before the council voted last night:

"There is the old expression — philosophical, biological — Which came first, the chicken or the egg?' And that has been debated for centuries. And at times it seems like we have deated this ordinance for centuries.

"But tonight, the question is not Why did the chicken cross the road? but, Will we allow chickens to cross the city line and reside in the city of durham?

"This very long debate that we’ve had, since I guess last summer and beyond, certainly it’s been tiresome at times. I’ve stated obviously there are more important issues. But tonight it’s going to be decided.

"And when you look back, this ordinance we’re talking about, this ordinance is much like an egg: It’s been scrambled, it’s been fried, and tonight it will be hopefully served on a platter sunny side up."