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

But first, we'd like to know what you think of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA's decision to end its relationship with the Boy Scouts. Tell us what you think about it here or in a letter to the editor at editor@nando.com or on our new Facebook page.

FLIGHTS DEPARTING: UNC's medical fleet will leave Horace Williams Airport for its new RDU hangar later this month. The airport's manager says that should cut the daily flights there by about half. No closing date yet.

CARRBORO PROJECT UPDATE: The $15 million project proposed for 500 N. Greensboro Street will get a review, but not until September. The aldermen want to give the developers more time to answer questions about traffic, commercial space (they want more) and other aspects of the project.

We have more photos from the Fourth, a most excellent My View column by Lynden Harris, a ton of letters and a raspberry on today's edit page. (See whom associate editor gave the thumbs down here.)

Thanks for reading,

Mark

A preliminary report on last week's plane crash at Horace Williams Airport says the single engine Cirrus SR20 was running at full power when it ran off the airport and struck a tree and fence.

The report says the plane touched down on the runway, hopped back into the air, then touched down and bounced twice more on the runway before veering off into the grass.  

“The airplane appeared to be coming in faster than usual for a small plane and according to the windsock beside the runway; the plane was landing with the wind not against it," the report quoted an unnamed friend waiting at the university-owned airport. "The initial landing was pretty hard and there was a small bounce and all three wheels left the ground. When the plane came down the second time , the front wheel hit first and there was a bigger bounce. The plane bounced a third and fourth time, each time the front wheel hitting first and each bounce getting more pronounced. At this point it seemed like the airplane was out of control."

In a small crossroads community west of Carrboro, folks are very leery of UNC Chapel Hill's desire to build a new airport. The community is White Cross, and the residents think the university is going to plunk a new airport down on them.

We've reported on this over the last few months, but Mark Schultz in this weekend's Chapel Hill News has a longer piece examining the people who would be affected if an airport was built out there.

Have a look here. 

My colleague Mark Schultz has been methodically pecking away at the maneuvering involving UNC Chapel Hill, Carolina North, local business interests and the Horace Williams Airport, which the university has for years said it wants to close in order to develop that land.

Mark's latest installment arrived today in the Chapel Hill News. It reveals that last year, then-Chancellor James Moeser asked two local businessmen to help fund a study of the economic impact of a new airport in Orange County.

The two businessmen, Jim Heavner of VilCom and J. Adam Abram of the James River Group, each pitched in $15,000 towards an eventual $100,000 that the UNC Chapel Hill Foundation paid a consultant.

The resulting report, which Mark wrote about last month, suggests a windfall for Orange County in the neighborhood of $53 million a year. And one local legislator, State Rep. Bill Faison of Cedar Grove, likes that idea very much.

The prospect of a new airport in Orange County has some folks on edge, even though there has not been any sort of indication that a site has been selected.

Mark has also put some questions on the issue directly to new Chancellor Holden Thorp. Read that interview here.

Ex-Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Capowski wants to serve on the airport authority that will replace Horace Williams Airport.

UNC-Chapel Hill and the UNC Health Care system are forming the 15-member board that will look for a new location for the airport. The airport has to be closed to make room for the future Carolina North campus. The town will make one appointment to the board.

Capowski says he is concerned about the authority’s “too great authority,” which includes the power of eminent domain, the acquisition of of private property for public use.  If appointed, he says he would represent  local  governments' interests.

“Though I spent 21 years on the faculty of the med school, I do not believe that a UNC airport is the all-important need for the med school, the UNC hospitals and health care in North Carolina,” Capowski wrote in an e-mail to the Town Council. “Rather, an airport must be viewed  in the context of the county and towns.”