Chapel Hill Town Council members are on board with the course and vision of the town's 2020 Comprehensive Plan, but questions remain on how to implement the plan's initiatives and balance priorities with funds.
The Chapel Hill Town Council members reviewed the vision, goals and next steps in the Comprehensive Plan process during a work session Monday night.
Council members heard from town staff and 2020 co-chairs Rosemary Waldorf and George Cianciolo.
Chapel Hill’s cell-phone debate got put on hold Monday night when a proposed ban on calls while driving fell two votes short.
To pass on a first reading, the ban needed six votes. The council deadlocked 4-4, with member Ed Harrison absent because he was representing the town at a regional transit meeting. The issue will come back for a second reading March 26, when it will only need five votes.
The town has discussed the issue for two years. Another yes vote for a full ban next time could make Chapel Hill the first in the nation to enact such a ban, according to the town attorney. Evanston, Ill., which has had a local ban on hand-held calls, is considering adding hands-free calls to its ban.
The town’s proposal calls for banning either hands-held cell phone calls or all cell-phone calls while driving in town limits. It would make such calls a secondary offense, punishable by a $25 fine, when police stop someone for another violation such as speeding.
Residents from neighboring towns and counties can now buy affordable housing in Orange County.
The council voted 8-1 Monday to loosen rules for who can buy homes through the Community Home Trust, an organization which manages affordable housing for the town's inclusionary housing program. The housing program requires developers to make 15 percent of units in new developments meet affordability guidelines.
Now residents who live and work outside of Orange County can buy a home through the Community Home Trust if after it's been on the market more than 90 days. The group has had trouble selling one particular house and has experienced the same challenges as the rest of the housing market, said Robert Dowling, the group's executive director.
He has participated in few forums and taken few hard stands this election season, but now mayoral candidate Kevin Wolff is taking aim at the homeless and a new shelter set to be built in northern Chapel Hill.
Wolff, an attorney running against incumbent Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt and fellow challenger Tim Sookram, passed out fliers last week criticizing the shelter site, arguing that when it is built, children will be “assaulted, molested, kidnapped, or killed.”
“It’s not a matter of if this will happen ... it is a matter of when,” the flier says. “Search your heart and your feelings parents; you know this is true!”
The Town Council approved a new men’s homeless shelter at 1315 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., to be operated by the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service, earlier this year.
The flier continues a pattern of controversial campaign behavior by Wolff, who also ran for mayor in 2009. Two years ago he distributed fliers describing then Town Council member Kleinschmidt as a gay rights activist who has no children and doesn’t own a home in Chapel Hill. He later withdrew from the 2009 race in an effort to swing votes to current council member Matt Czajkowski, who was also running for mayor at the time.
Efforts to reach Wolff for comment this election season have been unsuccessful.
Read the flier below:
Two Chapel Hill Town Council members traded barbs this week over budget cuts to a town swimming pool.
The council had received a complaint about reduced daytime swimming at the Community Center. On Monday, council member Matt Czajkowski said he was troubled by the town’s spending millions on its pools in recent years only to now reduce the hours people can use them.
“(It’s) dismaying, but it’s classic,” he said. “One of the things that’s perverse about all this is all the other costs of operating the pool, other than the lifeguards, continue.”
Town staff explained they had to cut $40,000 – about the cost of two lifeguards for the eliminated hours – and that fewer swimmers used the pool during those hours. (Read parks and rec director Butch Kisiah's memo and the original complaint here.)
Council member Jim Ward defended the staff. “I just think you’re off base in describing the staff’s process and actions as perverse,” he told Czajkowski. “It’s a cheap shot.”
“I believe I said the outcome was perverse, not the process,” Czjakowski responded. “And it is.”
And then he added, “I’d be happy to provide you with a list of what people perceive as cheap shots from you if you ever would like.”
“Sure,” Ward replied, and the council moved on to the next item on its agenda.
Mark Kleinschmidt edged Matt Czajkowski by 99 votes, and there could be more than that many provisional ballots left to be counted. There are 78 in Orange County, and the county Board of Elections will meet no later than Nov. 10 to decide whether they're valid ballots. Orange elections director Tracy Reams is still waiting to learn how many provisional ballots came out of the tiny portion of Chapel Hill that's in Durham County.
It's not likely very many, but Czajkowski nearly doubled up Kleinschmidt, 287-146, in that section of town, so it could make a difference, at least in narrowing the gap between the two men. If it closes to less than 1 percent of the total -- probably somewhere between 85 and 90 votes, depending on the total of provisionals -- Czajkowski would have the right to demand a recount. That will only take a difference of a dozen or so votes in the provisional ballots.
Czajkowski won election in 2007 after the Board of Elections denied a recount request from incumbent Cam Hill, who lost by about 60 votes.
UPDATE: Durham County has nine provisional ballots for the Town of Chapel Hill, making for 87 total -- not enough to change the outcome but perhaps enough to allow a possible recount. Czajkowski did not return a phone call inquiring whether he was considering asking for a recount.
Former Town Council member Cam Hill registered his Chapel Hill Caucus political-action committee today, complying with state law. Hill drew criticism last week for a campaign flier attacking mayoral candidate Matt Czajkowski, who bumped him off the council in 2007. Hill had until today to register the PAC. Hill may have broken campaign-finance law by not noting that incoming mayor Mark Kleinschmidt had not authorized the flier. Hill has said he didn't know of that rule. Hill loaned his PAC $1,703.46 for the mailing, a sum he'll have to forgive or collect as contributions to the PAC. Hill will have to report the disposition of that debt in a January campaign-finance report, according to Orange County Board of Elections Director Tracy Reams.
We've had some questions on the News & Observer Web site and by e-mail about our story on Matt Czajkowski's insider-trading case, dismissed in 2005.
One reader wanted to know why we didn't elaborate on who has been questioning Czajkowski about the issue. The fact is, we didn't have room. So, for the record, Czajkowski himself told me he's been getting questions about it.
A letter to the editor in the Independent brought it up last week, concluding that he "got off on a technicality," which is not exactly true. Insider-trading cases often fail to go forward in Delaware because the burden of proof is high. The plaintiffs did not provide any evidence that Czajkowski had material nonpublic information that led him to sell off part of his stock holdings in the company.
At a public election forum held by the League of Women Voters earlier this month, Czajkowski took exception to a question about how management of his personal finances would reflect on how he would handle the town's finances.
"I've tried really, really hard to keep this campaign focused on the issues," he said. "It's almost sad that I have to address questions which are simply innuendo. I personally have a surplus, I have savings which I've worked hard for over the course of my life, and I hope that the town can have the same."
At the League of Women Voters candidates forum Monday, an audience member submitted a question asking Kevin Wolff why he was personally attacking Matt Czajkowski in the mayoral campaign. Wolff has been publishing a half-page newspaper ad calling on Czajkowski to drop out of the race so that he and Wolff can be allies on the council. Wolff's campaign mantra has been: "Keep Matt where he's at."
"I'm not having personal attacks against Matt. I'm attacking the position that he's taken to run for mayor," Wolff replied. "I like Matt. I helped him get elected. ... I hope Matt and I get to work together on the Town Council."
Czajkowski said he wished the campaign could focus on the issues. "Chapel Hill dearly needs that discussion," he said. "Mr. Wolff doesn't do some of the candidates for council justice who arguably very much share my views."
More from today's Friends of Downtown meeting:
Roger Perry gave a list of things the town can do to make downtown Chapel Hill safer and more vibrant (and working on the first will make working on the second easier).
Town Councilman Matt Czajkowski, sitting in the back of the room, gave a reason he says those things have not gotten done.
"The reason we don't have good lighting downtown ... the reason we can't come up with a [downtown master] plan is there are ideological impediments at the government level," Czajkowski said. "Sadly, I don't think we're going to make much progress on a plan until we make more progress mitigating the ideological impediments."
Czajkowski, who has previously spoken out about the decline of downtown, didn't elaborate on his remarks except to say arguments for better lighting have or would run up against criticism of light pollution. (Light pollution generally refers to the impact artificial lights have on the nighttime sky.)
