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."

For months before his resignation on Aug. 1, former Town Council member Bill Strom denied he was planning to move back to his native New York. But on Aug. 5, Strom and his wife Jennifer, former managing editor of The Independent newsweekly, purchased a Manhattan apartment for $625,000, New York City online public records show.

The News & Observer questioned Strom about his plans back in May, and he said he and his wife were downsizing. When his house in Chapel Hill sold in June, he said they had moved to an apartment in Chapel Hill. (As the buyer in the Manhattan transaction, the Stroms listed their address as Todd, N.C., where they've had a vacation home for years).

If Strom had resigned prior to July 14, the two years left on his council seat could have been up for election on Nov. 3. Instead, because of Strom's timing and town law, the Town Council must appoint a replacement, and all potential appointees must apply by Oct. 11, nearly a month before the voters decide on four other expiring seats. Some have called on the candidates to collectively apply so that no one gains or loses in the process, but some have resisted, saying they only want to be re-elected.

Incumbent Town Council member Laurin Easthom says the current council should decide on a process for replacing Bill Strom soon and that process should include appointing the fifth-place finisher in November's election. If she happens to finish fifth out of eight candidates, though, she wouldn't seek appointment.

"I would want to be elected because I've done it before, so for me, it would be a loss if I wasn't in the top four," she said. "If there are not five seats on the ballot, then in my opinion, I didn't win my seat back on the council, and I don't think that the council should turn around and appoint me." 

CHAPEL HILL -- The Orange Water and Sewer Authority will consider a $34-million budget Thursday night that reflects a 9.75-percent rate increase but won't have enough money to eliminate odor at the Mason Farm wastewater treatment plant.

In their ongoing battle with OWASA over odor in their neighborhood, Highland Woods residents spoke to the Chapel Hill Town Council Monday asking them to demand the utility complete the final phase of its odor elimination project by a certain date.

That date will have to be somewhere between 2011 and 2014, when OWASA's development permit requires that all construction at the Mason Farm plant be complete. OWASA is aiming to finish the project sometime in fiscal year 2010-2011, but its board refuses to promise that, citing the uncertainty of the global economy.

Last fall, the Town Council was supposed to discuss a petition from member Matt Czajkowski asking town-hall staff to examine how other cities and towns across the U.S. are managing panhandling and homelessness. But the council ran out of time at that meeting and rescheduled that discussion for tonight. A memo for the meeting suggested that panhandling was on the decline, but Franklin Street business-people don't necessarily agree. Check back here for a report on tonight's meeting.

Mayor Kevin Foy has tapped Natalie Ammarell, a human services consultant, to chair the town’s new Mental Health Task Force.

The state's failed mental health system has forced mentally ill residents to fend for themselves for treatment and medication, town officials said in a release. UNC Hospitals uniquely affects Chapel Hill and Orange County because the hospital discharges some mentally ill patients who stay in Chapel Hill in perpetuity.

"The future of mental health care in Chapel Hill and throughout North Carolina is uncertain,” Foy says. “Therefore, local municipalities must think more about how this will affect the health and vitality of our communities.”

“Mental health issues are sometimes invisible,” said Ammarell, who studied the impact of deinstitutionalization of the mental health system in Massachusetts. "This task force will offer a great opportunity to come together to make sure we are addressing the needs of Chapel Hill residents.”

The task force will be asked to 1) assess the state of the mental health care system in the greater Chapel Hill community; 2) create broader awareness of mental health care issues in Chapel Hill and generate discussion; and 3) provide recommendations regarding the future of mental health care services for residents of the town and county.

“It’s difficult to predict the future from the past because these are unique economic times.”

Those words opened a special report to the Town Council Monday night called “Financial Crisis and the Town of Chapel Hill.”

Town Manager Roger L. Stancil announced he wants to cut spending for the current fiscal year by 5 percent “without jeopardizing service delivery.”

No new hires or out-of-state travel will be made without Stancil’s approval.

Stancil says a drop in consumer spending could cut the town’s budgeted sales tax revenue 5 to 10 percent. Sales tax makes up nearly 20 percent of the town’s general fund revenues, and a 10 percent drop would equal nearly $1 million.  

The economic downturn also will affect property tax revenue, the town’s biggest revenue source, as home values stagnate.

Five percent of the town’s budget is about $2.5 million.

Councilman Jim Ward said he’d like to find an additional $1 million in savings.

Councilman Matt Czajkowski moved to reinstitute the town’s budget advisory committee, last chaired by Gene Pease, one of the candidates for the vacant council seat that went to James Merritt Monday night.

“This is the overarching issue that’s going to face the town over the next year,” Czajkowski said.

Tonight the Town Council will hear presentations form 10 candidates to replace the late council member Bill Thorpe, who died in September of heart failure.

The council will nominate from among the pool and will appoint a new member next Monday night.

The applicants are (follow link to read their full application materials):

-- Gene Pease, an investment services executive who has served on various town committees

-- Will Raymond, a hi-tech businessman who has served on various town committees

-- Loren Hintz, a biology teacher at Chapel Hill High School who has served on various town committees

-- Donald Shaw, a UNC-Chapel Hill journalism professor who has served on various town committees

-- William Abb, a retired Army officer

-- J.M. Green, a UNC-Chapel Hill education professor

-- Jim Merritt, a retired school counselor and administrator

-- Willard Blaine Rogers, a former soldier, community organizer and homeless person

-- Amy Chute, who serves on the town’s Northern Area Task Force

-- Andre Wesson, who chairs the town’s Justice in Action Committee

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.”      

Chapel Hill Town Councilman Matt Czajkowski and I played phone tag during the council's health insurance controversy. He saw me at Margaret's Cantina two weekends ago, came over and apologized and we finally got together last week.  

You can read parts of the interview in tomorrow's Chapel Hill News. I focused on the councilman's role as the dissenting voice on council, asking whether he enjoyed being the thorn in the council's side or thought he was making a real difference.

Czajkowski said he thinks he's  tapping a sentiment in the community that is not always reflected in council decisions and discussion. He said past decisions like publicly financed elections, health benefits for ex-members (Czajkowski has no problem with benefits for current members) and perhaps public art (we didn't talk about that specifically)  are getting a closer look from the public as the economy tightens.

"Obviously the goal is to implement change," he says in the interview. "To the extent other council members are listening to the broader public -- instead of the constituents they've been listening to -- they may be hearing the priorities in Chapel Hill may be different."

Chapel Hill has changed, he says. "The people who've moved here in the past 20 years are not old Chapel Hillians who grew up in the halcyon days of Peace and Justice Plaza. That stuff doesn't mean anything to them because they weren't part of it."

Read more in the Editor's Desk column in Wednesday's Chapel Hill News.