A new joint venture between the Local Government Federal Credit Union and UNC's School of Government will help cities, towns and counties develop financing tools and training local government officials to develop finance programs.

The credit union is giving the School of Government $1 million for a program called Expanding Development Finance in North Carolina, which will give economically-distressed communities access to sophisticated finance products and services.

The $1 million is expected to fund the project for five years, after which it is expected to become self-sustaining.
 
The second initiative is the credit union's Fellows Executive Development Program, which will teach mid-level managers in local government the skills needed to build and manage development finance programs.

A $625,000 grant will develop the program and subsidize course registration fees for three groups of fellows.

Okay. So you're just dying to donate some money back to your beloved alma mater.

But how? Where? How much? And what are your options?

Look no further. Jenna Ashley Robinson over at the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy has it all figured out.

On the foundation's website, Robinson has explored all the different ways you can donate to a university. One message here - you don't just have to give to a school's general fund, even if that's where the institution would very much like you to direct your dough.

As she finds, you can give to a particular school, department, or student organization.

Have a read here.

The proposed Obey Creek development could create a new southern gateway into Chapel Hill. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

“The aesthetics of this are going to be critical,” Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said as he reviewed the concept-plan for 1,200 multi-family homes and 570,000 square feet of commercial space across from Southern Village on U.S. 15/501. “We need some signature kind of place that says, ‘You are now in Chapel Hill.’”

That’s exactly what some rural residents don’t want. They don’t all consider themselves part of Chapel Hill, said John James, whose family has lived in southern Orange County outside the town limits for the past 50 years.

“A lot of us don’t tend to come into town,” he said. “What we see is a jump straight away from our little part of the county. It’s clearly designed to change the area. We thought that when Southern Village was approved, that that was going to be the last big thing.”

Though Southern Village brought neo-urbanism to the rural countryside, even village resident Elliot Baron fears Obey Creek’s buildings – which developer Roger Perry said could reach eight stories – will block northbound drivers’ view of the green hill on which the UNC campus sits.

“You won’t see Chapel Hill,” Baron said. “(Obey Creek) is what you will see. This will be the new entryway.”

Councilwoman Donna Bell said when Perry returns with a formal application, she hopes the tallest buildings would be six stories or less. Councilman Jim Ward worried that Obey Creek would rise taller than the UNC Hospitals complex that now dominates the view entering Chapel Hill from the south.

“The hospital itself is considerably taller,” Perry assured.

The recession may be nearing an end, at least in Chapel Hill.

The development moratorium the Town Council enacted in 2007 in response to feverish activity near N.C. 86 and Interstate 40 got a de facto extension as the credit markets collapsed in 2008.

But the moratorium is over, and developers all over town have submitted new proposals in recent months, including one giant subdivision on Homestead Road and one gargantuan mixed-use project across from Southern Village.

Capkov Ventures plans 1,200 multi-family housing units and 570,000 square feet of commercial space, including a hotel. The project, dubbed Obey Creek, would comprise 120 acres with three access points along U.S. 15/501 South near Market Street and Southern Community Park.

Capstone Development Corp., meanwhile, plans 330 homes in 137 buildings, including single-families, townhomes and apartment-style units. If approved, The Cottages subdivision would sit on 33 acres with 1,175 parking spaces.

UNC Chapel Hill brought in more than $271 million in private gifts in fiscal 2009, its second-largest take ever.

The only better year was fiscal 2008, when the university brought in $301 million as it closed out a $2.38 billion capital campaign.

UNC-CH officials were particularly pleased with 2009 donations given the weak economy.

"Our supporters have been tremendously generous," said Matt Kupec, the university's vice chancellor for university advancement. "Despite this being a down year for the economy, they've shown remarkable dedication to Carolina."

For more, click here.

Despite the advent of several very popular classified advertising websites which shall remain nameless here, the newspaper classified site is still going strong.

Ours has been going strong for about 3 years now.  It's gotten a bit creaky, so we're launching a new one tomorrow.  Fortunately, our sister company McClatchy Interactive built the technology for it, using our existing site as a model for the features and layout.  (Also, one of our original web designers went to work for MI two years ago, and was instrumental in designing it.)

It's a bittersweet launch.  We built the current site using PHP, the then-state-of-the-art programming framework, and it's been chugging along like a faithful old steam engine.  On the other hand, with the new site, there will be bells and whistles like:

• Google mapping for garage sales
• The ability to drill down into search results by meta-info (like how many days old the ad is)
• A nice solid all-CSS template.

Check it out tomorrow - and place an ad today!

The town of Knightdale is getting ready to review its comprehensive plan.

It’s been six years since the plan was adopted, and the town has seen quite a bit of development since then.

A comprehensive plan is something like the constitution behind the zoning ordinance. Areas in the town are designated according to what type of development the committee thinks should go there. Town Council has the final say.

But as with most matters, the Knightdale residents will be able to weigh in at a public hearing.

Then the ordinance comes into place and rules are adopted. or in this case, changed, to carry out the plan.

A group of Knightdale residents have already volunteered or been selected to take on this mammoth task.

They will meet the first Thursday of every month until the job is complete.

The committee also will look at transportation issues including mass transit.

Day 2 of Cary's annual council-staff retreat began with a slightly different agenda than Day 1. Much of the first day was spent discussing largely philosophical ideals on how the council could work together as a team -- along with town employees, of course -- and identifying strengths and weaknesses within the town's overall governmental operations.

The second full day was spent in part on more meat-and-bones issues. Interim Town Manager Ben Shivar helped walk the Town Council and Cary's staff through a series of agenda items discussed at last year's retreat in Southern Pines. Shivar and other staff members provided updates on various projects and asked the Town Council to identify those the board would like to focus on in the coming year.

A few highlights:

*Find a downtown development manager. Council member Erv Portman likened the position to the kind of work a mall manager might perform, but added that anyone selected to fill such a post would need to strike a balance between the public and private sectors.

Council member Jennifer Robinson said she envisioned the manager perhaps working alongside officials at the Cary Chamber of Commerce to draw new business downtown. Interim Town Manager Ben Shivar, who will temporarily fill the role, said it was an important role.

"We need someone who can bring focus to that area and direct competing interests," he said.

*Begin planning for a new business park. Interim Town Manager Ben Shivar said that he, along with Cary's economic development manager, would likely meet with staff in Chatham County in coming weeks to discuss an idea to build a new business park that would provide economic benefits to both parties.

Some on the council liked the idea in theory. "I don't think there's anything better we can do from an economic development standpoint than to make sure this is built," Council member Erv Portman said of the concept. "It's a relatively cheap economic stimulus initiative."

But Julie Robison and Jennifer Robinson were among those on the board who urged caution in moving forward with the idea of building in a neighboring county. Both Robison and Robinson suggested as an alternative that the Town Council might want to also explore development near the NW Cary rail station or in downtown.

*Continue promoting 'green' practices. Mayor Harold Weinbrecht expressed a dissatisfaction with the amount of litter he sees along Interstate 40 and suggested an anti-litter campaign as a means of raising awareness of environmental issues.

Ideas proposed for such an initiative included Julie Robison's idea of sponsoring a cleanup day through the Haw River Assembly, a non-profit group helping to protect the Haw River and Jordan Lake. Also, Erv Portman proposed conducting an anti-litter campaign to coincide with Earth Day in April.

UNC-Chapel Hill has asked the Town Council to postpone its big-ticket agenda item tonight: the first building in the Carolina North campus. The university is planning a three-story building totaling 80,745 square feet with 214 parking spaces on an 8-acre portion of the 970-acre Horace Williams Tract. The Innovation Center would incubate businesses that grow out of UNC research and would be located at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Municipal Drive. The council is likely to continue the public hearing until Nov. 24. In a memo to the council, town staff members assured council members that the Innovation Center proposal is consistent with preliminary results of the town's long-range transit study and that the building's future owner, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., will pay property taxes on the value of the building, even though the university-owned land will be tax exempt.

Around these parts, universities are always raising money. We write about the big campaigns. And the really big campaigns. And the not-as-big-but-still-important campaigns.

Which gives us just enough confidence to say that if we were ever going to try to raise money for a university, we wouldn't do what Framingham State College did recently.

To summarize: In an attempt to make light of the poor economy, this small, Massachusetts college fired off letters to 6,000 alums that read in part:

"With the recent economic downturn and loan crisis, it has become even more important for Framingham State College to receive your support. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

 

As the local paper noted,  the word "blah" was used 137 times.

As one alum noted: "It just doesn't seem like something from a legitimate university."