The City Council doesn't have any authority over the courts in Durham, but two council members spoke their minds about the ongoing feud between District Attorney Tracey Cline and Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson.

"I've practiced law in this town for close to 39 years," said Councilman Howard Clement, "and I've never seen anything like this.

"I don't think the council can do anything specifically about it," Clement said, "but I just couldn't let the evening pass without mentioning it."

Last week, Cline accused Hudson of "moral turpitude, dishonesty and corruption," and said she will seek to remove Hudson from overseeing any criminal case in Durham. Councilman Eugene Brown had similar comments.

"This has become an embarrassment that needs to be resolved in a fair and equitable manner as soon as possible," Brown said.

"We're better than this, folks. We're better than this."

City Councilman Howard Clement (below left) hasn't forgotten about city-county merger. He revived the subject in 2008 during a meeting of city and county officials, and brought it up again when they met again this week.

"I would like to know where we are," he said, reminding City Manager Tom Bonfield and County Manger Mike Ruffin that they were asked to be "looking into opportunities to merge our operations."

Bonfield mentioned fleet management and a fiber-optic network, and Ruffin mentioned purchasing as areas considered for cooperation.

"The process has not been concluded because it is a continuing process," Bonfield said.

Over the past three years, Clement has repeatedly spoken out in favor of a complete consolidation of city and county governments, an idea advanced from time to time since the mid-1920s. Twice, in 1961 and 1974, merger has gone to a public referendum and both times was overwhelmingly rejected.

"I know there's been resistance here in Durham to even consider merging operations," Clement said. He maintains, though, that combining governments would improve efficiency and save taxpayers' money.

"The question is not will we merge, the question is when we merge, how we merge," Clement said.

Councilman Eugene Brown, though, said the two managers' approach is a good one.

"It may seem incremental," Brown said, "but incremental progress is better than no progress at all."

Police Chief Jose L. Lopez reported that the city’s crime rate reached a 10-year low when he spoke before the city council this week. At one point he referred to Durham as the greatest city in the world, eliciting a response from Councilman Howard Clement:

“You just earned a five-year extension on your contract,” Clement said.

“Does that come with a pay raise?” Lopez asked.

Clement replied, “I didn’t say that.”

With one warm, dry day after another, City Councilman Howard Clement is concerned about Durham's water supply.

The city's reservoirs are at only 79.5 percent capacity, he said at Monday night's council meeting.

"I was alarmed," he said. "That seems awfully low to me, and I don't see any prediction there's going to be any rain."

Clement (right) asked City Manager Tom Bonfield to have a report on the situation and what the city staff is doing about it in time for Thursday's work session.

Now, according to the Water Department's website at 1:30 this afternoon, Durham has 158 days' worth of "easily accessible, premium water" in Lake Michie and the Little River Reservoir, plus 12 days' worth in the Teer Quarry. There's also 39 days' supply of water below the reservoirs' intakes that could be accessed with some effort. Total supply, 209 days.

That, however, is based on the past 30 days' average demand: 30.68 million gallons per day  Monday. September demand is averaging 31.72 mgd -- up more than 4 million gallons per day from the 27.36 average of September 2009.

Lake Michie is two feet below its 341-foot full point; Little River is 7.5 feet below full; those levels, though, are considerably higher than they were at this point in the major drought years of 2007, 2005 and 2002.

Clement, though, is thinking ahead.

"We need to take more proactive steps to deal with this," he said. "I just don't think we're in a position to go through what we did three years ago (below)."

Bull's Eye correspondent Virginia Bridges reports:

During Thursday's City Council work session Thursday, Councilman Howard Clement asked whether the city could prevent the digital-billboard issue from coming before the council again, despite last Monday's unanimous vote against allowing them in town.

“In my 27 years on this council, there is one issue that has been consistently dealt with fairly and comprehensively,” Clement said.

“I don’t want to hear it again.”

City attorney Patrick Baker said that there is no such mechanism that could prevent someone from bringing the request back.

City Councilman Howard Clement (right) doesn't think much of having an annual World Beer Festival in Durham, and he made his feelings known during Friday's retreat on the city's 2010-11 budget.

When Deputy City Manager Ted Voorhees reported that the city spends $26,350 a year in set-up, take-down and maintenance services for the festival, Clement said, "Why should the taxpayers incur the cost?

"I'm not comfortable with that festival," Clement said. "I just don't think that adds to Durham's persona the way I would want Durham's persona reflected.

"I just hope in 2010 we have an opportunity to vote up or down on whether we should support this," he continued. "I vote no."

The Rolling Hills/Southside Steering Committee staked a claim Tuesday for more say in the multi-million dollar redevelopment project.

"We're the ones who are going to have to be living with this," City Councilman Howard Clement said during the committee's meeting with Karl Schlachter and Esther Shinn of the development firm McCormack Baron Salazar.

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.

Long-serving city councilman Howard Clement got a second challenger Wednesday when Sylvester Williams, pastor at the Assembly at Durham Christian Center and a vocal opponent of the East End Connector highway project, filed for the Ward 2 seat in this fall's city election.

Williams joins Libertarian Pary county chairman Matt Drew in opposing Clement, who has served on the city council since 1983.

As of Thursday morning, Ward 3 council member Mike Woodard and Mayor Bill Bell had no opposition for re-election, and no one had filed for the Ward 1 seat currently held by Mayor Pro Tem Cora Cole McFadden.

Incumbent City Council members Howard Clement and Mike Woodard, and challenger Matt Drew, made themselves official candidates in the first hour of filing for Durham city election this morning.

Drew, chairman of the Durham County Libertarian Party but a first-time candidate for office in Durham, is running against Clement for the Ward 2 seat representing southern Durham. Clement, longest-serving council member in Durham history, has held a council seat since 1983.

Woodard has held the Ward 3 seat, representing western and part of northern Durham, since 2005.

The seat for Ward 1, central and most of northern Durham, and the mayor's chair, are also up for election this fall. Incumbents Cora Cole-McFadden and Bill Bell, respectively, have said they plan to stand for re-election.

Ward council members must reside in the areas they represent, but are voted on at-large.

If more than two candidates file for any one seat, there will be a primary election Oct. 6. The top two vote-getters then face each other in the general election Nov. 3.

Filing for the election remains open until noon July 17.