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Two items about bow hunting today.

WUNC is reporting that the town of Pittsboro may consider a bow hunting season to cull its deer population before the start of next year's deer season.

And in Carrboro, a resident has requested the Board of Aldermen consider a bow hunting season.

"They were so cute when there was one mom and doe," the Garden Gate Drive resident wrote the town. "But 13 years later, the local herd in Cates Farm is 20, [and] all edible plants and landscaping are gone. I  have seen several local communities have allowed deer hunting via bow and arrow within the city limits. I would like Carrboro to join that list."
 
"We have large areas of public land within the subdivisions that could be hunted in safely." his e-mail continues. "I think this would be  a much better solution by using the deer for food or donated to food kitchens than waiting for them to be hit by a car and left to die."

Duke University recently authorized limited hunting, starting with bows and arrows, to cull deer herds in its Duke Forest land.
 

I don't know what Chapel Hill's Linda Janssen saw out her kitchen window last week. But for those who say it could not have been a mountain lion, read this.

We've reported over the years about problems caused by day laborers loitering at the corner of Davie and Jones Ferry Roads in Carrboro. Police and neighbors have cited drunkenness, public urination and other problems. Some residents have said they felt unsafe or uncomfortable walking past the crowds of men who lingered long after contractors came by to pick up workers for the day.

Tonight the Board of Aldermen gets a report that says the town's year-old anti-lingering ordinance has worked. According to staff observation, communication with El Centro Latino and contact with residents in the Davie Road/Glosson Circle/Alabama Avenue neighborhood, trash and behavioral problems are down.

The ordinance allows police to arrest those hanging around after 11 a.m. It gives police a stick to use if they can't persuade people to move on. "In fact, officers have not had to arrest anyone for violation of this ordinance," Police Chief Carolyn Hutchison reports. "I recommend that we keep the ordinance on the books."       

George Strater, the district wildlife biologist for our district, called back this morning on the reported cougar sighting in Chapel Hill last Friday.

Strater thinks what a Chapel Hill woman and her 22-year-old nephew saw was probably a big dog.

"We get calls from time to time," he said. "If there's a track or something we'll go out and look. We need some type of physical evidence."

 I also got an e-mail this morning from a reader who lives on Old Lystra Road on the edge of Chapel Hill. He says a neighbor named Rudy told him a couple of years ago he had seen a cougar twice in his back yard, where the woods back up to the Morgan Creek watershed.

The easten cougar or mountain lion is on the Endangered Species List. Except for a small population in Florida, where the animal is known as the Florida panther, there is no evidence of of the animal in the Southeast. 

But they're smart and secretive, right? The two witnesses are sure of what they saw Friday morning. I asked Strater if there's any chance they could have seen a big cat.

He doubts it. North Carolina has a very small population of red wolves and even they occasionally get hit by cars and show up as road kill.

"It just seems highly unlikely." 

The Orange County Board of Commissioners elected Valerie Foushee chairwoman for 2009 last night. Mike Nelson was elected vice chairman.

Foushee was first elected to the board in 2004.

Also, Pam Hemminger, Bernadette Pelissier and Steve Yuhasz were sworn in as new members of the Board of Commissioners. Monday night was the first Orange County Board of Commissioners’ meeting with seven Commissioners serving on the Board.

Retiring Commissioner Moses Carey Jr. was recognized for his 24 years of service as a member of the board.

The Friends of the Orange County Library has launched a buy a brick-type fundraiser for the new library building going up in downtown Hillsborough.

Only these bricks aren't for your office desk ... these bricks are made for walking (on). They'll form part of the walkway to the future building.

Individuals and groups can purchase the 4” x 8” brick pavers, which match the bricks being used for the building's exterior. They can be personalized with names of family members, a favorite author quote, or to commemorate a special occasion. Each paver can fit up to three lines with 14 letters, punctuation marks, or spaces per line, for a total of 42 characters.

Pavers cost $100 each and are tax deductible. Order forms are available at the library's circulation desk, 300
W. Tryon St., or by e-mailing FOCPL2009@yahoo.com.

The new Orange County Public Library, scheduled to open in the second half of 2009, will be nearly double the size of the existing library, which is housed with several other county departments in the Whitted Building, site of the former Hillsborough High School.

Orange County Commissioner Mike Nelson is comparing the protests against California's Proposition 8 striking down gay marriage to the Stonewall Riots, which many credit with starting the modern gay rights movement in 1969.

Nelson, who is gay, participated in the Nov. 15 rally in Raleigh that attracted 1,400 people and ended with a march on the governor's mansion.

Mormon Church money fueled the anti-gay marriage proposition, and analysts say conservative black voters turning out for Obama helped seal the deal. That prompted Nelson to call for prominent black Americans like comedian Wanda Sykes to start a dialogue on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues within the African-American community.

"Well, Wanda Sykes is now out there and working her behind off," Nelson writes in an update on his blog, 'Leading from the Left." See a video of Sykes speaking at a Las Vegas rally and read Nelson's other posts on gay marriage and Prop 8 here.

This time state Rep. Bill Faison called me. He'd heard about the meeting on Coleman Loop Road in northern Orange where some property owners came together Sunday to organize against an airport.

Faison lives out there and says he was just floating a trial balloon when he suggested a new airport panel look out that way. Some neighbors wondered if the lawmaker was trying to deflect attention away from his own land. Faison said he was not and that any airport near Coleman Loop Road would impact his property. He says an airport there could lead to a bypass around Hillsborough that would solve that town's vexing traffic bottlenecks.

But Faison also said a site that far north is a long shot and is now suggesting a new location. He says the airport panel should look at a site parallel to I-40 between the new Durham Tech campus and the highway. That sounds a lot like the general area the county had eyed for a solid waste transfer station, which the town quickly rallied against. 

Faison said he's tossing out suggestions because "I would be surprised if an [airport] authority asked me where it ought to go." He says this new location would be within the 25 minute driving distance  the university says it needs to serve its medical fleet.

Not that residents believe that's what's driving the search for a new airport in Orange County. They say it's for alumni, a charge the university denies.

"If they've got a big donor flying in, it's a convenient airport," said resident Al Banes, who owns a local biotech company. "It will be couched in other terms, [as being] 'for the good of the university.'"

Residents are concerned because the airport authority will have the power to take land by eminent domain and UNC wants the panel's members picked by January.

"We got to get on our ponies here," Banes said. 

Bill Faison is going to get some more Orange County residents' attention. Here's a look at some of the top stories in tomorrow's paper.

NANO, NANO!: No, not a line from Robin Williams' old TV series. NANO stands for No Airport in Northern Orange, the newest group to form against an airport. Read the story and learn about a second location north of I-40 has Rep. Faison's eye. (Or read the next item I'm about to post ...)

NEWCOMERS WELCOME: Some Karen refugee, Latino and other newcomers to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools are getting extra help in a new newcomers center, a sort of school within a school designed to give students an extra boost. Anne Blythe reports how the school system is trying to imrpove their chances for success.

EFFIE MERRITT: She cooked for five UNC chancellors. For 25 years, she cooked a little extra to make sure neighbors who were alone at Thanksgiving had a holiday meal. Now read how alumni of Chapel Hill and Carrboro's segregated schools are carrying on her tradition.

While you're reading, take a look at our new ArtsWeek calendar on the front page pf the B section. We did not have room in the arts calendar's old location on A2 to get all the listings in, so we moved it to a new page with more room. Tell us what you think.

Have a warm, happy Thanksgiving. I'll be roaming the woods with my dogs.

And thanks for reading,

Mark 

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.