Robert Campbell, Rogers Road's most active spokesman, will visit the White House Friday as part of a panel discussing the public health benefits of a clean energy economy. Campbell will address EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

"We're going to be there to interject our thoughts on how to go about creating green initiative programs to move us forward," he said. 

Campbell, a key leader in the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association and the Coalition to End Environmental Racism, has fought for public water to replace wells possibly contaminated by leeching from the nearby Orange County landfill. He has also fought  against siting a trash transfer station in his neighborhood.

"If we can learn truly to move into the green technology, it'll being to elminate the need for landfills," he said. 

For the third time in two years, the Town Council has stalled the UNC Wesley Foundation's plans to build a Methodist dormitory near downtown Chapel Hill.

Two years ago, it was 22 apartments on five stories for 160 students in a 70,000-square-foot building on Pittsboro Street. After neighbors from the Cameron-McCauley Historic District complained, the Wesley Foundation scaled back the plans to four stories and 148 beds, but the council decided that was still out of scale with the neighborhood.

Wesley responded by relocating the plan to West Rosemary Street, proposing 76,770 square feet on four stories for 144 students. The foundation brought that plan to the Town Council Monday night, but council members were cold toward it.

"The neighbors are having trouble understanding the imperative for having a dormitory adjacent to a residential area," said Councilman Ed Harrison. "I'm not sure I can handle something quite this intense, but thanks for the try."

The building would replace three buildings at the corner of Rosemary and Church streets, including the former Los Potrillos Mexican restaurant and various professional offices. Its 30-foot rear wall would be 11 feet from the residential property lines to the north.

"It's still going to be the same issue that you had on Pittsboro Street, just the sheer mass of it, particularly when you have relatively small houses on the other side," said Councilwoman Sally Greene. 

Councilman Jim Ward said if Wesley brings back the proposal, they'll need to decrease the size or use "some other magic" to lessen the impact on neighbors.

Mayor-elect Mark Kleinschmidt recommended explaining more about the types of students who will live their in "intentional" community.

"I imagine that your intentional students are not going to be playing music at 3 o'clock in the morning," he said. 

I've been getting some feedback from Will Raymond and Matt Pohlman on my story, "Most missed filing deadlines."

The story said only Laurin Easthom managed to file her special pre-election report by the Oct. 29 deadline but that Pohlman and Matt Czajkowski postmarked theirs by the deadline and that Raymond's was a day late because of a Board of Elections software error.

Pohlman called to clarify that he did fax his report, along with mailing it, on Oct. 29. The BOE Web site has no record of the fax, but I have left them a message asking them to confirm (I've also asked whether any other candidates might have faxed, just in case). The fax means that both Pohlman's and Easthom's reports were available to the public on Oct. 29. Pohlman said he was proud of hitting every campaign-finance deadline.

Writing here on OrangeChat Raymond said even though his special pre-election report wasn't available at the BOE Web site on Oct. 29, he did post it on his own Web site.

UPDATE (Nov. 19): In further reporting for a follow-up in Sunday's Chapel Hill News, we learned two statements made at Tuesday's forum were incorrect. According to university officials, two of four members of the Class of 2002 selection committee were black. Also, one of three artists who visited Chapel Hill as part of the selection process was black. We'll have more in Sunday's paper.  

Arthur Finn knew about the Unsung Founders Memorial on UNC's McCorkle Place. The low-to-the-ground statue by Korean artist Do-Ho Suh depicts 300 unnamed black figures holding up a polished table and is meant to honor the African Americans -- free and slaves - who built the campus. 

But Finn said he never thought about the juxtaposition of the statue with the Confederate Monument nicknamed "Silent Sam" until poet C.J. Suitt pointed it out during a forum on race relations in Chapel Hill Wednesday night.

Suitt said he was offended not just because the table is small and Confederate soldier large, but because only one black person was on the committee that chose the artist. He said no black artists were considered and that the artist who was chosen specialized in miniatures.

"These are the things that are appalling to me," said Suitt, who is black.     

Finn, who is white, spoke when the discussion opened up to the audience. About 55 people attended the meeting sponsored by the town's Justice in Action Committee at the Hargraves Center. Three-quarters of the audience was white. Mayor-elect Mark Kleinschmidt attended, as did council members Sally Greene and Jim Ward and council-member-elect Penny Rich.

Finn recalled a similar discussion 30 years ago when a member of the Black Panther Party challenged the audience, saying that if they wanted to see a racist to look in the mirror.

"I think most of the time we think we're not racists," Finn said. He said although he was aware of the monument to black workers, "what I wasn't aware of in my own brain [was] I never thought of it in comparison with Silent Sam. We need to learn from all these things."

"Unsung Founders," a gift of the Class of 2002, was meant to counter criticism of the Confederate Monument, "perhaps the most controversial memorial on campus," according to UNC's Center for the Study of the American South.

Many say it glorifies the Confederacy and should be removed. Others say removing it "would do more harm than good by denying the reality of this period of UNC's (and the nation's) history," according to the center.

What do you think? Tell us and we'll print any signed comments with more from last night's forum in Sunday's Chapel Hill News.

Here's a look at tomorrow's headlines:

OPEN FOR BUSINESS: Orange County commissioners say the years of steady tax inceases are over. So now what? New County Manager Frank Clifton helped them see a new way to start thinking about economic development at a Saturday retreat. We were there.

'A LITTLE SCREWY': That's how Chapel Hill Town Council candidate Penny Rich described the first year of Chapel Hill's public campaign financing program. And she was one of the winners. Read Jesse James DeConto's story to see where nearly everyone fell short this time around.

DRAGO'S DRACULA: Staff writer Sadia Latifi is only a few years out of college herself. So she knows who Edward Cullen is. But before 'Twightlight" there was a darker, more dangerous vampire. Read her story on Chapel Hill High School's production of "Dracula" opening this Thursday.

LADIES NIGHT: No, not the disco song, but an event Thursday night in Hillsborough, which in case you've missed it has become quite the happening burg. (My favorite? Matthew's Chocolates). Correspondent Elizabeth Shestak reports how businesswomen are remaking Churton Street, and could maybe teach their neighbors to the south a thing or two about revitalizing downtowns.

Lots more, your letters, a guide to this week's arts and entertainment and sports, of course.

As always, thanks for reading,

Mark         

John Grisham, author of 23 books including numerous best-selling legal thrillers, will deliver UNC-Chapel Hill's spring commencement address.

Chancellor Holden Thorp will preside at the ceremony on May 9 at 9:30 a.m. in Kenan Stadium.

“John is an engaging speaker who will have a profound message for our graduates and their families,” Thorp said in a news release. “His prowess with the written and spoken word makes him an excellent choice for a commencement speaker.  He has an inspirational story to share.”

Thorp chose Grisham in consultation with the University’s Commencement Speaker Selection Committee, which is made up of an equal number of students and faculty.

The author spoke at two North Carolina Literary Festivals held on campus, in 1998 and the most recent festival in September.  His daughter, Shea, graduated from UNC last year with a degree in elementary education and teaches in Raleigh.

Grisham’s last book, "Ford County," was published on Nov. 3 and is his first collection of short stories. "The Innocent Man," published in 2006, was his first work of non-fiction. Nine of his books have been made into movies.

Every so often, the military does a jet flyover in Chapel Hill and someone gets freaked out. Hey, can't really blame you if you don't know it's happening. These jets are loud!

Anyhow, a flyover featuring four Marine F/A-18 Hornet jets is scheduled just prior to the kickoff of the UNC/Miami game Saturday at 3:30 p.m.

But to prepare, the pilots to some practice runs. Those will be Friday between 2 and 3 p.m. Beware.

I don't have a link, so here's the text from a memo to community members from Linda Convissor, the university's local relations director.

Dear Friends and Neighbors:
 
Saturday marks the end of the home football season with Carolina kicking-off against the University of Miami Hurricanes at 3:30 p.m.
 
Just prior to kickoff, four Marine F/A-18 Hornet jets will fly over Kenan Stadium.  The F/A-18s are part of the VMFA-122 squadron known as the 'Werewolves', and are based out of the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina.  One of the pilots is UNC alumnus Captain Benjamin Apple, class of 2003.
 
Practice runs will be made on Friday between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m.  Of course, bad weather or aircraft schedule changes could affect the flight plans for Friday and Saturday.
 
The jets will be flying low and be quite loud, so we wanted to give you advance warning.
 
Whether or not you are attending the game, you might want to come to campus to enjoy Tar Heel Town   http://www.tarheeltown.com/.  The Old Well Walk will begin at 1:00 p.m. with Coach Davis and the Tar Heels walking across Polk Place to Kenan Stadium. The Marching Tar Heels, cheerleaders and Rameses will be there too.  Grab a spot along the route to cheer the Heels to victory.
 
Touch Downtown www.touchdowntown.com allows you to "park and ride" and visit campus and downtown both before and after the game.  You can ride the bus from two parking lots along Martin Luther King Boulevard:  one lot is at 725 Martin Luther King Blvd. across the street from Fosters and the other is the "P" lot across from the YMCA.  The buses from these lots will begin running 3 hours before kick-off and continue for another 3 hours after the game.
 
If you are a community group or neighborhood representative, please forward this email to your members and others who may be interested.
 
Have a great weekend and Go Heels!

Wayne County school officials have put the brakes on a cash for grades fundraising effort at a Goldsboro middle school.

The school district reacted to today's article by Lynn Bonner, in which she reported that a $20 donation to Rosewood Middle School would have gotten a student 20 test points — 10 extra points on two tests of the student's choosing. That could raise a B to an A, or a failing grade to a D.

Are any individual schools in Orange County following similar policies? Or any other sort of classroom incentives to reward fundraising?

E-mail me or post a comment.

As of Oct. 28, Mayor-elect Mark Kleinschmidt had spent about $16,000 out of just over $18,000 available to his campaign, according to a campaign-finance report he filed about a week late last Friday. It says he had raised about $5,300 -- close to his limit of $6,000 -- and received $13,000 from the voter-owned elections program. If he has any money left over, it must be returned to the town, regardless of where it came from.

Matt Czajkowski, one of the only three candidates who managed to file the special pre-election report by the Oct. 29 deadline, had raised $30,000 and spent more than $25,000.

Gene Pease had spent nearly $6,300 by Oct. 19, more than any other Town Council candidate, but he didn't file his report on time and it doesn't yet appear on the State Board of Elections web site. Matt Pohlman, the second-leading spender at $5,000 as of Oct. 19, did file his special pre-election report on time, and he had spent about $8,500 as of Oct. 28.

A post-election report is due on Nov. 19 and will reveal the final numbers.

As noted in today's Chapel Hill News, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools released their annual Opening of Schools Report last Thursday.

Highlights of the report include decreased enrollment, more Asian students than ever, bigger classrooms and fewer new hires. There's also information on budgets, test scores, facility maintenance and more.

To read the full report, click on the document linked to at the bottom of this post and download the PDF.

Documents: