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How are we doing? If you have a question, complaint or suggestion about coverage of Orange and Chatham counties in The News & Observer and The Chapel Hill News, post your comments in this blog or e-mail us. Comments here may be reprinted in The News & Observer or Chapel Hill News.
Coming tomorrow in The Chapel Hill News
Submitted by mschultz on 11/17/2009 - 17:46
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
About the blogger
Mark Schultz is the editor of The Chapel Hill News and The Durham News, and one of the Western Triangle editors for The News & Observer.Want to post a comment?
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Comments
Information was available...
Wed, 11/18/2009 - 10:09 — CitizenWillThe article on VOE says "Easthom's was the only new report available the Friday before the election" which is a bit misleading as, one, I had posted my finances on my website as the election progressed and, two, I had posted the PDF copies of the reports along with my own tallies in time for review by both the press and the public.
The information is still posted here: http://www.campaign.willraymond.org/campaign-finances/
This is something I've done 3 times running, something that no other candidate has even attempted.
As the bulk of funds are often raised and spent in the last few weeks of an election it is important to get the information out there for further analysis. While the incredible amounts raised and spent for both Council and Mayor races is being reported, from your story I have no sense whether the contributions are indicative of any kind of trend, etc.
Finally, as far as the intent of our local VOE program, which was not aimed at reducing the influence of contributors - a concern in other locales - but to open up the electoral process to candidates outside of the "traditional" pool of citizens, as of today I'd say we have failed to deliver. The tardy reports are symptomatic of a poorly constructed approach that created more structural impediments to participation than ever.
Two little side-notes/questions.
One, who were the campaign treasurers and what was their previous election management background? Penny had someone with an extensive background in campaign finance helping her yet she still found the process "screwy".
Two, as far as "glitch on the BOE's Web site cost [me] an extra day", the core problem is I was (and am) using the SBOE's software to file my reports. The software only reliably runs on Windows 2000, is sensitive to other installed components (MDAC versions for instance) and has no way to easily recover from crashes occurring when an official report is generated (the chief problem I had).
I'm a computer professional with 30+ years of experience and was only able to recover by using that experience to edit the underlying database by hand. The SBOE is ready to assist folks that don't have that kind of background but given the very short time frame to turn the special pre-election report around, it would've been quite difficult to meet the deadline if you suffered a glitch and didn't have someone to tap to help.
The SBOE support staff, which I found to be quite accommodating, knows about these issues, welcomed my suggested improvements and plans to address them "in the future" but, again, this is just another potential impediment to participation that our local VOE effort doesn't address.
Primary Sources?
Tue, 11/17/2009 - 22:18 — CitizenWill"Jesse James DeConto's story to see where nearly everyone fell short this time around".
Mark, during the whole campaign cycle I was interviewed ZILCH on any of the issues so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there's a story on VOE which doesn't include at least an attempt to contact all the candidates for their view on the program. That said, the VOE and its supporting infrastructure - like the SBOE's election software - need more than a few tweaks. Beyond that, there needs to be a reanalysis of the intent behind VOE - to open up participation - and the implementation to measure the current approach's effectiveness.