Madeline Jefferson sat through this past week's growth task force meeting in a wheelchair. I didn't know until she called Friday that she was also sitting in pain.
Jefferson was thrown from her Jeep May 24 when her car hydroplaned in a storm and rolled over several times. She suffered a collapsed lung and lay in intensive care in Columbia for three days before she was moved to UNC.
None of that was what she called about. Instead she wanted to express her regret at not pushing harder to keep the Sustainable Community Visioning Task Force on schedule. Jefferson has served on numerous community groups. The task force has a big job to do to deliver its recommendations to the Town Council this fall. Diversity is important, she said, but there are ways to achieve it without putting the task force on hold six weeks. (The group voted 11-5 Wednesday night to suspend its work until late August.)
Wednesday's meeting was important enough to Jefferson that she sat in that wheelchair for two hours. That's about all she can tolerate a day before having to return to her bed. "I was in pain as I at there," she said. But the delay only frustrates. "Nothing has been done," she said of the task force's work. "While I understand this is important, I feel like this whole committee is hung up on this one issue. The council is in a dilemma, and [Mayor Foy] wanted this committee to start immediately. He really wanted things done over the summer."
The task force was appointed in May, Jefferson said, which means nearly four months will have gone by with no work, not even hearing staff presentations that transportation planner Dave Bonk and others never got to present Wednesday night. "We're four months behind getting down to a single issue," Jefferson said.
Ironically, the delay could make it harder for people to serve because the group will now have to meet more often when it resumes. That will be hard for parents and others who already have commitments, like Jefferson, who has a weekly meeting of the Chapel Hill Optimists Club, a group that fights childhood cancer. Since Wednesday's meeting, she says she has "just blessed myself out for not making a motion to move forward," she said. "Once we get started, we could be meeting every week."
Read more about Wednesday's meeting in today's Chapel Hill News. (in print today, online tomorrow)
