If you know or have information about Ali Cherfaoui and/or Chahnaz Kebaier, the woman who was fatally shot Friday at Scroggs Elementary School, and would be willing to speak with a reporter for a possible follow-up story, please contact us at 919-932-2003 or editor@newsobserver.com.

Our sympathies go out to family and friends, and to the Scroggs and Southern Village communities.

Orange County Schools Board of Education Chair Donna Coffey released this statement today in response to the demotion of Orange High School Principal Armond Hankins:

On behalf of the Orange County Board of Education, I would like to respond to recent statements questioning the District’s commitment to African American leadership presence in our schools.

As we pursue hiring the best-qualified staff, both the Superintendent and Board are mindful of the importance of recruiting and maintaining a diverse staff of school system leaders. Our Superintendent makes personnel recommendations to the board at every meeting, and we know that he values diversity and makes recommendations based on good and honest reasons in the best interest of children.

The School Board knows that not every personnel decision will please everyone, but we are confident that the cumulative personnel decisions over time show our commitment to recruiting and maintaining a high quality, diverse staff of leaders and role models for all our students.

Recruiting and retaining educators of color has been a longstanding goal of our Raising Achievement and Closing the Gap Committee, and our board has strived for many years to ensure that our students of color have role models at all levels.

Currently:
- African Americans comprise 16.2 percent of our student membership.
- 38.3 percent of our district’s administrators (principals, assistant principals and central office staff) are African American.
- 20.8 percent of our district’s teachers, teacher assistants and other instructional/classified staff are African American.

Our Superintendent and Board highly value our students and their families and encourage open communication. We are firmly committed to promoting outstanding student achievement and individual success for all students. The 1:1 laptop initiative recently approved by the Board reflects our commitment to ensuring that all students have access to the best educational tools possible for their success.

Donna Coffey, Chair
Orange County Board of Education
 

By Tammy Grubb

Family Dollar opponents say the retail store is being shoehorned into a longtime neighborhood with no regard or respect for what the community wants or needs.

“We want the character of our community preserved. We want our health and safety protected. We want our natural environment protected, and we want vulnerable populations protected and justice done,” Alabama Avenue resident Claire Hermann said last night.

Both they and the developer will have to wait another two weeks to find out if the Board of Adjustment approves an 8,100-square-foot Family Dollar for the less than one acre site. The Board of Aldermen will not review the plan.

Roughly 40 people spoke Wednesday night against building the store. The public hearing was continued from May 16, when developer Will Stronach, of Raleigh-based Stronach Properties, presented more than two hours of expert testimony to a standing-room only crowd.

By Tammy Grubb

The Board of Aldermen unanimously approved a conditional-use permit last night for the $5.1 million redevelopment of the PTA Thrift Shop on West Main Street.

Store officials said construction could begin by late summer.

“This is going to make us much cleaner and a much better neighbor from an esthetic standpoint,” Executive Director Barbara Jessie-Black said. “So we’re really excited about that, because that’s been one of the things that’s been really difficult for us to manage, the amount of things that we get on a regular basis.”

The expansion will create “a pleasing environment” and add five to seven full-time jobs, she said. That store and a second one on Elliott Road have about 30 employees now, she said.

It also will grow local support for schools, especially as new ones open, Jessie-Black said. Both stores together raised roughly $265,000 for local schools last year.

We'll have more on this later today at www.chapelhillnews.com and coming Sunday in The Chapel Hill News.

Forbes has released its picks for America's Top 20 geekiest cities, and the Triangle cracked the top five.

Durham gets the headline, but Forbes cites the Triangle workforce, "15.5% of workforce 41,560 workers employed The Raleigh-Durham-Cary area, otherwise known as the Research Triangle, hosts Duke University and the third-highest percentage of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree."

No mention of the other influential universities?

San Jose topped the list. Check out the top 20 here.

Orange County is inching closer to consensus on a regional transit plan that could create a  light rail system, expand bus service, and connect the county to the rest of the Triangle.

The Board of County Commissioners approved the regional transit plan "in principle" Tuesday night, contingent upon the approval of an implementation agreement with Triangle Transit Authority.
 

There will be no revaluation next year in Orange County.

The Board of County Commissioners voted 6-1 Tuesday night to delay a revaluation until 2015. Commissioner Earl McKee dissented, concerned about the perception that the county was only delaying because values had declined, and wasn't following its past commitment to the four-year revaluation system.

Here is a look at today's local headlines:

MOM'S WORDS: Jurors in Brian Minton's trial sat through horrific testimony. But, as Tammy Grubb reports, equally if not more emotional were the words of Steve and Julie Bailey, the parents of Josh Bailey.  Read interviews with three jurors in today's paper.

OCCUPY'S NEXT PHASE: The alternative commencement at UNC is under way this morning alongside the main event. Read why some activists are protesting New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as UNC's commencement speaker and what's next for the movement. Monica Chen reports.

DUAL LANGUAGE REPORT: If you're a betting person, the recommendation to end Dual Language Mandarin instruction is probably DOA after massive opposition. But turning Frank Porter Graham into a Spanish magnet elementary? More complicated, Dave Hart reports.

For those who missed it, Chapel Hill's cell phone ban is on hold (new towing rules too), the county commissioners are getting close to deciding whether to put a sales tax on the ballot for mass transit (read what Benjamin Haven and James Carnahan have to say about that), and Virginia Lee graces us with her first guest column, 'Stories Grandmama never told me.' (I met 'V,' a few months ago and she dropped the opening line of today's column in conversation. I said you have to write about that, and so she did.)

I caught "Marley" yesterday at the Chelsea. If you've already seen the Avengers or comic book movies aren't your thing, this documentary is a riveting, rollicking look at reggae icon Bob Marley, an amazing, creative life cut short at 36.

Thanks for reading,

Mark

Here is an early look at the full version of a guest column running in Sunday's Chapel Hill News.  Please tell us if you support the half-cent sales tax for mass transit at editor@newsobserver.com or below (with your name if you'd like your comments published in the newspaper.). Thanks.

By Bejamin Haven and James Carnahan

Orange County has a clear and urgent need for the additional transit services that would be funded by the half-cent sales tax now under consideration by the County Commissioners for a fall referendum.
Whether you live in town or a rural area, we all have an obligation to create a sustainable legacy for those who will come after us – to curtail our carbon footprint, establish a resilient economy and make Orange County affordable to a diverse population.  Public transit is an indispensible tool for achieving these goals.

The Piedmont is still growing at an extraordinary pace; the Triangle Region alone is expected to add more than one million people over the next 20 years [U.S. Census].  By 2030, an additional 40,000 people are projected to make their home in Orange County [NC Office of State Budget, Planning, and Management].  This growth will tax our transportation infrastructure, contributing to longer traffic delays and more carbon emissions.  Already, the Triangle wastes 12.7 million gallons of fuel annually due to congestion [Texas Transportation Institute].   We can’t continue to rely on fossil fuels and sprawl-oriented development patterns, and our current transportation system is inadequate for the population boom that we face.  It’s time to invest in a real transit plan to meet our current and future needs.  

The added half-cent sales tax would specifically fund public transportation.  The Federal Government will not kick in matching funds to get transit projects off the ground unless Orange County can prove that it is capable of raising capital to finance part of these ventures.  In other words, we will not see transit improvements, including bus service expansion, a light rail line from UNC Hospitals to Downtown Durham, or a Hillsborough Intercity rail station, unless we get this  tax referendum on the ballot and passed by a simple voting majority.

Durham is already on board, putting a similar referendum on the ballot and voting to fund transit last year.  However, they can’t do it alone, and a potential light rail line connecting Orange County to Durham depends on us sharing in the cost.  It’s time for Orange County, too, to invest in transit to support the future health of our community.

A vigil will be held at 7 p.m. tonight (Wednesday) at Peace and Justice Plaza outside the Franklin Street post office.

"We are aware of the dismay that many of our members and friends are experiencing today following the passage of Amendment One in North Carolina," the Revs Jill and Richard Edens of United Church of Chapel Hill, said in an email they sent us today.

"Let us remember that churches across our state stood with those who would be harmed by this Amendment including the Episcopal dioceses of North Carolina, both Methodist bishops in North Carolina together with the NC Council of Churches and many, many UCC, Baptist, Lutheran, Unitarian, MCC and progressive Pentecostal pastors from across our state," the email says. " We are aware of the special pain that comes with reading quotes from people saying things like, 'God's mercy prevailed.' Not only is this hurtful to the LGBTQ community, but also to the integrity of God's word and God's love."

"At these times we are comforted by the words of Martin Luther King Jr. 'The arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.'"