Ex-Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Capowski wants to serve on the airport authority that will replace Horace Williams Airport.

UNC-Chapel Hill and the UNC Health Care system are forming the 15-member board that will look for a new location for the airport. The airport has to be closed to make room for the future Carolina North campus. The town will make one appointment to the board.

Capowski says he is concerned about the authority’s “too great authority,” which includes the power of eminent domain, the acquisition of of private property for public use.  If appointed, he says he would represent  local  governments' interests.

“Though I spent 21 years on the faculty of the med school, I do not believe that a UNC airport is the all-important need for the med school, the UNC hospitals and health care in North Carolina,” Capowski wrote in an e-mail to the Town Council. “Rather, an airport must be viewed  in the context of the county and towns.”      

Former Chapel Hill Town Councilman James Protzman has challenged Realtors to rethink their opposition to a land transfer tax.

On BlueNC, “the people’s think tank,” Protzman says the real estate industry spent more than $22 for every vote against the tax in Clay County.

“Would you please help me understand why? I really don't get it,” Protzman says. “What exactly do Realtors gain from this kind of political bullying? And more to the point, what do communities and citizens gain when you force them to raise property taxes to pay for schools?

"Some of my best friends are Realtors. They make huge contributions to the quality of life in many communities. Indeed, the North Carolina Association of Realtors could be an enormous force for good in our state. But I have such a hard time seeing why this issue is any of your business. I don't understand why you allow the leadership of your organization to run roughshod over communities where elected officials are trying to do the right thing."

The threat of bad weather from Hurricane Hanna has prompted the organizers of the Arts at the Meadow arts fair and music festival to postpone the event by a week.

Arts at the Meadow, a two-day event at Meadowmont in Chapel Hill, was originally scheduled for this weekend, Sept. 6 and 7. But with Hanna churning along an uncertain path that forecasters say could bring severe weather to North Carolina this weekend, planners decided to move the festival back a week. It is now scheduled for Sept. 13 and 14. The festival will feature arts and crafts, live music, dance, children's activities and more from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.

Tuesday's public hearing on the 300 East Main Street happened too late for us to get in Wednesday's N&O. We posted a story online and have a follow-up in Sunday's Chapel Hill News that focuses on the question some posed at the hearing: Is it "Carrboro" enough?

Heres' what architect Jim Spencer said when we asked him. (Jim also sent us a new image that gives a better idea of the plaza leading into the heart of the project. Look in Sunday's News for that too.)

"The most Carrboro thing about the project has been the process itself. It's been the most open, collaborative design process we've been involved with. Over four years, it has included community design charettes, voluntary reviews open to the public at the Century Center and ArtsCenter, and an open dialogue among the Town staff, owners, local business people and residents, and design team. We've had an extraordinary amount of feedback from the community, and the vast majority of it has been very positive."

What do you think?

Tell us here -- and please put your name if it does not already appear in your posts. If we get enough responses, we'll print some in one of next week's papers.

Kal Penn, an actor on the hit TV show “House,” will be in the Triangle Sunday and Monday to stump for Barack Obama.

Penn will speak to students at UNC and Duke and meet with Raleigh-area young professionals dubbed “Generation Obama”, at an event downtown Sunday night.  Monday morning Penn wraps up his triangle stop at N.C. State University.

Details for the Triangle events follow below.

UNC-CHAPEL HILL RALLY
Sunday, August 31
1:45 pm
The Pit

DUKE UNIVERSITY DORM STORM KICKOFF
Sunday, August 31
3:25 pm
White Lecture Hall, Room 107
113 Campus Drive

RALEIGH YOUNG PROFESSIONALS MEETING
Sunday, August 31
8 pm
Raleigh Times
14 E. Hargett Street

Effects are still being felt from the heavy rains that inundated the Triangle in midweek. Tonight’s football in Hillsborough between East Chapel Hill and host Orange has been postponed before the first drop of rain Friday.
East Chapel Hill (0-1) now is scheduled to play at 7 p.m. Monday at Orange (1-0).
Orange’s field is situated between two concrete stands, which tend to funnel rains into the middle. Significant standing water remained across the playing surface Wednesday, and the field was still thoroughly saturated Friday morning.
"They said they walked out onto the field and sank down to their shins in one spot," East Chapel Hill athletics director Ray Hartsfield said. "They’re worried someone could get seriously hurt."
The JVs will play Sept. 11 in Chapel Hill.
Orange’s decision leaves the county without a game tonight. Chapel Hill High School (0-1) has a bye week; Cedar Ridge (0-1) is at Bartlett Yancey (0-1) in Caswell County; and Carrboro (0-1) is at Burlington Cummings (0-1).

The soccer match Aug. 27 between East Chapel Hill (1-0-1) and Apex (1-0-1) was cancelled due to lightning and heavy rain Wednesday in the Chapel Hill area. It has not been rescheduled at this time.
Apex still has a big early season test coming Sept. 4 at Chapel Hill High School. Apex is No. 3 in the latest N.C. Coaches poll and No. 4 in the N&O’s Triangle Top 12. CHHS (2-0-0) is No. 10 and No. 7 in those same polls.
Chapel Hill also had to reschedule a midweek match. The CHHS game at Raleigh Ravenscroft, the Tigers’ oldest soccer rival, has been reset for Thursday at 7 p.m. (A JV match at 5:30 p.m. precedes the varsities.)
Even without a rematch yet with Apex, some changes to the ECH schedule have been made; notably, Carrboro at East Chapel Hill has been moved from next week to Oct. 17 at 5 p.m. in Wildcat Stadium. Also, both ECH games with Hillside are cancelled, since Hillside failed to field a varsity team this fall.

We at the N&O/Chapel Hill News are as frustrated as anyone at the lack of information explaining what happened to Atlas Fraley and why the adults charged with caring for him were not able to do just that. His head football coach Issac Marsh is not answering questions, Chapel Hill High School athletic director Ron Hayes is not returning phone calls, and Orange County EMS spokeswoman Dinah Jeffries has little to say, citing federal law protecting personal medical information.

Still, we're exploring every avenue we can think of to retrieve information.

We've submitted a public records request to Orange County seeking any documents and e-mails among town employees relative to the yet-unexplained death.

We've been interviewing his teammates and outside medical experts, but without knowing the cause of his death from the medical examiner, it's hard to know what to make of what we've learned. We do know that he chose not to eat breakfast before the scrimmage game on the morning of the day he died, and drank only water before and during the game and Gatorade after the game.

The release of Fraley's autopsy and the completion of investigations by the Board of Education, county Emergency Services and his family's lawyer should tell us a lot about why he died and whether anyone could have done anything to save his life. Until then, we don't have much to work with.

Maybe it's just me, but I like seeing Jacquie Gist at Weaver Street.  I like that she  admits she obsesses over Carrboro. Heck, I like that she returns phone calls.

So we're talking yesterday about Tuesday's Board of Aldermen meeting. She was grilling developers on The Butler (not enough parking) and 300 East Main Street (read more about that in Sunday's Chapel Hill News). She said she's sensing a new theme in development discussions that she's still sorting out.

"What I'm sensing now is 'community as commodity,'" she says. It's not a new idea, of course, but she sees it happening now in Carrboro, and as it takes hold, she wants to make sure somebody is watching out for the people here now.

"People build community and then other people come in and profit from the community that others created and built," Gist explains.      

Translation: Carrboro's developed a rep as a quirky happening place, and now developers see a market in high end condos for those eager to join in. There are all kinds of public policy issues that Carrboro needs to sort out to protect its "vibe" (we'll retire that word soon, but you keep hearing it) -- from parking to building height to affordable housing.

All of which makes for interesting news. Look for our story Sunday.

The highly anticipated match Aug. 27 between East Chapel Hill (1-0-1) and No. 3 Apex (1-0-1) has been cancelled due to lightning and heavy rain in the Chapel Hill area. It has not been rescheduled at this time.
Games next week feature Roxboro Person at CHHS in a PAC-6 game Sept. 3 and then Apex at No. 10 Chapel Hill on Sept. 4. East Chapel Hill hosts Riverside on Sept. 3 and then Carrboro on Sept. 5
The Jaguars have a busy week, playing at Orange Sept. 2 and hosting DSA Sept. 3 before heading to East.