Calling all Tiger fans! Chapel Hill High School's Lady Tigers (that's what they call them) basketball team will play for the 2013 NCHSAA 3A State Championship this Saturday, March 16 at 5 p.m. The game will be held at Reynolds Coliseum on the campus of North Carolina State University.

They will face Harding High out of Charlotte. Harding is 23-4 this season and also the defending 3A state champion.

Here is information pertinent to the big game.

It's been 32 years since Coach Sherry Norris and the Chapel Hill High Lady Tigers won the last basketball state championship in 1981.

Note:  There are other games throughout the day on Saturday, so your ticket gets you in for all four (4) of the games that day:  
Noon  
1A Women
River Mill Academy (28-3) vs. Bishop McGuinness (24-7)
2:30 p.m.
1A Men:   Rocky Mount Prep (24-3) vs. Winston-Salem Prep (31-1)
5 p.m.
3A Women:   Chapel Hill (30-1) vs. Harding (23-4)
7:30 p.m.
3A Men:   J.F. Webb (26-5) vs. Statesville (25-3)
Other:
• Doors Open at 10:30 a.m.    
• Pre-game introductions of all team members and pre-game hand-shake.
• Twenty (20) minute warm-up team for all teams.  
• Fifteen (15) minute halftime.  
• Awards ceremony to follow each game.
Note:   Teams from the East will be designated the "Home" team and wear their "white" uniforms, while teams from the West will be designated the "Visitors" and wear their "dark" uniforms.

Tickets:   Pre-sale:  $9.00      At the Game:  $10.00     (No re-entry on ticket stubs)
Pre-sale Tickets are $9.00 and will be sold at the Chapel Hill High "A" Building Lobby (across from the Main Office) during lunch (12:20 to 1:00 p.m.) on Wednesday and Thursday. Pre-sale tickets are "cash only" purchases.
Tickets purchased at the game are $10.00. NCSU will accept cash or check (checks payable to NC State Athletics).  There will be no credit card purchases.

Parking:  at NCSU is "free" in the parking lot and parking deck adjacent to NCSU Reynolds Coliseum.

Media:   Game will be broadcast live on WCHL 97.9 FM Radio and can also be seen live on Time Warner Cable Television.

WCHL 97.9 FM Radio:  The broadcast can be heard on 97.9 FM and online (and on your mobile device) at www.Chapelboro.com.  Paul Connell will have the play-by-play and Julian Caldwell will be the analyst.   

Time Warner Cable Television: Time Warner Cable Television will televise the 1A and 3A games live on Channel 520.

Chapel Hill Town Council member Gene Pease said he hasn’t decided the next step in his disagreement with a Planning Board chairwoman, but it’s raising important questions.

“I don’t have an issue with disagreement. I don’t have an issue with suing the town,” Pease said. “I do have a big issue with a member of the Planning Board disagreeing with a decision and suing the town over that when they’re still involved” in the town’s business.

Planning Board Chairwoman Del Snow is part of a lawsuit over the town's approval last year of the Charterwood mixed-use development on MLK Boulevard. Pease said that is a problem, and Snow’s email to the mayor and the Town Council objecting to another recently approved project was the tipping point.

In her email, Snow said the council was wrong to approve the Bicycle Apartments, because it did not reflect the town’s 2020 Comprehensive Plan, a document guiding town growth.

Pease responded to the email by asking Snow to resign her Planning Board seat. Pease also questioned whether she and other Planning Board members are using personal bias to make development recommendations instead of facts.

You can read both letters by clicking on the link below.

Documents:

The Orange County Board of Commissioners will discuss Thursday whether to privatize the county’s curbside solid waste and recycling services.

The board will meet at 7 p.m. at the Department of Social Services, 113 Mayo St., in Hillsborough.

The idea came up earlier this year after the N.C. Supreme Court voided a Cabarrus County impact fees program, Assistant County Manager Michael Talbert said. The county is weighing its options, he said.

County Attorney John Roberts said the unique nature of the county’s recycling program makes it a target. The state Legislature and the appellate courts have moved toward limiting local authority over the last several years, he said.

While private companies don’t recycle as many types of materials as Orange County does, Talbert said they could provide curbside service to more homes that want it.

Talbert, Carrboro Town Manager David Andrews and Chapel Hill Town Manager Roger Stancil agreed the move also would have implications for joint recycling operations. The town managers said their respective boards want to hear from the commissioners before making any decisions.

The commissioners could hold a public hearing April 23. The change would go into effect until July 2014.

This post is by Chapel Hill News correspondent Matt Goad:

Pepper's Pizza, a popular Chapel Hill eatery for students and townies alike for more than 25 years, will be closing for good today, according to owner Pepper Harvey.

"Downtown is just not busy enough to support us anymore," Harvey said. "The last three years has just been a struggle for us."

Harvey blames expanded on-campus dining choices for the demise of the restaurant.

Pepper's changed locations from 127 E. Franklin to 107 E. E. Franklin in 2006, but Harvey says the change did not affect business for the first two or three years.

In the last four years, however, Harvey said, business is down 40 percent, and he just cannot remain open.

Had a good breakfast with Aaron Nelson at Breadman's today (I had scrambled eggs and home fries; he went low-carb).

Aaron, the president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, helps me see economic development issues from a broader perspective. He spoke with me and CHN correspondent Tom Hartwell about Greenbridge, University Square and the latest sales tax figures (good news for Orange County, but we still spend a third of our retail sales tax dollars out of county).

And we talked about Bicycle Apartments, up for a possible vote at tonight's Chapel Hill Town Council meeting. The proposed 194 apartment (600-plus bedrooms) student housing project would triple the number of students on the property off MLK Boulevard. Some neighbors don't like it -- think it's too big, too many students or that the town should wait for the Chapel Hill 2020 planning process to catch up.

For me, the neighbors' strongest argument, though, has been that the town needs more housing for workers, not students and that nothing seems to be getting done about that. It's an old but ongoing problem: the people who work for the town and in the town can't afford to live in the town.

It looks like the Carrboro Board of Aldermen may proceed with tonight's public hearing on the CVS rezoning, despite the developer's request for another delay.

"The public has already been notified and informed and they are prepared to speak at the hearing on Tuesday," Alderwoman Michelle Johnson told Town Manager David Andrews in an email.

"I think this is unfair to the public who has been waiting for a year to be heard. As you all recall, the applicant requested to postpone the public hearing last April indefinitely," she added.

Andrews responded that he thinks the board has the option of holding the hearing as advertised. Alderwoman Jacquie Gist then asked if the developer has been notified the board intends to hold the hearing, further suggesting that's what the aldermen will do when they meet at 7:30 p.m. tonight in Town Hall.

The latest request to postpone the hearing until April comes after the Planning Board voted 4-3 against recommending the rezoning request for 201 N. Greensboro St. to a conditional business zoning.

The Planning Board found that "the requested change in zoning would not advance the public health, safety, or welfare and would be inconsistent with the community’s vision for creative and ample commercial development in downtown Carrboro."

The CVS project has been controversial. The developer says they have outgrown their store in the Carr Mill shopping center. Neighbors and some community activists have said the proposed 24/7 store at the corner of North Greensboro and Weaver streets would harm the historic mill house neighborhood.

Correspondent Sarah Mansur contributed to this post.

North Carolina's weekend series against Stony Brook scheduled to open at 3 p.m. on Friday has been postponed. The series between the Tar Heels and Seawolves will open on Saturday at 2 p.m. and conclude with a doubleheader beginning at 11 a.m. on Sunday.

Grammarians may have noticed a misused verb in the first sentence of a story Monday about the Captain John S. Pope Farm in northern Orange County:

“Thomas Crisp Jr. stood at the edge of a wire fence Friday morning in northern Orange County, two bales of hay laying at his feet.”

Two readers took the time to email me about the error - using "laying" instead of "lying" - that was edited into the story late Sunday.

“Kindly assist in teaching by example the uses of lie-lay,” reader Wendy Smith wrote in an email.

For the record: The verb “lay” and its derivatives – laid and laying – require an active voice and a direct object (a person, place or thing). For example, “she laid the bales of hay at his feet.”

However, the verb “lie” and its derivatives – lay, lain, lying – take an indirect object: “The bales of hay were lying at his feet.”

As a former copy editor, I know how easy it is to make mistakes when you’re pressed for time. We stand corrected.

Friends of former Chapel Hill High School assistant basketball coach Gus Fraley should be able to get a glimpse of him tonight on TV.
Fraley is in his first year as an assistant at Tennessee State University, and the Tigers (14-11 overall, 8-4 OVC) will host Ohio Valley Conference rival Belmont (20-5 overall, 11-1 OVC) at 7 p.m. on ESPNU.

Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt announced Wednesday that he is creating a campaign committtee for the November election.

“Being mayor of Chapel Hill over the past three years has been the one of the most challenging, yet rewarding experiences of my life,” Kleinschmidt said in a news release. “It is my intention to file for re-election in July in the hope the citizens will allow me to continue to serve and move forward with the hard work we have invested in Chapel Hill together as a community.”

Kleinschmidt filed the paperwork to create his committee with the Orange County Board of Elections as required by state law governing campaign contributions. The mayor was one of nearly 20 candidates nationwide that received endorsements recently from the Victory Fund, an LGBT advocacy group dedicated to increasing the number of openly gay and lesbian government officials. He also received a $250 campaign donation from the LGBT Democrats of NC, prompting his filing.

Kleinschmidt is Chapel Hill’s first openly gay mayor and was first elected to the office in 2009. He joined the Chapel Hill Town Council in 2001.