By Tammy Grubb

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen has named a municipal budget and management veteran from Arizona to fill the town’s vacant manager post starting March 15.

David Andrews, 51, is a native of Freeport, Texas, and the youngest of nine children raised in Tyler, Texas. Carrboro’s Assistant Town Manager Matt Efird, also a finalist for the job, has filled the position since Steve Stewart retired in August and will help with the transition.

Alderwoman Randee Haven-O’Donnell said the board made its “carefully deliberated” decision after a long process that included reviewing phone interviews with 15 candidates and holding face-to-face meetings with three finalists. Richmond, Va.-based Springsted Inc. was hired to lead the search, which cost the town more than $15,000.

In case you're getting a late start on your Super Bowl Sunday paper ...

NO VOTE FRUSTRATES CRITICS: It wasn't Aydan Court, but some say last week's Chapel Hill Town Council vote against Charterwood isn't the first time the town's elected officials haven't listened to the town's appointed officials. The council has a different role to play, of course. Read katelyn Ferral's stor and tell us what you think.

REFUGEES DISCUSS NEEDS: I was driving down Main Street when I saw three Burmese people squatting in a circle on the sidewalk talking. I thought that was interesting, perhaps the way they talked in the refugee camps they came from. I learned a lot when I got to meet soem of the immigrants at the Chapel Hill 2020 meeting at Carrboro Elementary School.

STANCIL, BLUE INTERVIEWS: I want to thank Town Manager Roger Stancil and Police Chief Blue for their candor during last week's interviews about the Yates raid. We have received two letters: one saying I was too hard on the men and one saying I asked good questions. 

New My View columnist Julie Moore discovers UNC's women's gymnastics (they're not all skinny teenagers), Aaron Nelson invites you to his state of the community address at noon today in Chapel Hill Town Hall, and letter writer Sam Schanfarber says there's a drug problem at East Chapel Hill and asks why.

Thanks for reading, and remember you can join us on Twitter (@chapelhillnews1), where we're up to 1,200 followers ) and on my Facebook page, as 800 of you already have. You'll find more news, more photographs (see Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton and the masked anarchist) and more ways for you to share what you think.   

Mark       

NOTE: You can now see a new photo from last night on my Facebook page. Tell us what you think about this story here or on the FB comments thread or in a letter to editor@newsobserver.com

A group of anti-capitalist activists briefly occupied a building at the site of a planned CVS drug store in downtown Carrboro today but left about four hours when police told them to leave or they would be arrested.

Mayor Mark Chilton entered the building at 201 N. Greensboro St. across from Carr Mill Mall early this evening.  "I asked them not to damage the property and asked them to leave," he said in an interview. "They asked me to leave."

"I asked them what their plans were. They asked me what my plan was. One of them suggested ice cream. I said I'd be glad to get them ice cream if they wanted to eat it on the sidewalk." 

Demonstrators, many wearing bandanas to cover their faces, heckled the mayor as he stood before television cameras and reporters in the building lobby. They asked Chilton if he was breaking the law by being in the building too. A giant sign hung on the wall that said "Under capitalism we're all under gunpoint."

"Please leave this property," the mayor said in a loud voice at about 7 p.m. "You're trespassing, and there may be other crimes you're committing as well. The time has come for you to leave this building."

By correspondent Tammy Grubb

The Carrboro aldermen paved the way for the Shelton Station project Tuesday night, voting 4-3 to rezone three North Greensboro Street properties to general business after a developer agreed to build flexible space into a residential building.

By correspondent Tammy Grubb

The town reopened the last section of Weaver Street to traffic today after completing a nearly yearlong renovation from East Main Street to West Main Street.

The town and OWASA are sharing the cost of the $1.8 million project.
The street was closed in early March so crews with Hannah Utilities of Durham could dig it up and replace 80-year-old water lines, improve storm sewers, and build new curbs and gutters. East Weaver Street reopened in June, much to the relief of business owners whose customers had trouble navigating the construction zone. The effects were exacerbated when workers found substandard soil under the existing road, one of Carrboro’s oldest streets. The soil had to be replaced and stabilized before a new roadbed was built.

Work on West Weaver Street started July 7 and was completed in smaller phases to limit the effects on those businesses. Town staff also placed larger signs and maps at each end of West Weaver Street to let people know businesses were open and accessible.

Owners of at least three businesses – Maple View Ice Cream, The Red Hen consignment shop and Carrboro Raw juice bar – cited the ongoing construction work in their decisions to close. Red Hen has since reopened at University Mall.
 

From correspondent Tammy Grubb

True love may be just around the corner for Carrboro!

Producers of the new show, “LoveTown USA,” have named the town a finalist for the Oprah Winfrey Network and BBC Worldwide television series. The next step is a visit with residents in a Town Hall meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. Dec. 13.

Community and Economic director Annette Stone said the producers wouldn’t say how many other towns are in the finals, too. Kingsland, Ga., officials said they are still in the running, but officials in Reidsville, Fuquay-Varina and Culpeper, Va., said their towns were rejected. There’s no word yet from Newton or Clayton, N.C.
The show’s casting directors will make a final decision in January.

The show will take over a small American town for 30 days, bringing in professional matchmakers to pair up local singles and see how the relationships develop and affect the town. Filming could happen in February or March.

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton is reminding Occupy Chapel Hill members to obey the law when they protest a local condominium board’s decision to remove a nonprofit serving area Latinos and Burmese immigrants.

“Just a quick reminder that the Abbey Court Condominium is private property,” Chilton said in a memo sent to Occupy members. “The Town Commons, Jones Ferry Road and the other streets and sidewalks adjacent are public spaces where anyone is welcome to conduct a march/protest. The Carrboro Police Department will be on hand to deal with traffic issues only.”

The homeowners association board voted 2-1 this week to give the Chapel Hill and Carrboro Human Rights Center until March 1 to find a new home. The board said the nonprofit, which runs an after-school program and offers other services, was violating its rules by operating programs in a residential setting.

Occupy Chapel Hill has a small encampment outside the Franklin Street post office and plans a 3:30 p.m. march on the Jones Ferry Road complex this afternoon. A march last month against the Nov. 13 police raid to remove occupiers of the old Yates Motor Co. building drew more than 100 people and briefly blocked traffic.

“It seems likely that if protesters cross on to Abbey Court's property that Abbey Court management will ask to have trespassers removed from their property,” Chilton said in his email. “If that happens, then as government officials we have a sworn duty to uphold North Carolina law. In that event, I promise you the Carrboro Police will respond in as calm and measured a way as possible. I want both protesters and police officers to be non-violent.”

Chilton, who supports the goals of the Occupy movement, reminded members that police “are a part of the 99% too.”

“Please bear in mind that when they carry out their job, they are only trying to feed, clothe and house their families, just like the rest of us. I guarantee that many of Carrboro's police officers share our concerns about how Abbey Court (or the whole world for that matter) is run, but that doesn't mean they can violate their sworn oath to uphold the law.”

Carrboro Alderman Dan Coleman has sent a letter to Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt offering his insight into the Chapel Hill-Carrboro anarchist community, and his willingness to  be a liason between the group and local officials.

In an e-mail Thursday, Coleman says he has worked with the anarchist group who sponsors the Really Really Free Market in Carrboro and provide weekly coffee for day laborers, in the past and has found them, "congenial and idealistic, giving considerable thought to how social structures might allow for a more just and democratic society."

"Nonetheless, nothing that I know of in their history or demeanor suggests that they would initiate any violence against any person and I want to stress that I have found these individuals to be quite approachable," Coleman writes.

Read the full e-mail below.

So the sales tax passed, but was it really because of higher municipal voter turnout?

Turns out, no.

Voter turnout was actually slightly higher in the rural precincts that did not have a municipal race on the ballot. Turnout in those 10 precincts was 14.7 percent compared with municipal  turnout of 12.8 percent.

Among rural precincts, 65 percent of voters opposed the tax, 35 percent supported it. The numbers were nearly flipped in the Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Hillsborough precincts, with 66 percent supporting it and 34 percent against it.

So what do you make of this? What does this say about  the ideological and cultural differences between rural Orange County and Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough?

Read more analysis on the referendum in Sunday's Chapel Hill News.