The one reason you should vote for me in 2007: I “walk the talk”.

Over the last 4 years, my incumbent challengers have talked a good game have ignored their own advice – often to the detriment of our community, always to the detriment of their credibility. Walking in “lock step”, the four folks I’m running against represent a Council out-of-balance, out of fresh ideas.

We need balance, a fresh perspective and at least one new Council member that will, whether on environmental protections, fiscal responsibility or public accountability, drive to “practice what we preach”.

Over the last 5 years, I’ve been a member of the Town’s Technology Advisory Board, the Horace-Williams Citizens Committee (which drafted the principles under which UNC’s Carolina North project will be developed) and the Downtown Parking Task Force.

As a member of each of these advisory boards, I brought a reality-based, pragmatic and proactive approach to solving real problems. Bringing innovation to the table, I believe that there’s always room to improve.

Over the years, I’ve listened to our talented residents make thoughtful and impassioned pleas for practical, cost effective improvements – improvements that this “block of four” have been slow to move on – improvements I would embrace.

I understand, unlike my challengers, you have to sometimes get out of the Gulfstream jet flying 50,000 feet above Chapel Hill and stand firmly on the ground to get the best results.

I believe in setting goals, establishing metrics for measuring success or failure and following up as policies are implemented to make sure our goals are being met. My challengers are afraid to measure results, as demonstrated by their continued resistance to give an accurate accounting of the Downtown Development Lot #5 project. Six times I have been before Council asking for an accurate accounting of this project which has grown 17 times its original cost – $500,000 to $8.5 million tax dollars.

This is just one example of many.

What would I do differently?

Fiscal Policy

• Recognize we can’t triple our debt load, take on 4 bond funds, have an open-ended Lot #5 liability and borrow imprudently from our reserves in an economy with a housing downturn, escalating credit risk and other negative macro-economic effects without adding to our community’s tax burden.
• Restore “rainy day” fund balances by reducing Mayor’s discretionary budget, increasing service efficiencies and eliminating known waste.
• Hold public hearings now on how the Town plans to borrow $7.5M of the $8.5M commitment for Lot #5.
• Reconstitute the Citizens Budget Advisory Board. During the last budget crisis, citizens led the way on budget improvements, let’s tap into their creativity and talent once again.
• Quarterly reports on expenditures, revenues and whether we’re meeting our projected goals.

Economic Development

• Economic development strategy that incorporates increasing our commercial tax base and our local jobs portfolio. The current Council has just hired the economic development officer I lobbied for over three years ago. With the coming fiscal crisis, we need to make up for that lost time and make developing our economic base a top priority.
• Identify key areas – Conner Drive, University Mall, Eastgate, Village Plaza and Ram’s Plaza – that could accommodate increased, though environmentally appropriate, commercial development. Solicit business growth in those key areas.

Carolina North

• Deal honestly and openly with UNC on the Carolina North project – no last minute suggestions, for instance, to move the project to Finley Golf Course.
• Build on UNC’s Leadership Advisory process and create a sustained framework between the Town, the University and other stakeholders on Carolina North’s development.
• Insist on a Master Plan for Carolina North’s development to make sure both the Town’s and the University’s goals and expectations are met.
• Finish the preparatory studies on environment, fiscal equity and transit before approval.
• Develop an open and transparent negotiating process that incorporates new zoning, development agreement and fixed goals that preserves open space, protects neighborhoods and our environment and makes Carolina North an asset for both our Town and our State.

Growth

• There are limits to growth based on social, fiscal, economic, tax revenue, environmental and other factors. Our current comprehensive plan controlling growth is too one-dimensional and over-estimates our community’s ability to grow.
• Our community is not obligated to grow as dense or as tall as the current incumbents have mandated. If we are to preserve Chapel Hill values, we must set policy that recognizes taxing moderate income families that have contributed decades of service to our community beyond their capability to pay or importing water from outside the county or dumping our waste in another community is no road to a sustainable future.
• Dense commercial growth should be concentrated in areas with existing infrastructure that can adequately support the usage envisioned by our comprehensive plan instead of areas requiring significant and costly upgrades.
• The Martin Luther King, Jr. (Airport Rd.) corridor needs to be treated as a contiguous whole from I-40 to Downtown. The omission of the Estes to Franklin St. strip in the Northern Area Task Force effort will encourage inappropriate – neighborhood damaging – density and height from Downtown to UNC’s Carolina North project. For instance, lining that stretch of MLK, Jr. with Wendy’s and Taco Bell’s will not serve our community well.

Environment

• “Walk the talk” on environmental protections.
  • Measurable energy efficiency standards for the Lot #5 project (underwritten with $8.5M taxpayer dollars, we should “do as we say”).
  • Carbon reduction. Commit to replacing %30 of the trees removed by the Southern Park, Lot #5 and new Town Operations Center projects.
  • Survey the remaining open spaces in Chapel Hill. Identify high priority candidates for acquisition. Focus on stream and natural corridor preservation.
• Targeted fuel reductions. I’ve called for %5 reduction in fuel use growth the last 4 years, it is time to implement this program before gas climbs to $4 per gallon.
• Work with Orange County on bio-fuel production. Become the first customer for bio-fuel and landfill natural gas products.

Revitalizing Downtown

• Policy should emphasize fixing a number of “smaller” issues – parking, sidewalk condition, lighting, cleanliness – over big concept projects like Lot #5. Almost all our Downtown revitalization “eggs” are in the troubled Lot #5 “basket”. For too long simple, practical remediations have been ignored.
• Family-friendly “pocket” park, decent bathroom, drinking fountains, commercial directories, repaired sidewalks and lighting first.
• Downtown parking policy should be fact-driven and not revenue-driven. The Downtown Partnership is doing the study I called for. We will know what resources are available, how they are utilized and what opportunities we have for improvement on its conclusion.
• Downtown parking needs to be easier to find, easier to use and as low or no cost as practicable.
• Troublemakers and aggressive louts Downtown will be aggressively policed.
• Development should be “human-scale” instead of the 10 story tall model our current incumbents have adopted.

Community

• Arts
  • Work to create a permanent home for hands-on arts at the Community Park – starting with Lincoln Center Arts program.
  • Reform the Arts Commission and change their charge from buying arts to supporting the arts – whether continuing with acquisition of art, mentor-ships or hands-on production.
  • Spread our arts resources around throughout our community instead of focusing on one or two ego driven big-ticket arts purchases.

Open Governance

• All significant agenda items complete and published 7 days prior to Council meetings. Key policy has been changed with last minute agenda additions that the public had no time to review.
• Council minutes published in a timely manner. Minutes are key tool for communicating, lagging months is disrespectful of our citizenry.
• Publishing Council emails, departmental status reports and other key documents on-line in a timely and transparent fashion.
• Video records of Planning Board and other key advisory boards. Audio records of all advisory boards. Require timely, accurate minutes from all committees and boards – published on the website prior to the board’s next meeting.
• Increase Clerk offices resources.

Other reasons to vote Raymond?

I do my homework. For the last two years, I’ve written extensively on these issues both on CitizenWill and in our local papers on environmental protections, the budget, Downtown Development, Carolina North, open governance and many others – providing detailed analysis and primary research materials to back my opinions.

I have a consistent track record advocating on behalf of all our citizens – young, elderly, rich or poor. Whether working to save the Lincoln Arts Center – our Town’s only hands-on arts program, a program that serves a wide cross-section of the community or calling on our Council to treat our neighbors on Rogers Road with respect – acknowledging the landfill burden they’ve borne on behalf of our community – I have done what I believe was right over what was politically beneficial.

I have advocated and worked many years on bringing sanity back to our fiscal policy.

The current policy, which is based on poor assumptions – %7 increase in housing valuations, low inflation, low credit risk, an addition $100 million in new property values each year – and which discounts the tripling of our Town’s debt service, the real possibility of recession, the open-ended liability of the Lot #5 project and many other foreseeable negative economic factors, has positioned our Town for steep and steady tax hikes.

Worse, our Council, ignoring advice from some of the most talented financial experts in the country, experts that live in Chapel Hill, borrowed extensively from our “rainy day” funds instead of implementing cost efficient improvements in the way our Town does business.

Pushing off until tomorrow what should’ve been done yesterday, filling the gap with funds needed to address our Town’s growing debt obligations, my incumbent challengers have adopted a policy that will drive long time residents out of Chapel Hill and slam the door on new residents making a moderate or low income.

For these reasons, a vote for Raymond this Nov. 6th is a vote for change.

Questionnaires:

• Chapel Hill News (ENDORSED)
• Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth
• Affordable Housing
• Chamber of Commerce

Friends of Affordable Housing is a non-partisan Political Action Committee that has been active in selective elections within Orange County during the last 10 year. The organization was first organized to support the Orange ballot for Affordable Housing Bond Money. The committee has also periodically sent questionnaires to candidates running for Orange County Commissioner and Chapel Hill Town Council.

Core members of the committee felt the residents of Chapel Hill should have the opportunity to know the positions of the various candidates running in 2007 for Chapel Hill Town Council. The Committee felt the relocation of the IFC, the transition to more attached multi-story housing, the opportunity for more affordable housing in Carolina North, and the possibility of selective use of “payment in lieu” of affordable housing units were issues of significant concern for Chapel Hill residents. The committee members are all long standing residents of Chapel Hill. The four review committee members have extensive executive committee experience in non-profit boards including the IFC, Habitat for Humanity, Dispute Settlement Center, YMCA and various Orange County boards including the Commissioners Committee on Affordable Housing. Committee members have also consulted with staff members of several of the Affordable Housing providers.

The NC Board of Elections has informed us that Friends of Affordable Housing does not have to register as a formal PAC for the 2007 election because we will not be raising money to support a specific candidate or issue.

They weren’t active in the 2005 race even though there was a slew of known affordable housing related issues before the Council.

Dear Candidate:

As you know, initiatives to increase the stock of all types of affordable housing in Chapel Hill have been an election issue for many years. In order to give Chapel Hill residents a better understanding of your position on this critical subject, Friends of Affordable Housing has developed a 7-item questionnaire asking you to address some of the current issues.

…

A review committee of the Friends of Affordable Housing will review your responses and may endorse specific candidates prior to the November election. Your comments will also be made available to the general public.

Thank you for your cooperation; we look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

The review committee: Natalie Ammarell, Rev. Richard Edens, Susan Harvin ,Richard Leber

They obviously understand that maintaining and expanding affordable housing opportunities will require even more attention of the new Council than the last two years.

Here are my answers to their questions.

Friends of Affordable Housing Questions for Chapel Hill Mayor and Town Council Candidates

1. Please describe your commitment to creation of affordable housing initiatives in Chapel Hill.

I’m dedicated to continuing our Town’s commitment to providing affordable housing in Chapel Hill.

We need to re-evaluate, though, our current initiatives, our capability to manage our affordable housing stock and to rebalance the types of housing we’re currently providing.

With that, we also need to adopt fiscal policy that helps folks keep the most affordable housing they have – their current homes. We’re already seeing a trend of long-term residents, after decades of contributing to our community, being “shown the door”.

Those just starting out, can’t even get their foot in the door without substantial incomes.

Finally, we need to make sure our Town’s growth policies align with our housing goals.

RAM Development, the Town’s private partner on the Lot #5 boondoggle, is proposing to replace the somewhat affordable apartments with hundreds of big-ticket condos. Developments that displace existing affordable housing stock, like Hillsborough 425, are part of Chapel Hill’s future.

We need to make sure, though, that we anticipate the consequences of those displacements.

2. Please give your opinion about the actions taken by Town Council in the last 4 years to increase the stock of affordable housing in Chapel Hill.

I commend the Council for their intent. I applaud their successes. But, we could’ve done better.

Too much in lieu money, not enough square footage. Necessary reform in managing our housing stock or being able to adapt to changing conditions left undone for too long. Opportunities like Roger Perry’s %30 offer at East 54 or Greenbridge’s Northside neighborhood in-fill proposal missed. Rebalancing the kind of housing we offer, not adequately addressed.

3. Given the current impasse with the County, what would you do as a Town Council member to proactively advance the effort to find a new site for the IFC Men’s Residential Facility?

a. Would you oppose locating the facility in certain parts of town (e.g., downtown; near Seymour Center)?

I would like to see the IFC split the food service and the shelter functions. As far as the Men’s Shelter, our Town – if a leadership vacuum exists at the county level – has a responsibility to manage this process. I believe the Town should work with the IFC, proactively, along four basic thrusts.

One, develop criteria that incorporates both the IFC’s requirements for just the shelter component and our Town’s goals for development, transit and neighborhood preservation.

Transit opportunities, accessibility to health and other social services are a few of the criteria I would suggest.

Two, once we have the mutually developed criteria, find the site that best suits our joint needs. Our community needs to be involved in both the development of relevant criteria and the selection of the site.

Locating on Homestead makes sense, especially over Eubanks or Millhouse but there might be better sites based on the decision matrix the IFC, other interested parties and the Town develops.

Three, our Town could provide some logistical support to the IFC in developing a task list to move the shelter.

The Chamber asked me if I’d support pulling the IFC’s lease on the existing shelter location. No way I did say that our Town should help develop a punch list of items with specific performance goals and a timeline to hold the IFC to – but taking a punitory tack is – in my estimation – a poor strategy.

Four, we need to bring our community into the process early, educate the public on the relevant issues and, proactively, publish a guide on how the Council will measure the success of this project. If Council affirms, as I believe we’ll be able to do, that the population at the Men’s Shelter will not increase criminal activity in surrounding neighborhoods, we should already be prepared to assess that activity and report back if reality matched our projections.

4. What new programs do you envision to increase the stock of affordable homes in Chapel Hill?

a. Do you think priority should be given to one type of affordable housing (e.g., transitional housing, special needs, rentals, small condo’s, larger owner occupied detached homes) over another?

We need to rebalance our housing stock based on a few criteria. First, what is the most diverse kind of stock we can reasonably manage using existing resources? Second, look at partnering on denser developments like Raleigh’s Carlton Place (I wrote about this development here: http://citizenwill.org/2007/03/21/raleighs-carlton-place-a-downtown-affordable-housing-commitment-worth-emulating/ ). Third, like Carlton Place, re-evaluate rental housing within our current mix.

b. What type of affordable housing should be built in Carolina North and on the Greene Tract?

I would like to see affordable housing developed on the Greene Tract that is akin to that of the Homestead Park neighborhoods. I would also like the housing to be on the eastern side of the tract to integrate into those neighborhoods, take advantage of existing and new amenities, be closer to existing transit, take advantage of new transit capabilities (depending on what happens at Carolina North) and avoid damaging some of the more ecologically sensitive areas.

The University has suggested that housing on Carolina North will be market driven. I would like to see a mix of units that parallels the stock that UNC commissions.

5. In the last year, Town Council has approved three mixed-use developments: 54 West, Greenbridge and Ram’s Lot 5. Under Chapel Hill’s Inclusionary housing policies these developments will generate almost 100 affordable one and two bedroom condo units. However, these units will not serve lower income families with children.

a. In your opinion, do current policies provide the types of affordable housing that are really needed? If not, what should be changed?

As you might be aware, I’ve been critical of the Town’s Lot #5 development for a number of reasons. The project is fiscally irresponsible, the original affordable housing stock was not family friendly, the affordable housing parking was off-site (second class citizens), the condo fees were steep and not capped, the condo units – especially the larger ones – will most probably server the student community, measurable energy efficiency and environmental standards were dropped, and on and on. You can read my web site – citizenwill.org – for a detailed discussion on these and other Lot #5 ills.

For all my criticism of the majority of the Council’s decision to take on this money pit, I am happy that Cam Hill did accept my recommendation to resize some of the affordable units to accommodate families. Will families find them inviting? I’m not sure.

Considering Lot #5’s location, I’m quite concerned that the Council never took my call to look at affordable living as well as affordable housing seriously. What is the cost of living in one of these units if you should be on the lowest economic rung of those that can purchase a unit? Will the economics of that location end up making this housing more transitional in nature than was originally anticipated?

The units at East54 strike me as being more family friendly. I was encouraged, at least until the Harris-Teeter moved, that a mix of services were within easy reach. I was discouraged though by the Landtrust’s assessment that these units would be transitional in nature. And, of course, continue to be concerned we couldn’t take advantage of the developers offer to build %30 affordable housing.

With Greenbridge, I believe our philosophy of integrative units, a good goal, interfered with an excellent opportunity to acquire more square footage. The rejection of the proposal to build family units within an existing adjacent neighborhood was disappointing. Our Town policy should be flexible enough to adapt to exceptional opportunities that don’t diverge greatly from our housing goals.

b. Can Chapel Hill’s Inclusionary housing policies be utilized to generate affordable rental housing? If you think so, please explain how such rental housing would be managed and maintained.

From my understanding, the existing inclusionary policies don’t align with encouraging development of rental housing. As the inclusionary zoning process continues, we need to make sure rental becomes more of an option.

6. Many affordable homes are “aging” and will require significant maintenance. Is it appropriate for public funds to be used for long-term maintenance? If so, what sources of funds should be used?

I’m interested in the proposal for a rotating loan fund to assist folks in maintaining their properties. This loan fund, if created, needs to come from monies outside the general fund. I would not support additional Town debt – via bonds or other mechanisms – to fund this loan program.

7. Do you think “payment in lieu” of affordable housing construction should be accepted from builders? If so, what guidelines should be used and how should these funds be used?

Over the last five years, my sense is the Council is accepting way too much in lieu monies over square footage. We’re asking developers to create housing. Housing built now will not only help relieve some of our current demand but also be cheaper than housing built 5, 10 , 20 years out.

If we ask for housing, we should get housing.

Delay is not our friend. Easy money also erodes are discipline. Square footage over in lieu money should be our guiding principle.

It was completely my fault.

Even though I was prepared, I submitted my answers too late for inclusion in the print edition. I did post the answers several days ago here (Chapel Hill News questionnaire).

Unlike the incumbents at the recent WCHL forum, I’m well aware of the mistakes I’ve made in my activism and campaigning over the years. As a Council member, I won’t downplay my responsibility for errors in policy. And, if elected, you won’t have to wait four years to hear me grope around trying to recall where I went astray.

Folks, I’ll make mistakes.

Unlike some of the incumbents, though, I’ll promise to work with our talented community to correct them instead of trying to dodge culpability.

Thanks for your concern.

POLITICAL PARTY AND EXPERIENCE:

• 2005 Candidate for Town Council
• Town Advisory Boards: Horace-William’s Citizen Comm., Downtown Parking Task Force, Technology Board
• Other: Community Independent Expansion Comm. , Friends of Lincoln Arts Center

While I’ve collaborated with the Orange County Democratic Party for many years on GOTV efforts, been a poll sitter,
literature distributor and have supported local Democrats, usually with sweat equity, in their runs, I am an
independent voter.

Until the party realistically deals with state mandated torture, the two on-going wars, the shredding of the Constitution and begins to address key domestic issues such as health care and the increasing split between segments of our citizenry, I will remain unaffiliated.

CIVIC ACTIVITIES AND OTHER AFFILIATIONS:

- Member of Electronic Frontier Foundation

WHY SHOULD YOU BE ELECTED?

Chapel Hill is at a crossroads.

Do we want a diverse community that honors the contributions of our eldest residents, where young couples and working folks can get their foot in the door or is Chapel Hill reserved for those buying publicly underwritten million-dollar condos?

Good intentions have to be backed by sound fiscal policy and real public accountability.

Borrowing millions from the rainy day fund, engaging in a risky Downtown project whose cost has escalated $500,000 to $8.5 million, when our debt payment is tripling is not responsible.

I will work to return Chapel Hill’s sound foundation so all of us can flourish.

1) Please describe your vision for downtown Chapel Hill and assess the council’s current approach to revitalization.

We need to build on the uniqueness of our Downtown by preserving and improving its human-scale charm.

Let’s invest in simple, cost effective, traditional amenities over risky, costly investments with poorly understood and unmeasured returns.

Let’s start with a family friendly pocket park, decent bathrooms, a water fountain and repaired sidewalks. Simple “you are here” directories to assist visitors in finding public and commercial services would make Downtown more inviting.

Let’s take up the low and no-cost Downtown parking improvements the Downtown Parking Task force suggested instead of raising parking rates as Hill and Foy argued for.

The current revitalization effort is open-ended, too expensive – rising from $500K to $8.5M in one year with no end in sight – and puts all our development “eggs” in one basket. The incumbents have resisted efforts to set measurable goals and make timely reports of successes or failures.

If possible, we need to restart the process using measurable goals, an appropriate and fiscally sound commitment of public resources and an approach that doesn’t risk all for an unknown return.

2) Please describe your vision for Carolina North, noting any disagreements with the university’s announced plans.

For many years I have called on UNC to use its incredible research savvy to build a world-class campus pioneering the best in “green” technologies.

To conform to that vision, UNC had to design a campus that was transit-oriented, partially housed its workforce and worked within some serious self-imposed constraints – few parking spaces, a defined energy budget, minimum footprint, cohesive infrastructure, monitored off-site noise, water, air, light impacts.

To achieve these goals, UNC must build within an established master plan.

Further, building upon the successes of the University’s Carolina North Leadership Advisory Committee (LAC), I suggested we work to create a new, sustained framework for further dialog and negotiation. That framework should incorporate the diverse interests of our community within an open, transparent process to work through the next 15 years of issues.

Doing incremental build-outs, like the recently proposed Innovation Center, without a master plan or a framework for further discussion is untenable.

3) How would you respond to persistent complaints about panhandling?

As the only candidate who works Downtown, I’ve experienced the problems first-hand.

I’ve also seen a troubling shift in our community’s attitude – troublemakers all, seems one current perception. Worse, for a few citizens, the face of that population is always a minority one.

My observation? Aggressive panhandling has taken a backseat to the loutish, aggressive behavior. Concrete steps – focusing on those bad behaviors, policing the worst offenders – should come first. Structural changes – moving benches, increasing police presence in a few places, better lighting – should reduce this sometimes frightening Downtown backdrop.

Practical approaches like “Real Change from Spare Change”, will soon shift the economics of begging – reducing panhandlers’ revenue – while bolstering our other efforts to help the homeless.

Finally, the majority of the folks hanging out Downtown are not causing problems. Some are odd but harmless. Our Downtown policy must be focused, goals-oriented – not broadly punitive if we are to succeed.

I’ve asked the Council many times over the last few years for a proper accounting on a number of issues – how much the citizens have spent on Lot #5, costs over-runs for the Town’s new Operation Center, fuel usage, reducing our street light electricity bill, etc. – but those requests have been uniformly batted down by the majority – which, this year, is most of the incumbents I’m running against.

I’ve argued that to be good stewards of the publics money, we must accurately report our failures and successes.

And to bolster our credibility, we have to “walk the talk”.

Take energy efficiency. While all the incumbents pay lip service to the concept, Jim and I were the only two folks running this year that called for specific, measurable energy reduction goals for the Lot #5 project. Yes, the LEEDs certification process can be expensive and flawed, but relying on a developer that has already demonstrated a consistent pattern of failing to follow through on initial expectations (the promise to keep the citizens cost to $500K, for instance) to police themselves is foolhardy.

If not LEEDs, then some other objective standard was called for – a specific methodology that an independent consultant could verify.

How else do we bolster the credibility of our environmental stewardship?

As you can see from this video, Jim makes a good case for why not “walking the talk” in one sphere can directly diminish your leverage in another.

Just as I said many times prior to Jim’s statement, how can we call on UNC or any other developer to adhere to the highest standards if our Town practices “do as I say, not do as I do”?

We will spend it wisely.

Thank you,

Will Raymond

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Will Raymond for Town Council
209 Mt. Bolus Rd. Chapel Hill 27514

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Will Raymond
209 Mt. Bolus Rd.
Chapel Hill, NC 27514

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My campaign will never share your personal information. We will only use it to contact you about Will Raymond for Town Council2007 activities

Two years ago I ran for Town Council on a platform emphasizing innovation, creativity, responsibility and community involvement ( Campaign 2005 ). In the two years since, I’ve continued to participate in local affairs – praising the good and working to prevent the bad in process and policy.

But today’s campaign platform, like that of two years ago, isn’t built on correcting our current Council’s mistakes but upon a foundation of specific, measurable, verifiable measures to enhance our residents future and preserve the charm that has made Chapel Hill a “Southern Part of Heaven”.

Why run? As a member of several Town advisory boards, a close observer of our governmental process and an activist interested in improving upon our Town’s successes, I have become more and more concerned as our leadership strayed from some bedrock principles of good governance.

As a member of Council, I will promote policies that speed the wheels of progress, that increase the level of citizen participation and that will set a new course for Chapel Hill’s Council.

What, specifically?

In the next four years I will work hard to make sure our Town’s fiscal policy doesn’t continue to be dictated by political expediency. Transparency, openness and inclusiveness will be first and foremost in developing our Town’s budget.

We can’t borrow from tomorrow’s seed corn to pay today’s debt. We can’t dip into our children’s college fund because we’re not willing to tighten our belts. We must build our financial foundations on sturdier grounds than the expectation that next year will always be better than this year – that housing values will forever escalate, that sales tax surprises are right around the corner.

We are entrusted with our citizen’s hard-won dollars, not “units” to be extracted as needed, and every action we take must reflect that recognition. When we negotiate and then take on a new burden on our citizens behalf we owe them a regular and accurate accounting. We should err on the side of caution and not become so obsessed with grand dreams so as to dispense with good sense and good policy.

Affordable housing should mean housing – square footage on the ground. We cannot continue our Town’s addiction to payments in lieu. We must be prepared to accept housing when it becomes available – to be nimble and flexible in adapting to current conditions.

And while affordable housing is important, affordable living must be our first and foremost goal.

Our town has adopted policies that are driving diversity from our community. In our rush to support gold-plated condos and a caviar lifestyle we’ve forgotten that our Town’s historical constitution and strength is born of a wide cross-section of interests and means.

Affordable living necessitates policies that encourage folks to stay awhile. We need a new attitude that supports our long term residents in keeping their homes and our newest residents in their desire to move from transitional housing to homes.

Leadership does not mean going it alone. Our community is blessed by many resources, our citizens being a source of strength and talent we cannot continue to ignore. We must not wait for them to come forth but nurture their involvement – and take their counsel even when it goes against our initial impetus.

Finally, when we call on others to do what’s best – environmentally, social justice, human services – we must lead by example and not resort to “do as I say, not as I do”.

Why boot the incumbents?

In the last 18 months, we’ve seen some of our Council become so enamored, even obsessed, with their Downtown development plans, that they’ve wavered from their obligation to maintain our Town’s sound fiscal foundations.

Delay is a matter of course for this Council. Just two weeks ago the Council received an independently conducted technology assessment that called for a number of innovative, cost reducing, improvements that I, other concerned citizens and our now disbanded citizen-led Technology Advisory Board had made more than 5 years ago.

And rather than make key structural and organizational changes in the way our Town functions, they pushed off to tomorrow what needs to be done today.

As we know, delay costs. In some cases, delay costs dearly.

Over the last few years, while the Council has maintained their policy of citizen comment on the issues before them, they have become partially deaf to critiques of their plans. Nothing sounds so sweet as the chorus of “yes, yes, yes” but paying attention to the “nayes” can strengthen any policy. Add to that recent examples of political gamesmanship and imprudent streamlining of public hearings to see how citizen discourse and debate has taken a backseat to winning their way. Public policy has suffered.

Though potentially ego bruising, integrating citizen feedback can only make our government work better.

Beyond ignoring professional assessments from the professors of UNC’s Kenan-Flagler business school on the Lot #5 development debacle, this Council has stood quietly by while the Mayor dispensed with the Horace-Williams Citizen Committee (HWCC). The HWCC, of which I was a member, stood poised to make additional, substantive, contributions, from am informed citizens perspective, on UNC’s Carolina North project.

Some Council members appeared worried, that they couldn’t control the outcome of this committee’s work.

Certainly an independent and non-political analysis might yield answers that this Council didn’t want to hear but, again, that leads to poor results. Results, for instance, like the Lot #5 money-pit, underwritten by our residents, carrying a quickly escalating citizen borne commitment of $20 million – a project whose primary beneficiary is a private development company.

Yes, the Council does sometime listen. Candidate Hill took my suggestion to make Lot #5’s affordable housing more family friendly and ran with it. And the Council, after years of lobbying by folks like myself, did decide to invest in community-owned networking infrastructure to meet the economic and social demands of a new century. Yet, in-spite of assurances to the contrary, they have yet to involve the community in this vital community serving project.

What of the Downtown Parking Task Force, on which I served? Trying to resolve some of the parking misery in our Downtown district, this committee did some of the best work I’ve ever seen any board perform over the 7 years I’ve closely participated in Town affairs. Members of this task force were eager to continue – to help with the implementation of a number of no-cost or low-cost improvements to make our Town center more inviting, more friendly.

While this groups practical advice was put aside (for now we hear), the committee’s recommendations to reduce the cost of parking became, perversely, a call to raise parking rates Downtown.

“What’s the matter with raising prices by ‘two units’?” as one Council member asked. “Units”, it appears, is how the current Council sees our citizens and visitors hard-earned dollars.

Again, political gamesmanship, closing ranks, trying to bolster this year’s incumbent candidates prospects, overrode good and fair public policy. At least the work of that committee hasn’t been added, as one long time resident and board participant commented, to the “stack of dusty reports” generated by our advisory boards that litter Townhall.

One incumbent Councilmember, Bill Strom, recently complained that he couldn’t work with the Orange County Board of Commissioners to set policy.

He has had eight years to work on that issue, and so many more, how would eight more years of Bill or four more of Cam and Sally, benefit our community? I expect a flurry of proposals this Summer from our incumbents and my question to them will be simply “Why are we just now hearing about this? Why wait?”

The trend is set. These few of many examples show a Council that has lost their way.

Over the next few months I look forward to, once again, meeting with our citizenry, to discuss how our Town can maintain its charm while becoming not only an even better place to live but a sustainable, growing, vital and creative community that will lead others by example.

Attended East Carolina University in the ’80s where I graduated with a degree in Computer Science/Math.

Worked for

• Law Engineering – Soils & Materials Engineer, enviro-tech
• NorTel – Software Engineer. Project Manager. Chairman’s Award for Innovation. Two Presidential Awards.
• Blast Software – CIO/CTO
• Reged.com – CIO/CTO
• Tibco-Extensibility (downtown Chapel Hill) – Software Architect

Town Advisory Boards

• Technology Board
  - push to bridge digital divide
  - proposed significant technological improvements to drive cost of delivering Town services
  - proposed WIFI/municipal networking initiative
  - proposed use of F/OSS (free and open software) to replace costly proprietary software
  - proposed use of open standards for public records
  - proposed use of list-serves, email, ‘blogs, online video and other mechanisms to open up public participation
• Horace-Williams Citizen Committee
  - drafted response to Chancellor Moeser’s letter
  - worked with environmental sub-committee to establish environmental goals, methodologies and best-case strategies
• Downtown Parking Task Force
  - using my Downtown experience proposed low or no-cost Downtown parking improvements

Other recent activities

• Community Independent Expansion Committee

Here’s a quick narrative of the last 27 years of my professional life:

As a student in Greenville, I worked many different jobs to pay for school: cucumber picker, hammock weaver, assembly line worker, industrial painter, commercial construction inspector, printer, freelance software developer and a bit more.

Taking a break from school, I became a commercial construction inspector for Law Engineering. Most of my projects were “Down East” – east of I95. My largest projects were water treatment facilities, industrial, commercial, school and military sites. The “Little” Washington sewage treatment plant, which pioneered some new treatment techniques, was my first major project. The Tarboro Sara Lee/United Refrigeration Services facilities was one of my last.

The Tarboro URS site was quite incredible – it was a refrigerator the size of a warehouse kept unbelievably cold and dry.

I was also “borrowed” by the Charlotte office to do testing on the (then) new coliseum, various highways and other large-scale commercial/industrial developments in the western part of our State. I also did occasional assignments – drilling test wells, looking for soil contaminants – for Law Environmental.

I worked for Northern Telecom (NorTel) from the late ’80’s to the mid-’90’s.

While there, as a recognition of my accomplishments in promoting innovative uses of technology to streamline our business processes, I was the first IT worker to earn the Chairman’s Award for Innovation. During those years, I also was awarded two Presidential Awards for Excellence.

A NorTel director used to bring me in on “troubled” projects – introducing me as a “change agent” – because I had a way of looking at problems from a different angle, rallying the troops and moving forward to a solution.

I worked on quite a diverse portfolio of projects; simplifying telephone switch software to allow a front-line operator to setup phone service instead of a highly-trained technician, streamlining our labor-intensive “build-to-order” process for configuring telephone equipment, automating/monitoring our $3.5 billion manufacturing systems, eliminating costly “legacy”systems and business processes.

Leaving Nortel in the late ’90’s I became a bit of an entrepreneur taking a hand in building two successful DOT.COMs – Pittsboro’s Blast Software and Chapel Hill’s Reged.com.

As both Chief Information and Technical Officer (CIO/CTO) of Reged.com, I helped propel our company to multi-million dollar status. Anticipating the Internet revolution in education, I pioneered the use of on-line teaching and testing technology for securities broker/dealers and insurance agents – a business discriminator that made our operation stand above and beyond the competition.

Reged.com has since been acquired by FiServ.

For the last 6 1/2 years, I’ve worked in Chapel Hill as a software developer for Tibco-Extensibility, a company persistently located in our great Downtown.

Our company is a key player in the “enterprise application integration” and “business process management” marketplace.

Our integration software facilitates construction of seamless, enterprise-wide, business operations from already existing and newly developed information support systems. Our management software automates reproducible business events and processes.

I currently work on a variety of technologies – including software that decomposes and classifies XML – the new lifeblood of business-to-business communications.

Because of my expertise, I have participated as a member of international “open standards” committees.