If there’s one thing in abundance in Chapelboro, it’s Progressive hubris. Yes, over 300 days a year a high smug alert can be issued for the Chapelboro environs, as local Progressives exhibit their higher sense of social justice laced with copious amounts of hypocrisy.

The latest smug warnings can be seen in the arrest of 19 people for attempting to shut down a Wake County School Board (WCSB) meeting. They were arrested after screaming and creating a disruptive disturbance during a public comment period of the meeting. (This act is what is known as “dialogue” to local Progressives, shouting down your opponents.) The protesters held hands, locked arms, chanted against resegregation, and refused to leave the podium. More than a dozen officers intervened and took the protesters to a Division of Prisons inmate transfer bus.

As one of the Progressive protestors stated, ”I feel like if they took the time to listen to what people had to say … and make eye contact with the people who are actually trying to talk about what is going on, maybe they could see some change.” (See WRAL WCSB Story) Lecturing about one-sided listening, can you be more Progressive!

Three of the Progressive arrestees were from Chapelboro – Ms. Laurel Anne Ashton (age 20), of 505-C North Greensboro Road in Carrboro; Ms. Camellia Lee (age 19), of 205 Black Tie Lane in Chapel Hill; and Ms. Madeline Clair Miller (age 19), of 231 Hillcrest Circle in Chapel Hill. All are/have been UNC students.

Chapelboro? What are people from Chapelboro doing at a WCSB Meeting? The answer is simple, exhibiting their “highmightiness” and smugness.

The WCSB has a daunting challenge. Largest school district in North Carolina, the WKSB governs a school district encompassing 12 municipalities (Apex;Cary; Fuquay-Varina;Garner;Holly Springs;Knightdale;Morrisville; Raleigh;Rolesville;Wake Forest;Wendell;and Zebulon) and over 850,000 residents. The pupil population alone was over 139,000 in SY2009-2010. The 18th largest school district in the nation encompasses a district area of over 860 square miles. That’s about 46 miles from east to west and 39 miles from north to south.

Why are these facts important? The issue at hand is neighborhood schools. The vast majority of parents of all ethnicities want their children to go to neighborhood schools close by their homes.

For local Progressives, the concept of a neighborhood school has only one interpretation – “racism”. It appears beyond their comprehension that people might be more interested in the cohesion of a local school supplemented by local parent volunteers, the time/distance impact on pupil participation in after school events, and the concern/safety/hassle factor related to a pupil’s medical/dental needs. No, to local Progressives, “racism” is the only correct interpretation.

The three Chapelboro arrestees live in a Chapelboro school district that encompasses less than fifty square miles, has a school district population of about 100,000, and serves about 11,000 students. All in all, the Chapelboro school district is about one-tenth that of Wake County.

Why are these facts important? Once again, those not living in trying conditions lecture those who do. One wonders, how would these arrestees (none with children) feel if the Orange County School District, the Durham County School District, the Alamance County School District, and the Chatham County School District were combined with the Chapelboro School District?

A curious note for Pulpsters, one of the arrestees was Ms. Michelle Laws, of 3715 Shrewsbury St. (sic) in Durham. This is the same Ms. Laws who is head of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP branch, but apparently resides within the bounds of the Durham NAACP branch.

The irrepressible, flaccid ED “geniousity” that is Alderman Dan Coleman comes to the fore yet again. Mr. Jesse Kalisher, President of the Carrboro Merchants Association (CMA), resigned in response. Mr. Kalisher founded the CMA in 2008 to promote the historic Carrboro business district.

Apparently, it all started with an online post by Mr. Danny Miller, a co-founder of Mini Cassette Tees in Chapel Hill and member of the Drinking Liberally Carrboro Chapter. He started the cerebral Progressive ED discussion by calling the CMA “Walk Carrboro” map a “joke”. “To say that this is the map of what is available in Carrboro is a crying shame. It's a map of businesses that can afford to have a bad drawing of their business on a poster that is a vapid version of Universal Studios map or Disney Land map.”

Unable to resist from exhibiting his geniousity, as if wearing a thong on a Outer Banks beach, AlderDan wrote, “I've heard much appreciation for your email over the past few days. Your comments on Jesse's map reminded me of an old running gag in Mad Magazine in the 1980s: 'What advertising genius thought of this one?'”.

Mr. Kalisher openly resigned in response.

AlderDan went into damage control mode, just as he did after committing vehicular assault on a women in 2007. Of course, the truth went out the window. He claimed that his comments were directed at Mr. Miller and not at the “Walk Carrboro” map. ”I'd heard a number of people say that they appreciated Danny's e-mail, not necessarily the tone, but the points he made. I wanted to let him know that. My e-mail says nothing about my own opinion of Danny's e-mail, or the points he made, or of the tone of his e-mail.” (See CHN CMA Story.)

You read. You decide.

In most of North Carolina, if a problem in public policy is recognized, then the authors of that policy are also recognized. After all, why would you ask those who created the problem to fix the problem? Why would you trust people with bad judgment in creating the problem to display good judgment in fixing the problem?

However, Orange County isn’t like most of North Carolina. When a public policy program is so disastrous that even the local Progressive media has to report on it, you can be sure that the Progressive media cheerleaders won’t name names and won’t hold anyone responsible. Moreover, they won’t actually present a viable solution to the problem.

The News & Observer recently published an article bemoaning businesses that could have located and stayed in Chapelboro, but chose to leave Orange County. The reporting comes decades late, but at least the problem has been reported by them. Why? It’s so bad, even Progressive cheerleaders can’t hide the truth any more.

But you can sugarcoat it. According to the N&O reporting, the problem in Orange County is that UNC is tax exempt. “Low sales tax revenues force the county and its town governments to rely on property taxes to fund services, and with few high-priced commercial properties to tax, the burden falls to homeowners. As a result, 87 percent of Orange County property tax revenue comes from homes, pushing up an already high cost-of-living driven by high quality-of-life, anti-sprawl development rules and high-performing, well-funded public schools. Wake County, by comparison, collects 72 percent of its property taxes from residential property owners.”

What? What is the connection between sales taxes and the tax exempt status of UNC? Isn’t the problem that Orange County Progressive retail snobbery has sent all of the retail centers first into Durham County and now also into Alamance County? What does that have to do with UNC?

Moreover, doesn’t UNC function as a giant economic pump siphoning money from 99 other North Carolina counties into Orange County? Doesn’t that non-local economic base then provide jobs for those living in Orange County? Shouldn’t those jobs support retail purchasing in Orange County that should be not the equal of Durham County, but greater than Durham County? The answer to all of the above questions is yes, unless you’re trying to sell the Progressive agenda.

So what’s the solution put forward by the N&O? The article cites Mr. Dwight Bassett, Chapel Hill’s ED director. According to Mr. Bassett, it’s about misperceptions regarding available space for businesses to locate. ”We have space available. It's the first time that we've ever had this much available office space in our history.”

Really? Space? What about the perception that Chapelboro and Orange County are not friendly to for-profit businesses? News flash for Mr. Bassett, other counties have space too. Business executives aren’t primarily driven by available space. Which executive in their right mind would pick Orange County over its neighboring counties given a choice? Witness the Tanger Outlet Center being built in Alamance County, right across the Orange County line.

Mr. Bassett is closer to the mark when he says, ”Chapel Hill has an image of being business-unfriendly. We accept that's our baseline. We have to begin telling success stories of how we're working to change that.” How? What precisely are you, Mr. Bassett, the town manager, and the town council doing, other than blathering on about the problem you all created? When an interview of 16 small-business owners in 2007 found they had ”few, if any, positive things to say about the town government's role in private efforts to open and operate a business in Chapel Hill”, what has been your response these past three years? What have you done?

What’s the solution for Orange County Commishes? You guessed it. (You’re so good.) Taxes! Let’s increase taxes! This fall, they want a referendum on a new 1/4% local sales tax. Earth to Commissioners, high taxes for low services is not a convincing economic development argument for for-profit business executives.

Relying on the people who rode the pony until it was lame to rehabilitate the pony, how Progressive!

Perspective is perhaps the hardest attribute to attain in pondering public policy. Pulpsters know that for local Progressives, perspective is really another term for myopia. What is going on around you doesn't matter unless it matters to you as a Progressive, unless the facts fit your fantasized future, they're fiction.

An excellent example is how local Orange governments offering government employees bonus/incentive pay and not raises for FY 2011 is trumpeted as ”holding the line” in an increasingly bleak economic time.

Now for some facts that help Pulpster gain perspective. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the projected FY 2011 shortfall in the North Carolina state budget is $5,800,000,000. That's 30.8% of the entire FY 2010 state budget. That's the seventh worst state shortfall (as a percentage of a state budget) in the nation. That's after cutting $5,000,000,000 in FY 2010 and $3,800,000,000 in FY 2009.

Contrast that reality to local government's maintenance of planning, zoning, and inspection departments at pre-Great Recession staffing rates.

The best way to boil a frog is to put it in a pot of water and slowly, progressively turn up the temperature. The frog doesn't hop out. It doesn't realize how hot it's gotten since it jumped in. That’s also the best way to cook the books and boil an OWASA water and sewer customer. Progessively, as well!

From 2000 to 2009, median household incomes rose in Orange County, North Carolina from about $53,184 to about $66,500. The increase was about 25%, based on HUD/ US Census figures.

From 2001 until October 2010, the OWASA “average” residential water and sewer bill for a family using 5000 gallons a month of OWASA water has increased from about $42.40 a month to $81.85 a month. The OWASA increase will be about 93%. In the words of OWASA, “Our rates are on the high side compared to other water utilities in our region.” Talk about the proverbial understatement.

Only locals with a Progressive mindset, one based on what sounds good and feels good, no matter what the cost, can accept these two sets of increases, side by side, as being “sustainable”. Incomes rise about 25% while utility bills rise about 93%. The billing temperature turned up slowly each year.

Consider Pulpsters that you’re now being forewarned that OWASA has a need “to continually renew and replace aging infrastructure (pipes, treatment plants and equipment) to ensure high quality and reliable service, now and in the future.” So a 93% increase hasn’t even allowed OWASA to keep up with the long term system maintenance requirements.

Here are the bubbling facts.

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