With the Carrboro governance board's (the Boa) pals’ residential and commercial real estate development plans in the proverbial toilet, the Boa must find new ways to snake into and meddle in other people’s affairs, all the while displaying the heights of their social enlightenment.

To wit, the Boa recently passed another don't-ask-us-to-pay-for-it town resolution changing someone else's behavior and not their own. UNC was asked to switch from burning coal to using natural gas. The resolution came from the presentation of a petition containing all of 25 signatures. In Carrboro, the “quality” of a petition signature was more important than the quantity. Witness how petitions having hundreds and hundreds of signatures are blithely ignored for they don't have enough quality.

What makes for quality? How about being a pal of a Boa member. If so, then you don’t need many signatures. If you are a development pal of the Boa members (as is Mr. Giles Blunden, working real estate development partner with Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton), all the better. Say 25 signatures will do nicely.

Mr. Blunden accuses UNC of “polluting the air and threatening the health of its neighbors and the wider community.” How? The emission of 320,000 metric tons of plant food (CO2) into the atmosphere by UNC is unacceptable. (Pulpsters note that is not all of UNC's plant food, just the part produced by burning coal.)

Apparently, Mr. Blunden will be happy if only about 200,000 metric tons of plant food is emitted (plus those pesky tons emitted by non-coal fossil fuels). That’s about the amount that would be emitted if UNC switches all of its coal fuel to natural gas. Mr. Blunden provides no evidence as to why 320,000 metric tons is threatening, but 200,000 tons is not.

If Mr. Blunden and his Veridia development pal, Mr. Chilton, raise the global warming flag, then they’ll have to again ignore scientific realities. Why? Sulfate aerosols formed from burning coal actually lower atmospheric temperatures compared to just burning natural gas. Oops.

But then, Mr. Blunden conveniently ignores that his estimates of plant food savings are based on older, inefficient combustion models. That’s right! The numbers touted by those wishing to pass gas over coal for power generation are based on 1995 AP-42 numbers from the EPA. For the record, a 2000 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, entitled “Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Generation of Electric Power in the United States”, estimates CO2 emissions not from actual empirical measurements at U.S. power plants, but from the reported amount and types of fuel consumed. The CO2 emissions are then calculated from estimates based on the EPA AP-42 tables.

Why does this matter? Unlike natural gas (NG), coal is a far more complex fuel to burn. One of the reasons that UNC get more plant food from burning coal instead of NG is that it’s more efficient to get an equal amount of heat energy (BTUs) from combusting NG than coal. In other words, you have to oxidize more carbon into CO2 with coal to get the same amount of BTUs that you can with NG.

However, if you burn coal more efficiently with more complex combustion technologies, then the plant food gap between NG and coal narrows. That’s why how you burn coal makes a difference. On the scale of existing efficiencies, UNC is about in the middle. Older coal burning plants operate at about 27% efficiency (producing about 1200 gCO2/kwh). The latest state of the art plants operate at about 45% efficiency (producing about 750 gCO2/kwh) or about 46% less plant food. The UNC co-generation plant operates at about 35% efficiency. (That's excluding the co-generation waste heat recovery.) Which means it’s about halfway between state of the art and the global average, or producing plant food at about 900 gCO2/kwh.

The reality is that UNC probably doesn’t produce nearly 320,000 metric tons of CO2 annually from its coal burning. That calculation is not based on the reality of 35% combustion efficiency, but on an older average efficiency set forth in the Fifth Edition EPA AP-42 numbers. Never fear, one should never let facts get in the way of ideology.

As to UNC threatening Mr. Blunden’s health, thank goodness the Boa ignored the Crawford Brown Report dealing with public health risks. Boa members might have mistakenly been exposed to scientific methodology. Again, one should never let facts get in the way of ideology. How progressive!

As a prologue to the pending indictment of Senator John Edwards for conversion of presidential campaign moneys for personal use, the bizarre has become commonplace.

First up is that “force field of love”, Ms. Rielle Hunter, mother of Mr. Edwards other America daughter, Ms. Frances Quinn Hunter. In this case it's not “Thus Spake Zarathustra”, but “Thus Spake Parathrustas”. In her first interview since allowing “Johnny” to be a man, Ms. Hunter bares her version of reality. The GQ interview reveals more than Ms. Hunter appears to realize.

Here are some interview highlights:
1) When Ms. Hunter first met Mr. Edwards, her business card read “RIELLE HUNTER. BEING IS FREE.” (Ms. Hunter was silent about the cost of paternity.)
2) Ms. Hunter finds Mr. Edwards to be “a huge, huge humanitarian. He is very kindhearted and sweet. He's very honest and truthful.”
3) As a result of lying to all but Ms. Hunter, Mr. Edwards is “a much wiser and a much better and a more truthful and a more integrated human being.”
4) A “force field of love” overrode her moral feelings about infidelity, so she had sexual relations with Mr. Edwards on the first night of meeting him.
5) Ms. Hunter can’t be a “home wrecker” because infidelity can only happen if the home is already wrecked.
6) Ms. Elizabeth Edwards has emasculated Mr. Edwards psychologically within their marriage.
7) Ms. Hunter has “such compassion” for Ms. Edwards even though she knowingly slept with her husband as she fought active breast cancer.
8) Mr. Edwards “he had a lot of problems going on [related to running for office] that nobody knew about. ” She refers to relations with women OTHER than Ms. Hunter, as well as other unnamed problems.
9) Ms. Hunter got pregnant AFTER Ms. Edwards announced her cancer’s return.
10) Mr. Edwards renewed his wedding vows with Ms. Edwards knowing Ms. Hunter was pregnant with his child.

Not to be outdone by a verbal bareing, we have leakage from the alleged Edwards-Hunter sex tape. The Daily Beast reports that according to those who have viewed the tape, the video was made about twelve weeks before the 2008 Iowa caucuses.

“On the video, both participants are naked. Hunter is propped up against the hotel bed headboard, with John Edwards belly-down on the bed between her legs. As Hunter, the campaign's official videographer, holds the camera, a smiling Edwards performs oral sex. Because of the camera angle, Hunter's face is not visible, but her distinctive jewelry is. Not only does candidate Edwards know he's being filmed, one source says, he's also clowning around and 'graphically performing for the camera'.”

No word on the condition of Mr. Edwards' hair during the taping and whether or not a stylist was called in.

In most of North Carolina, environmentalists seeking to keep a watershed protected from urban growth would fight vociferously against real estate development interests seeking to place the heaviest urban development smack up against the streams running through that watershed.

However, Chapelboro isn’t like the rest of North Carolina. Here, perversity truly reigns. Self-proclaimed progressive, environmentalist elected officials lead the charge to develop the Bolin Creek watershed with the heaviest urban densities. Self-proclaimed environmentalist groups such as the Orange Chatham Group of the Sierra Club and the Friends of Bolin Creek applaud town leadership for “smart growth” land development, ignoring the watershed destruction when it’s their friends seeking the approval of a mixed use development such as Winmore.

Why?

Because first you must destroy a watershed, in order to pat yourself on the back for caring enough to restore a watershed. You must allow your friends to profit from destroying a watershed, so as to seek taxpayer supported government grants to restore the watershed.

Keep the problem from arising in the first place? Then what would we do for work?

Bolin Creek is an excellent example of it became necessary to destroy the watershed in order to save it. In 2002 and 2003, the Department of Water Quality assessed the Bolin Creek watershed. As noted in an EPA 319 grant proposal, It found “several effects of urbanization, including habitat degradation, riparian degradation, channel incision/embeddedness, low base flow, and toxicity, are believed to be the primary factors stressing this watershed. Most of these problems were more prominent as one moves downstream in the watershed. Other potential stressors included temperature (ranges and extremes), high BOD/COD, nutrients, and cross-connections or leaks from sanitary sewer lines.”

Did this assessment halt further development along Bolin Creek until a plan could be developed?

No. Rather development approval intensified. The progressive leadership of the town of Carrboro (the Boa beacon) approved Winmore, the heaviest mixed use density permissible under town rules, smack dab up against Bolin Creek. (What’s the tagline for Winmore? “Tread lightly”.) Further developments seeking approval include further Lake Hogan Farms development, Turtleback Crossing development, the Claremont subdivisions, and the now dormant Colleton Crossing and Carolina Commons developments.

Instead local environmentalists and elected officials applied to the EPA for money to restore Bolin Creek. Yes, our EPA bureaucrats sees no irony or disincentive in rewarding a local government for destroying a watershed through bad land use planning by paying them to restore that watershed.

How much money and for what?

For over $600,000, Chapel Hill and Carrboro will come up with a restoration plan, monitor the water quality, build a demonstration rain garden, and perform some stream improvements along 700 feet of the miles-long watershed. That effort will take five years. How progressive.

Nothing brings home the naivete' of local progressive leadership when it comes to for-profit business dealings than the recent statement by Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt in referring to the 140 West Franklin deal. “The town can’t back out. It’s not a matter of money; once the town agrees to a development deal, it can’t simply change its mind.”

Pulpsters will recall that The Town owns the land to be developed at 140 West Franklin, is an investor in the development with cash, is a financial stakeholder in the outcome, and is the regulatory authority controlling the development. The Town’s business partner is Ram Development Inc. of Florida (Ram).

Does Ram management share Mr. Kleinschmidt’s dogged devotion to deals?

In October 2006, about one year after getting into bed with Chapel Hill on 140 West Franklin, Ram was courting the city council of Tampa, Florida. The prize? How about 38 acres of land in downtown Tampa.

The blighted area was called Temple Terrace, located roughly at the intersection of North 56th Street and Bullard Parkway. Ram. in association with Pinnacle Realty Advisors of Tampa and Cooper Carry of Atlanta. told the Tampa council that if the city forked over money ($6,700,000) for city-financed parks mixed in with privately-funded retail and residential components, everything would work out fine. The Ram group got picked by the Tampa council for the $45,000,000 mixed use revitalization of a depressed urban site.

Sound familiar?

Fast forward to October 2008. Ram and its Pinnacle Group partner back out of the Tampa Temple Terrace project.

Apparently, one can back out of a deal with a municipality. You can simply change your mind.

So much for a dogged devotion to deals.

In most of North Carolina, a town that sits on thousands of cheap rental apartment units would not consider itself to have a problem with affordable housing.

However, Carrboro is most certainly not like the rest of the towns in North Carolina. Here, in a predominantly rental apartment community, affordable housing becomes affordable hosing of taxpayers.

At a recent town governance meeting, the Boa again demonstrated its keen grasp on the physical realities of Carrboro. Mayor Mark Chilton said, “We have a lot of people who are hurting at a lot lower income levels than we’re currently reaching. Our current system doesn’t ever encourage anybody to create affordable rental housing for people who live on social security/disability income.”

Really, what about the thousands of rental apartments that start at $600 per bedroom a month? Aren’t they affordable housing?

Alderman Jacquie Gist supported Mr. Chilton, saying, “We’re doing great at reaching graduate students and not that great at reaching truly, truly poor people and we got to turn that around. The Orange County partnership on homelessness is slowly working on that, but I’m tired of putting money towards grad students.” Pulpsters will remember that a few years ago Ms. Gist suggested welcoming the homeless into Carrboro with wine and cheese accompanied in the background with sonorous string music.

Mr. Chilton didn’t reserve all of his concern for the working poor. According to Mr. Chilton, the town should be worried about those making as much as $60,000 a year. “At a hundred percent of area median, you’re really stuck. You don’t qualify for any subsidy. You don’t qualify for any help.” As someone living on a trust fund, Mr. Chilton understands the pain of living within one’s means. (See N&O Affordable Hosing Story.)

Representing the not-visibly-employed in Carrboro, Alderman Sammy Slade offered his wisdom. “There’s also a way of seeing how we compare to other places, and how we are a place that doesn’t allow for people…with more means to be in this community.” Did Mr. Slade really run on a platform of increasing tenement housing for the not-visibly-employed?

No word on whether or not the Boa will ask for a special town law capping market housing pricing, thereby enabling more people to live in Carrboro.

No word on how much more “make work” will be created to keep the overstaffed Developer Service Department looking busy rather than reducing the staff to meet actual need.

No word on whether or not Carrboro will adopt the 140 West Franklin parking garage model, where non-affordable housing unit owners park in a private gated garage area, but affordable housing unit owners park in the public garage area. (See Article VI of the Development Agreement.)

Time is of the essence for every purely private commercial real estate or mixed use real estate development. Time is the enemy. Time means cash outflow (interest and capital payments) long before cash inflow (rents and sales revenues).

Hence the important contractual phrase “time is of the essence”. In plain English, it means that meeting timelines is of the very essence of the contractual obligations.

A curious thing happens when a public entity is brought into the mix, particularly where that public entity owns the land to be developed, is an investor in the development with cash, is a financial stakeholder in the outcome, and is the regulatory authority controlling the development. Such is the case with the tortuous development of 140 West Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, otherwise known in an earlier life as “Lot 5”.

Recently, the Chapel Hill Watch watchdog site asked the question, can the Town of Chapel Hill back out of its development agreement with Ram Development on 140 West Franklin? That question arose, in part, from the patience of Job wearing thin, waiting for something, anything, to rise out of the ground at 140 West Franklin.

Here’s the Town’s version of the timeline for 140 West Franklin:

That’s nine years from first announcement, four years since Ram was selected, and still no digging.

Here’s a more rigorous Pulp timeline from 2007 forward, also taking into account the Development Agreement (DA) milestones:

The curious thing is that SL2009-406 says absolutely nothing about changing existing contractual dates for completing construction projects. The law only says that local government regulatory building permits are extended for three years. It says nothing about extending the contractual time period for building a project. One can extend the permit beyond a contractual date for completion, but it doesn't change the completion date. The two are legally separate. The permit date comes from the town's regulatory authority. The completion date is a matter of pure, non-regulatory contract law between a property owner and a developer.

Incredibly, as the owner of the land, the Town has given Ram three more years under its contract to complete 140 West Franklin. Under its contract, the Town did NOT have to let Ram off the hook for completing the building by January 2011.

What did the Town get for this three year extension of a non-regulatory, purely contractual, “time is of the essence” contractual obligation on the part of Ram? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It should come as no surprise to Pulpsters that Chapel Hill’s town staff lawyer doesn’t want to talk to Chapel Hill Watch’s watchdogs. In the words of Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt, a lawyer living in another developer's luxury townhome. “The town can’t back out. It’s not a matter of money; once the town agrees to a development deal, it can’t simply change its mind.”

Of course, that doesn’t include the Town changing its mind about the Scheduled Completion Date for 140 West Franklin. Mayor Kleinschmidt doesn't say what happened to “time is of the essence”.

No word on when Ram will start paying taxes on the 140 West Franklin development, as it continues to enjoy tax-free status on the land, courtesy of its business partner, the Town of Chapel Hill. Selling units without paying taxes, how progressive!

North Carolina is one of 37 states that have achieved unemployment insurance insolvency, according to the FY 2009 Financial Report of the United States Government. That’s the good news.

The Unemployment Insurance Program (UIP) was created in 1935 to provide temporary partial wage replacement to workers who’ve lost their jobs. The program is financed through the collection of Federal and State unemployment taxes that are credited to the unemployment tax fund (UTF) and reported as Federal tax revenue. (Of course in Chapelboro, rampant off-the-books employment or service contributions reduce the amount of moneys available for unemployment insurance - anarchism in action.)

Each state accumulates UTF net assets or a state reserve balance that provides a defined level of benefit payments over a defined period to unemployed state residents. To be considered minimally solvent, a State’s reserve balance should provide for one year’s projected benefit payment needs based on the highest levels of benefit payments experienced by the State over the last 20 years. A ratio of 1.0 or greater indicates a state is minimally solvent.

So how is North Carolina doing? Look at Chart 15 below.



North Carolina is out of money in its UTF account, one of 20 states in a similar condition. It’s borrowing funds from the Federal Unemployment Account (FUA) to make benefit payments. However, the FUA balances have been depleted during FY2009. In turn, the FUA borrows from the Treasury General Fund.

So what’s going to happen?

The following Chart 14 shows projected cash contributions and expenditures over the next 10 years under “expected economic conditions”. What are these conditions? The unemployment rate will top at 9.92% in FY 2010, decreasing to below 6.0& in FY2015 and thereafter.



However, this chart is not based on a double dip recession or stagflation scenario. Under Recovery Scenario Two (higher than expected unemployment), the unemployment rate is assumed to reach 10.62% in FY2010 and “gradually fall” over the next five years. The present value of UTF expenditures would exceed the present value of income by $42,900,000,000. From a trust fund perspective, the program has $1,600,000,000 in assets. When combined with the present value of net cash income under Scenario Two economic conditions, the UIP has a deficit of $29,300,000,000, not $15,800,000,000.

The following table 10 lays out the details of these scenarios.



What’s the bad news? The above numbers are as of September 2009. They do not include the continuing unemployment of the last five months, nor the extension of the term for receiving unemployment benefits.

In most of North Carolina, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is looked upon as a sumptious bucket of greasy good times.

However, Orange County isn’t like the rest of North Carolina. Here, KFC is an evil, transnational, fowl agri-giant bent on poisoning the populous, destroying the local economy, and torturing chickens. Their franchisees are greedy minions spreading the KFC stranglehold over would-be urban chicken farmers.

So it should come as no surprise to Pulpsters to learn that the local PETA members (who never met a chicken they didn't give a good chickens@#$ about) are declaring a great victory in the closing of the Carrboro KFC store on Main Street. (See DTH KFC Story.)

PETA “transfowlvestites” decry the methods used by KFC contractors to kill chickens as being cruel and unjust. (Of course, it's not just “unjust”, but “socially unjust”.) Instead, they would support that KFC play endless tapes of Carrboro town governance board meetings to the chickens as an alternative form of ethical euthanasia.

The owner of the store (Luihn Food Systems) begs to differ on the downtown demise. (Can you say poor floor traffic in an area lacking parking meant poor revenues? Can you say Greenbridge gentrification?) Ms. Ginny Phillips, Luihn human resources coordinator, says “These [PETA] demonstrators have been out there for years. They have their own opinions.” Luihn has 84 other stores scattered across North Carolina and Virginia.

Normally, the closing of such a KFC store would be seen as an ED setback. However, Luihn, is a regional North Carolina company. Its headquarters are 30 miles or so away in Raleigh. Thus, Carrboro town government doesn’t view Luihn as a “local business”. (In Carrboro, if Alderman Dan Coleman can’t chicken walk to your site within two hours, then you’re not local.)

As such, the closing of the Luihn store is seen as an ED success story. Yet again, a “non-local” business is driven out of Carrboro.

No word on whether or not the BOA will raise tax rates again in celebration of the KFC success story.

One of the favorite shibboleths of municipal administrators in North Carolina is how state and local government employees receive less pay than their counterparts in private enterprise. Unfortunately the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) disagrees with them on the facts.

According to the BLS, as of September 2009, state and local government employers spent an average of $39.83 per hour worked for total employee compensation. Wages and salaries averaged $26.24 per hour worked and accounted for 65.9 percent of these costs. Benefits averaged $13.60 and accounted for the remaining 34.1 percent.

How does that compare to private industry? Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $27.49 per hour worked. State and local government workers got 45% more than private industry. Monopolies with mandated revenues are nice.

Here’s the Breakdown:

Still don’t believe in those fat pensions? Government employees average two and one half times the retirement benefits of private employees. Oh, that doesn't include the double dippers.

It’s easy to prioritize and fund government services during a booming economic time, especially if you run a residential growth Ponzi scheme. Effective elected officials know how to do so during a falling economic recession with no growth to hide the economic realities.

Orange County Commishes are facing their own moment of truth as the state is racked with double digit unemployment and falling tax revenues. Do they really believe in all of the “Feel Good” services they've offered over the past decade or are they going to cut and run in an election year to save their political skins?

As predicted by the Pulp, the Commishes face another shortfall in revenue for FY 2010-2011. It’s a $5,000,000 hole to be precise. Don’t worry. The Commishes are budgeted to spend about $180,000,000, half of it on the schools.

Pulpsters knew almost six months ago that when Commish Mike Nelson headed for the doors by stepping down and not running this year, the “doo doo” was about to hit the fan. County Manager Frank Clifton was left holding the pooperscooper.

Mr. Clifton is looking at cutting school district fundings, pay freezes, early retirement packages, abolishing vacant positions, and merging some programs and functions. ”We're looking at these overlap areas. Every department in county government right now is going through these overlaps. We will move staff from one department to another…The only place to reduce expenditures … is to reduce staffing.”

Note that all this reorganization is due to an about 3% budget shortfall in revenues. Which leads astute Pulpsters to ask, how come so much of the county budget is irreducible? That question should have been asked by the local media BEFORE the Commishes went on a multi-tens of millions of dollar spending spree in Hillsborough.

Mr. Clifton pointed out that among the 18 counties in the state with populations between 100,000 and 200,000, ”We do have the highest tax rate.” Amazingly, someone is finally paying attention to the numbers. Orange County’s tax rate is $0.8580 per $100 of assessed property valuation, or about 18% more ($0.7250) compared to next highest Harnett County and 275% more ($0.3109) compared to Brunswick County.

Commish Nelson, positioning himself for his next political office said ”I will remain committed to no tax increase. I think the organization will be better off in the long run.” Mr. Nelson did not admit any responsibility for placing the county on rocky financial shores in the first place. (See CHH Taxing Story.)

Mr. Clifton stayed true to public employee operating principles in acknowledging that while no one gets a pay raise, he will recommmend “across-the-board” incentive pay ”to show some appreciation.”

Apparently, having a job at a premium pay scale with above average benefits is not appreciation enough.

Once again, that party on, party hard, party guide (The Indy) proves that whatever its editorial staff knew about journalistic ethics has been lost in a haze of psychoactive smoke, alcohol, and mirrors, proving one get what one pays for. (The Indy is distributed for free.)

Back in 2006, there was the famous “dancing with bricks” incident on the Carr Mill Mall Lawn in Carrboro. Mr. Bruce Thomas frequented the lawn in lieu of holding a full time job. He twirled like a whirling dervish on the lawn, while sometimes grasping a brick in each hand. Mr. Thomas' conduct was reported to Mr. Nathan Millian, the property manager, by an anonymous source. Mr. Millian told Mr. Thomas to stop dancing on the lawn. Then all hell broke loose.

Mr. Thomas happened to be African-American. Thus, the zany Carrboro governance board (including Mayor Mark Chilton and Aldermen Dan Coleman and Randee Haven O'Donnell) caterwauled that stopping Mr. Thomas was all about racial oppression.

Pulpsters will remember the big dance-in. Town officials openly trespassed on the Carr Mill Lawn, violating the rules of use established for a piece of private property, replete with smiles and constructively raised middle digits.

Fast forward to 2010. The Indy editor, Ms. Lisa Sorg, writes a puff piece beatifying Mr. Thomas. Guess what happened to the pesky bricks that would have offered a non-racial explanation? They must have been made from transcendental clay, for they have vanished. Ms. Sorg doesn't speak of them, therefore they never existed.

Instead, Ms. Sorg drags out that sorry dance-in drum of racism to explain the un-saintly incident. “There are several theories as to why the an unknown complainant was bothered by Bruce, but a popular one is that a well-toned African-American man, wrapped in tie-dyed scarves and dancing in public, could be bad for business, although there is no evidence he drove anyone away.”

Gee, maybe someone was just scared of being accidentally smashed in the jaw if a brick broke free from Mr. Thomas’ hands?

Naw, it’s better for Ms. Sorg to filter the facts and to attack anyone who doesn’t have partying as their occupation.

As Ms. Sorg says when talking about the media, ”A lot of people don't realize the machinations that are going on and the puppeteering that takes place in the mainstream media before information gets to the consumer. I think people still need to know a lot more about who owns what, and who's controlling their information, and what the agenda is.”

The pot calling the kettle “black”. How progressive!

As North Carolina deals with record unemployment, it’s easy to see evidence of the economic cocoon that is southern Orange County. Fed by tax receipts mainly mined from the 99 other counties in the state, the “local economy” is sheltered from the reality of double digit unemployment seen across the rest of the Piedmont.

In most of North Carolina, not raising the salaries of municipal employees with so many private employees unemployed is not seen as a “sacrifice” or a “partnering” with the unfortunate unemployed town residents. Municipal employee positions can be reduced just like private business employee positions.

Here in Orange County the thought of slashing municipal employee positions is to be considered in the same vein as slashing the fat pensions of those employees. Just don't even think about it.

At a recent Carrboro town meeting, Manager Steve Stewart remarked that last year and this year are two of the toughest he’s faced in 32 years of drafting budgets. Translation, he can’t give automatic pay increases for no increase in performance. He can’t just fund new programs on rampant unsustainable growth. “We’ll be lucky just to continue to do what we’ve been doing. I don’t see that there’s any room for new programs or expansion unless we cut somewhere else or we look at a tax increase being imposed.” (See Carrboro Citizen Love Story.)

Mr. Stewart said that paying for the opening and staffing of the new fire station on Homestead Road and a mandatory increase in the rate the town pays into the employee retirement fund are the biggest fiscal challenges. Mr. Stewart didn’t say that both of these eventualities were obvious to those managers with financial acumen.

In reality, the fire station operations “problem” is more than paid for by the over $500,000 in new taxes that came rolling into town coffers from the hundreds of households forced into the town of Carrboro through the progressive Northeast Carrboro Annexation five years ago. However, instead of saving any of that money for the purpose intended by state legislators (paying for the increased municipal service burdens from the new residents), Mr. Stewart has been spending that money on other programs. Why? His job is to hide the profligate ways of the town’s governance board.

The employee retirement fund “problem” reflects more than a downturn in above-average economic returns for the state pension fund during a boom. It also reflects an aging population of municipal employees and the unsustainable nature of the largesse of the pension awarded.

Think not? Ask yourself, how much would the average Chapelboro municipal employee have to be paid to put enough money into a 401(k) plan in order to yield the annual return represented by three quarters of their retiring salary? The answer is that you would be paying municipal employees on a pay scale of which equivalent private employees can only dream.

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton displays his usual firm grasp of finances. “I feel like the town’s employees have been partners with the taxpayers in trying to deal with the recession. We need to find some way to make sure [the employees] are feeling the love.” (One can only assume that Mr. Chilton is referring to partnering with not only employed taxpayers but also unemployed taxpayers. By “unemployed”, the Pulp refers to those taxpayers not wishing to be unemployed, as opposed to the large body of willingly unemployed living in Carrboro.)

No word on whether or not Mr. Chilton and his fellow part-time elected officials will give up their Cadillac health care plans so as to benefit the employees they so love, not to mention foregoing their public servant salary for attending about thirty several hour meetings.

No word on whether or not Mr. Stewart will ever publish town employee salaries in amounts adjusted to reflect a 401(k) type retirement funding commonly forced on those dumb private business employees not on the municipal NCLM gravy train.

Sadly, the more progressive the community, the more once-dynamic non-governmental organizations of yore appear to be in danger of becoming increasingly irrelelvant.

Witness the local chapter of the NAACP in Chapelboro. The local NAACP sat silent on the Eubanks Road trash transfer siting debacle for years. Although a predominately (though not entirely) working class African-American community was involved, the local NAACP chapter sat silent. It wasn’t until political challengers started asking embarrassing questions, such as “where’s the NAACP?”, that the local chapter became active.

Contrast that behavior with how the local NAACP chapter is addressing the “achievement gap” between African-American students in the city school system and all other ethnicities, excluding lower socio-economic Hispanic pupils. The city school system has poured millions of dollars and dozens of administrators into the morass of the gap, but it hasn’t been filled.

So what does the NAACP say? The local school system is laden with racist bias, even though the school board has an overrepresentation of African-American school board members with respect to the population.

In the words of Ms. Michelle Cotton Laws, president of the Chapel Hill Carrboro NAACP, yet NOT a registered voter in either Durham County or Orange County, ”The decision to expand the honors courses at the high school with no clear plan on how to hold teachers accountable for ensuring that bias selection into honors and AP courses isn't occurring, and implementing best teaching practices that prepare all children to compete at a high level is injudicious and regressive education policies. The actions and responses of the teachers, therefore, create a self-fulfilling prophecy for many students; if they are treated as if they can't perform at high levels, then guess what, many of them give up trying.” (See Herald Sun NAACP Honors Story.)

According to Ms. Laws, ”We are not against raising standards and challenging all youth to succeed and excel at high levels. What we are against, however, are policies that expand opportunities for those persons at the top with little to no genuine concern about how to bring those children at the bottom along. We support increasing standards and rigor for all children, but we strongly oppose creating and putting mechanisms in place that reproduce racial and class inequality, homogeneity in classes and tracking.”

Ms. Laws cites that fewer than 1 percent of the students enrolled in honors and AP courses in the school district are African American and Hispanic. (Ms. Laws ignores the data showing improvement in the Hispanic student performance over the past decade.)

There’s only one problem for Ms. Laws. Nothing keeps an African-American student from enrolling in an honors course whether recommended by a teacher or not. That’s right. The student and parent take the recommendation into consideration and change it if they wish. Following the joint consideration by student and parent, the parents sign off on the form. So the parents are really the ones to decide if the student will take the honors course. African-American students are free to take as many honors courses as they desire.

Ms. Laws also completely overlooks the many conscientious adult school volunteers spending their own time in the Blue Mentor and other programs so as to benefit struggling minority students.

No word on whether the goal of the local chapter of the NAACP is to get the best out of every student regardless of ethnicity or to homogenize the output of all students into a messy mass of mediocrity.

In most of North Carolina, the local media would consider the suing of a town by a local real estate developer denied a subdivision permit to be newsworthy. Particularly so, if the developer substantially reconstructed their project to satisfy the wants of land use planning minions of the town’s governance board. Particularly so, if hundreds objected to those forced changes at the public hearings surrounding that denial.

However, Carrboro and southern Orange County aren’t like the rest of North Carolina. Here we're fortunate just to have recently obtained one newspaper editor not in bed with advocacy journalism. We're fortunate to have an editor trying to do more than entertain a withering pool of disinterested readers who can discover better news in the Pulp. He’s Mr. Dan Way. He’s not in the pockets of local municipal boosters. He’s not in corporate debt to town leaders. (Who allowed him to be appointed?)

The case for reporting is clear. A Colleton Crossing attorney asked a local judge to suspend a court case in order for the developer to seek an alternative entrance to the environmentally sensitive development.

What court case? Apparently, the Colleton Crossing owners, the Melvilles, filed a lawsuit against the town of Carrboro. In May 2009 the Melvilles were denied a permit application for Colleton Crossing, which would be located near the end of Tally Ho Trail, by that zany crew of characters known as the Boa. The Melvilles then sued the town over that decision.

Not one local media outlet reported the filing of the case.

Maybe that's because the town of Carrboro didn't release a media statement informing its citizen of the lawsuit. Apparently there's no town policy requiring such notice be given either to the citizens or to the media. Just as there is no town policy for giving a budget line item for how much money is given to the town's outside contractor attorney. Gee, who profits from the successive spate of lawsuits Carrboro has been involved in during the last ten years? Can you say “Harris Teeter”?

Thankfully, under Mr. Way’s direction, the Herald Sun did file a story when it learned of the lawsuit through the open court request. (See Herald Sun Lawsuit Story.)

How about the other newspapers?

The Chapel Hill News, a real estate advertiser par excellence, has said nothing, despite hundreds of citizens attending public meetings on Colleton Crossing in opposition. Apparently, it’s just not as newsworthy as those heartwarming and entertaining “feel good” stories that escape your consciousness within weeks, if not days.

The Carrboro Citizen, indebted to the town of Carrboro to the tune of about $50,000 has said nothing. Apparently, it’s too busy trying to repay the loan to the party being sued, the town of Carrboro. The editor, Mr. Kirk Ross, has apparently even been queried about the lawsuit by a reader, to no avail. Not that being in debt would ever cause anyone to change their behavior to their creditor. Such preternatural behavior is so progressive.

In most of North Carolina, municipal governance boards understand that architecture requires years of study, practical experience, and, oh yes, talent. If they are intelligent, then these boards refrain from micromanaging the architectural aesthetics of a private development, letting market forces provide an optimal balance of esthetics and costs.

However, Carrboro’s Boa might as well be on Pluto when it comes to recognizing their limitations, boldly going where only fools have gone before. Pulpsters shouldn’t be surprised that the Boa has added architectural aesthetics to the list of skills they can foil. Under newly imposed rules, the Boa must be presented with building aesthetics before approving any special use permit (SUP) or conditional use permit (CUP) project.

In its finest progressive traditions, the Boa continues to neuter the already “eunuch” experience of a private citizen trying to provide public service by sitting on a town advisory board. The Carrboro Appearance Commission (CAC), a citizen volunteer board, already looks at any project that doesn’t meet town “design standards” for exterior appearance. Apparently, the CAC review isn’t good enough for the Boa.

According to Alderman Dan Coleman, not an architect, (let’s be frank, not even gainfully employed through any visible occupation) the recent large development at 300 East Main Street needed more review than what mere CAC volunteers could provide. “The design of the building is one of the things that gets the most public attention. That’s why we felt, on projects of a certain scale, that we need to have the ability to respond to concerns raised by citizens.”

In 2009 Mr. Coleman successfully eliminated the Carrboro tradition of the advisory board members interviewing and giving recommendations on advisory board applicants. How progressive.

In 2009 Mr. Coleman successfully implemented term limits on free volunteers serving on an advisory board. (Of course, no term limits for Mr. Coleman and the rest of the Boa.) How progressive.

Mr. Coleman’s lofty opinion of his skill set should come as no surprise to Pulpsters. Neither should the fact that the Appearance Commission was against the Boa adopting this new supervisory role. In the words of Mr. Loren Brandford, a CAC member, “Such duplicate presentations are not a good use of the applicant’s or the Board of Aldermen’s time. It just means that everyone else has to do a little more work. If they want to vote themselves more work, that’s fine.”

Clearly Mr. Branford is unaware of how much time the Boa has on its hands. See (DTH Boa Appearance Story.)