When ”illegal” political acts have no consequences, then those acts will not be deterred.

Pulpsters were treated to a very progressive example of campaign dirty tricks in the latest Chapel Hill municipal race. The mayoral race was hotly contested between Councilors Mark Kleinschmidt and Matt Czajkowski. The progressive machine favorite was Mr. Kleinschmidt. The Chapel Hill News weighed in for Mr. Kleinschmidt not just on its editorial page, but also in its reporting. All expected a close vote.

Out of nowhere appeared a widespread bulk mailer from an unknown organization, CHCPAC. The mailer played on liberal lemming values, namely, that anyone who is fiscally conservative is a social conservative as well. Orange Progressives don't care about taxes or spending money wisely. Those who do must break bread with Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. As always, facts are optional, and party guides serve as political fountains of wisdom.

The mailer was exquisitely timed. The mysterious CHCPAC organization did not have to file a report on who was behind the organization before the election. The mailer also was illegal, in that it didn’t say whether or not Mr. Kleinschmidt’s campaign had anything to do with or approved of the mailer. By law, CHCPAC was supposed to notify the entire mailing list of the position of the Kleinschmidt campaign BEFORE the election occurred.

Mr. Czajkowski’s campaign knew CHCPAC was not one of its supporters.

ALthough Mr. Kleinschmidt’s campaign obviously benefitted from the mailer, it was mysteriously reserved in its comments about CHCPAC. Supposedly, Mr. Kleinschmidt and his supporters knew nothing about the mailer.

Adding to the mystery was a telephone call to local radio station WCHL, another local media group supportive of Mr. Kleinschmidt’s campaign. An unnamed source tipped WCHL off that it was none other than Mr. Cam Hill who was behind the mailer.

Pulpsters will remember Mr. Hill for two reasons. He “shook down” UNC for his home on Rosemary Street in an unusual property swap. He also lost in the last election cycle by about 60 votes, to be replaced by none other than Mr. Czajkowski.)

Mr. Hill was outed by WCHL just in time for him to register CHCPAC legally, but after the election. (See CHH Hill CHCPAC Story.)

Mr. Hill never sent out another mailer identifying himself as CHCPAC and the position of the Kleinschmidt campaign, as required by law.

Revealing his classy character in keeping with loca progressive values, Mr. Hill said revenge was not a factor. ”I want Mark Kleinschmidt to be mayor. If I wanted revenge, I would have killed his dog.” (See CHH Hill Baby Story ).

El Centro Latino (ECL) opened its doors in Carrboro about a decade ago in order to provide assistance to cheap immigrant labor needed to groom Chapelboros’ gardens and clean its bidets. At the opening was the former political spokesperson for MesoAmericans, former Carrboro Alderman, Mr. John Herrera.

After divorcing his native, American-born, citizenship-providing wife and establishing a new family, Mr. Herrera left Carrboro, giving up his sure-fire seat on the Carrboro Board of Alderman. Now it appears that he left just in time. ECL has announced that it is closing indefinitely due to financial difficulties. Apparently, Mr. Herrera was too busy moving to Apex to help ECL find more funds.

Apparently, Carrboro’s new Hispanic guero legislator, “Mr. Carrbobama” community organizer, Mr. William Samuel Slade has been too busy getting funds for himself to be able to devote time to help ECL get more funding. Yes, as yet another invisible income public official, Mr. Slade had to be installed in Mr. Herrera's vacant seat a few weeks early in order to keep his own doors open, exactly where those doors lead isn't public knowledge.

Pulpsters need not fear, ECL isn’t closing. Rather it’s going to hold a January 2010 public meeting to decide how to keep on going, regardless of whether or not its outlived its original purpose. ECL has asked people wanting information about the January meeting to e-mail eclcarrboro@gmail.com. (See DTH ECL Closing Story.)

No word on whether or not a full financial accounting of all moneys provided ECL will be provided at the January meeting.

No word on whether or not a full list of measurable accomplishments will be provided at the January meeting.

No word on a full accounting of the income taxes received by local governments due to the work of ECL will be provided at the January meeting.

In most of North Carolina, business owners look at Orange County and see a business community that feeds off the table scraps of UNC, the economic engine of Orange County. UNC extracts financial resources from the other 99 counties in North Carolina to the tune of over half a billion dollars annually. Much of that money is fed into the local Orange County economy, some directly, some indirectly through the salaries of thousands of UNC employees and contractors living in Orange County. Yes, in most of North Carolina, Orange County is the last place one would point to as an example of a “local living economy”

Orange County is so not like the rest of North Carolina. Here, overly narcissistic dilettantes dabbling as “business owners” can talk of the need to support a local living economy while ignoring the hypocrisy and sheer nonsense of their position. Yes, Orange Progressive values include simply ignoring inconvenient truths. Simply ignore the fact that the vast bulk of moneys flowing through the Orange County economy are NOT local in origin. They aren’t even voluntarily spent here. They come through that most socialistic mechanism of all, taxation.

Pulpsters can only laugh at the latest feel good pronouncement from the land of the loons. A merry band of local business owners, community leaders, and citizens are working together to build and sustain Carrboro’s local living economy. They call themselves “LocalMotive”. LocalMotive is becoming a network member of the neo-Luddite school of economic development called The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).

If you have a real business that can survive without government support or a voluntary form of local mercantilism/tariffs, then you needn’t apply. No, LocalMotive is for businesses that require customers who want to pay more for goods or services than they have to in a regional or national economy. According to LocalMotive, “the success of your [Carrboro] business is almost certainly tied to the community thriving. Up to now, you have had to operate independently when addressing all issues big and small, sometimes to the detriment of spending time building and maintaining your business.” Shudder the thought that Carrboro would want to attract a business that doesn’t depend on the immediate community surrounding its facility.

The LocalMotive roster of economic roundhouses already includes: Carrboro Creative Coworking, a professional shared workspace with a community atmosphere; Carrboro Raw, a smoothie juice bar; Happy Human, a spice rub purveyor; Protea Digital, a web based marketing company; the good old Weave, Weaver Street Market; and Wootini, an art gallery. All businesses, which for the most part, couldn’t survive in a town or city with a vibrant, successful regional economy.

LocalMotive is supported by the great green anarchist, Alderman Dan Coleman, another local Carrboro “businessman” with no known source of revenues, other than a non-locally working spouse. Mr. Coleman introduced a resolution to “BUY CARRBORO WEEK 2009” (December 5 to 12) during the latest BOA meeting. As usual, Mr. Coleman dispenses with the facts. According to AlderDan, Carrboro's locally-owned businesses create more high-paying jobs in our community. Yes, AlderDan wants you to give up shopping on the Internet, which may come as a surprise to LocalMotive member Protea Digital, a business which makes money from businesses that use web marketing. Gee, this planned economy thing is complicated.

One thing is for certain, no one will provide any metrics to measure the success of the campaign. Carrboro’s ED guru, Mr. James Harris, is just too busy doing whatever it is he does to occupy his time.

No word on whether or not Alderman Coleman will break into the line with LocalMotive, as he did for his son to ride on the Little Blue Choo.

Whereas, a rose by any other name shall smell as sweet, can the same be said of the homeless? Chapelboro is proud to open its arms to illegal immigrants (as long as they live in the Carrboro barrio). Who doesn’t welcome low cost, low skill talents to sweep one’s floors, groom one’s garden and clean one’s bidets?

So, it’s just a little embarrassing when that same warm and fuzzy embrace doesn’t extend to Chapel Hill’s homeless, the more permanent of whom combine low cost and low skill with the extra advantage of low productivity.

Outgoing mayor Kevin Foy and Councilor Laurin Easthom were not happy when Chapel Hill citizens dared to make it “personal” when discussing housing 52 homeless people in a shelter to be built at the corner of Homestead Road and MLK Boulevard.

A video of the too personal festivities can be seen at the town website.

According to long-time Chapel Hill homeless resident Mr. Michael Davis, ”Someone needs to come in and take it from them and redistribute it. You may not want us in downtown Chapel Hill, but we need to be somewhere so that we can access the services we need.”

Dr. Bhupendra Sen was not impressed. He believes that homeless men loitering around Homestead Park would compromise safety for retirees and young families nearby. ”Many of them are criminals, including rapists. There are also drug addicts and alcoholics.”

Mr. Ken Brown seemed to be troubled by having grown men hanging around children. ”That is asking for double the trouble. Loitering by grown men in a public park and near preschool and after-school programs … is not a good idea, whether you're talking about homeless men or not.”

Perhaps if the Chapel Hill town council referred to the “homeless” as “illegal [domestic] immigrants”, then the cumbayah circle can close and the tingling can begin.

No word on when Ms. Easthom will invite some of the homeless to join her in her hirsute pursuits.

In most of North Carolina, a majority of elected officials have children and send them to the local public school systems. It’s particularly true if they parade their environmental values on their sleeves. “I’m so green, my children walk or ride a bus to school”.

But Orange County isn’t like the rest of North Carolina. Here, elected officials just have to say warm and fuzzy things for a voting electorate that bathes in mediocrity and “unaccomplishment”, where local newspapers unabashedly take loans from the elected officials they cover. What makes the choice for private over public schools especially interesting is that Chapelboro public schools are considered among the best in the state. They're apparently just not good enough for the lecturing, resolution-spouting rulers of Carrboro.

For those Pulpsters wishing to keep score, here’s the latest table for the incoming Carrboro governance board. Many of these green wizards drive their children over 40 miles daily to private school. How progressive!

Could it be that Carrboro officials are concerned about their children attending Carrboro Elementary, which is now 24% Hispanic?

In most parts of North Carolina, insanity is recognized as endlessly performing the same inefffective act in order to solve a problem.

However, Orange County isn’t like the rest of North Carolina. Here, maintaining the local dominance of a Democratic progressive party is more important than solving problems.

The number one issue identified by candidates for the Carrboro municipal election was the tax base imbalance, residents pay 90% of the property taxes, and businesses only 10%. Although the incumbents created this financial mess, can you guess who was elected? Yes, why wouldn’t you re-elect those who created the mess as the best qualified to fix the mess?

Part of the causation for this genius is the high code of ethics practiced by the local print media, in particular, the Chapel Hill News and the Carrboro Citizen. Progressives aren't troubled by the latter having to maintain objectivity in the face of owing the town of Carrboro $50,000 for a town loan approved just before the election.

The clear violation of the code of ethics for journalism doesn't matter. There's no causal link between that loan and the failure of the Carrboro Citizen to ask any probing questions of candidates. Progessives can't be corrupted, as there has never been any corruption in Chapelboro, ever.

Let’s look at the probing and insightful questions prepared by the CHN:
1) How will you balance growth while preserving Carrboro's identity?
2) How would you ease the tax burden while maintaining town services? What would you cut if anything?
3) Do you support University Lake watershed rules or would you change them?

Now let’s compare these critically vital questions to what citizens living in Carrboro asked at a local neighborhood forum:
1) The Carrboro tax base is 90% residential. Residential taxation brings in $0.76 for every $1.00 of services while commercial taxation brings in $4.21 for every $1.00 expended. Why has this persisted?
2) Don't use the current recession as a reason. You can go up US 15-501 and cross into Durham or down US 15-501 to Chatham and see a lot of commercial growth even this past year. Every election all candidates pledge to increase the commercial tax base. Incumbents tell the voters why they should expect something different if you serve another term when you haven't done much to fix the situation in all your prior terms? Challengers, tell the voters what will you do differently?
3) No one in the neighborhood wanted to know a candidate’s opinion on foreign affairs, or legislation passed in other states, or whether we should spend money on products from a country that opposes our foreign policy. What's up with all the Carrboro town resolutions? If no one wants to know your opinion on these things, why do you insist on giving it? Don't we elect senators and congressmen to deal with national and international affairs?
4) Carrboro spent hundreds of thousands of dollars this past year on attorney's fees for an attorney that doesn’t work or live in Carrboro and isn’t a staff attorney as in Chapel Hill. Carrboro spent $550,000 spent to acquire MLK park, and made an unsecured $70,000 loan given to a local store owner on the edge of bankruptcy, who then went bankrupt How well is our money being spent?
5) How do you view the future of farmland adjacent to Carrboro and how is it affected by LUO, watershed regulations and the ETJ?
6) Regarding the ETJ, should jurisdiction be handed back to the county?
7) Recently the BOA decided to make null and void homeowners association covenants that restricted the use of clotheslines. Please address how much and to what extent government should tell individuals how they should live. To what extent should individuals and groups of individuals such as a homeowners association be free to decide for themselves how they wish to live?
8) Although recently put on the back-burner, do you support the high density development of Carolina Commons?
9) What would be lost or gained by the Carrboro community in the merger of Carrboro and Chapel Hill into one Township?

Perhaps the difference in intensity between these two groups of questions best illustrates the growing irrelevance of local newspapers.

In most of North Carolina, a watermill was an early industrial age power plant and factory for processing material. Some mills ground grain, while others operated belt-driven machinery. The common element was that all required a steady flow of water for generating power.

Orange County isn’t like the rest of North Carolina. Here the dearth of historical monuments (outside the UNC campus) has led to progressively faux history complete with faux watermills. None other than Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton participates in the puffery of a two-bit, broken-down moonshine operation into a working watermill. Even better, he gets an award from the Friends of My Backyard for writing historical tripe!

According to Mr. Chilton “four water-powered mills once stood on Bolin Creek, the best preserved is the former Castleberry-Taylor Mill. The ruins of the mill, millrace and dam are just upstream of the Spring Valley neighborhood in Carrboro. The stone foundation of the mill is still quite discernable, but just 30 years ago some of the walls were also standing. On November 1, 1763, the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions granted permission to William Castleberry to “erect a Water Grist Mill on Boling's Creek.”

There’s only one problem with this historical gem that mirrors how progressivism is, at its core, faith in fantasy over fact. Bolin Creek doesn’t have a reliable enough flow of water to run a true watermill. Hydrologically, it’s just like the town through which it runs, all fall and no juice. Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that in order to run a full time mill on Bolin Creek, one would need to build a huge impoundment dam to assure a steady supply of water.

More than likely, the vaunted Carrboro “mill” was in reality a moonshine still operation. The pathetically small millstone operation at Bolin Creek was more than likely used to prepare grain or corn for alcohol fermentation for sale to UNC students. Now that's the perfect operation for Mr. Buck Taylor, late 1700s Orange County Court Clerk, and the first in a succession of many Carrboro town inebriates holding official positions, a true flowing of the waters.

Some traditions are just too progressive to lose.