In most of North Carolina, the decision to close down the “Main Street” thoroughfare to all traffic for months would be viewed as extreme. Municipal leaders would be wary of the effect such a closure would have on the floor traffic for historic business district firms already facing tough competition from outlying retail strips and malls.

However, Orange County is not like the rest of North Carolina. Here we have the confluence of crony capitalism and Progressive ideology, leading to a unique brand of flaccid economic development. Oh, local Progressive politicians prattle on about ED, but they are basically clueless. In way too many cases, the only truly successful businesses have a close connection to those politicians.

Witness the closing of Weaver Street in Carrboro. This business district main thoroughfare has been closed off for over six months. It was not closed to provide better municipal services to business district firms. It was closed off to provide better municipal services to one business. It is not even a business that is in business, yet.

The street closure has been scheduled to serve the business interests of the consortium that owns the 300 West Main project. This hotel retail complex has received coddled, crony capitalism treatment from Mayor Chilton and the Boa since it first appeared on the development radar. Who owns this project? No one knows for sure. Development laws do not require any transparency as to ownership. Mayor Chilton and the entire Boa could have a piece of the 300 West Main Street action, and no law or regulation allows any disinterested party to confirm or refute such an assertion.

“The Red Hen”, a gift and resale boutique for mothers and young children, had been in business on Weaver Street for five years. It was a successful small business until the street closure. The long term loss of floor traffic presented the Red Hen owner with a predictable outcome on the horizon, insolvency.

What was the economic solution? According to Carrboro’s crack ED municipal employee team, the owner should borrow money from the town’s Revolving Loan Fund. Amazingly, debt is the Progressive answer to government induced loss of business. The fact that additional debt would guarantee business insolvency escaped the crack team.

Ms. Lavinder did decide to take out a loan. Only she did not want a bankruptcy loan from Carrboro. Instead, she decided to take out a private banking loan. She decided to move and expand her business where there was a more hospitable retail environment. In the words of the Red Hen owner, Ms. Lavinder, “Even before the construction started, the town told us we could borrow money if sales were low. That didn’t make sense to me because there were no guarantees about when the project would finish, and return business might be slow. In my mind, it makes sense to take out a loan when you will use that money to generate more income.“

If only Ms. Lavinder had been a crony of Mayor Chilton and the Boa.

In most of North Carolina, political leaders understand that “boundary creep” is part of human nature. If such leaders fuzz the limits of acceptable social behavior, then a portion of the population will push against that fuzz. The creepers will see what they can get away with doing. They will not need a reason to creep the boundary. They will do it, just because. They are hard-wired to do so.

That’s why in most of North Carolina, political leaders do not allow simple illegalities to stand, to fester, to point the way to greater illegalities, to boundary creep.

You Pulpsters know that Orange County is NOT like the rest of North Carolina. Here Progressive ideology reigns. If you believe that human nature can be suspended with enough “education” by “the right people”, then boundary creep can be ignored. Well, it can be ignored until human nature comes roaring back and exposes the folly that is the hallmark of Progressivism.

Amidst all the blogging and handwringing of Chapel Hill and Carrboro Progressives about the excessive use of police force in the displacement of anarchists from the Yates Garage, nary a one has addressed the issue of boundary creep. More particularly, nary a one has linked the coddling by Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt of the illegal camping by the Occupy Chapel Hill rabble with the illegal seizure of the Yates Garage.

Why wouldn’t people upset with government policies believe that they can commit the crime of trespassing on private property not being used when town rulers turn a blind eye to them committing the crime of trespassing on public property in the middle of the business district? Amazingly, Mayor Kleinschmidt is incapable of seeing the direct linkage between his policy of appeasing the OCH campers and his encouraging boundary creep by the OCH anarchist campers. Mr. Kleinschmidt apparently sees no linkage between Chapelboro hosting a regional meeting of committed anarchists over the weekend of the Yates garage seizure and the OCH campers hosting those anarchists in discussions about how to stick it to the man, aka Mayor Kleinschmidt.

Mr. Kleinschmidt continues to labor under the delusion that there is no connection between OCH campers and the Yates Garage Occupiers – “This weekend a group of protesters, not affiliated with the Occupy Chapel Hill movement, broke into and entered a privately owned building in downtown Chapel Hill.” Really?

Here is the last scheduled event for the Second Carrboro Anarchist Bookfair on Saturday – “5pm – Roundtable Discussion on the Occupation Movement and the Politics of Excess (to be held at Occupy Chapel Hill, 179 E. Franklin St.)” Yes, the last event before the Yates Garage was occupied, in part by OCH campers, was a meeting of the anarchists at the OCH “Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt Memorial Campsite” with OCH campers to discuss the politics of excess. Mr. Kleinschmidt sees no connection.

If you wanted to mediate between a group of extremists who do not respect higher political authority and private property rights and town officials who do, then would you pick someone who does not respect higher political authority and private property rights? Would you pick someone who misogynistically used his car as a weapon against a woman protecting youths participating in a school sporting event? Would you pick someone who lied to the police in an arrest report? Would you pick someone who used his crony contacts to have criminal charges dismissed?

Why worry about such choices when you can get all of these qualities in a single person? Carrboro Alderman Dan Coleman is not only available, he is volunteering!

In another act of the theater-of-the-absurd that is Progressive Chapelboro, Mr. Coleman, author of “The Anarchist”, sympathetic portrayal of the turn of the last century anarchist movement, recently sent a letter to Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt.

“Dear Mark,

I write, in the spirit of cooperation between our towns, to offer my assistance should the Chapel Hill police again find themselves in a situation where they feel unable to communicate with our local anarchist community. I make this offer sincerely with the assumption that these are among the same people who have peacefully “occupied” the Carrboro Town Commons one Saturday afternoon a month in recent years for the Really Really Free Market, an event for the free sharing of goods and food. I worked as interface between the town and RRFM at one time and had no problem working with the group and coming to a mutually respectful solution. In that context I have met some of the individuals in question and have found them to be congenial and idealistic, giving considerable thought to how social structures might allow for a more just and democratic society, a critically important topic too often neglected by the rest of us. As well as the RRFM, their work in the community has included a weekly coffee service at the Carrboro day labor corner and a project to provide books to prison inmates around the southeast.

Of course, CHPD has seen a different, more confrontational, and less law-abiding face of this group particularly in their recent actions at Greenbridge. Unquestionably, some of their actions bring to bear the legal necessity for local government to protect private property. Nonetheless, nothing that I know of in their history or demeanor suggests that they would initiate any violence against any person and I want to stress that I have found these individuals to be quite approachable. Like most of us interested in politics, they do spend much of their time talking about it.

Obviously, I have no official standing to make this offer but sometimes one is just in a position to help out. Nor am I suggesting that you could not open lines of communication to Chapel Hill’s anarchist community yourself. They are, after all, your constituents. Please let me know if I can ever be of assistance in this regard.

Best,
Dan”

Only someone with the superior mind of Dan Coleman would equate an indefinite physical occupation of a building on private property with using a public green space for an afternoon. Only someone with the superior mind of Dan Coleman would interpret signs saying “Off the Pigs” with a pork BBQ, and not a dangerous threat to police forces. Only someone with the superior mind of Dan Coleman would fail to reference that they are, deep down, an anarchist masquerading as a Progressive.

Perhaps Mr. Coleman will suggest that the anarchists simply call “911” the next time the Chapel Hill Police shows up to arrest them. It worked for Mr. Coleman.

If you wanted to get a referendum passed that was unpopular with your voters, then what would you do? Would you schedule the vote in the most ill-attended election? Would you schedule the vote when about one third of your election precincts don’t even have a candidate raceon which to vote? Would you schedule a vote in which those most likely to vote for the referendum overwhelm those opposed?

Well, if you are the Orange County Commishes seeking to get more sales tax money to spend, then you can do all three and hit the trifecta! Just hold your referendum in an off-year municipal election cycle. The affluent can afford to pay more sales tax. To hell with the ~20% of the county that is poor. To hell with the fact that sales tax is the least Progressive tax in existence. When you are a Commish, you have to be concerned about the property taxes paid by the affluent, not the rent (taxes included) paid by the poor.

In the words of Commish Pellisier, a tax increase of $25.00 per $1000 in purchased goods isn’t much to a poor person. Let’s just forget about the $675.00 they already pay in sales taxes.

So the Commishes scheduled a sales tax vote for November 2011, during a low turnout municipal election.

Admit it, the timing was brilliant. As one local critic wrote, it wasn’t “participatory, not inclusive, but [was] a highly effective mocking of democratic principles.” The entire 2011 tax vote was less than those who voted for the tax in 2010. In 2010, 42,850 citizens vote on the tax. Every precinct had an election on which to vote. In 2011, only 17,562 voted, 60 % less. About one third of the precincts did NOT have an election.

Pulpsters have probably already guessed which precincts voted against the tax. Yes, it was the poorer, rural precincts which normally do not even think about voting in a municipal elelction year. Why? They do not live in a municipality with an election. You got to hand it to the Commishes, even Fascists can’t pervert an electoral system any better.

The sleeping lapdog media supported the sales tax. So in their best show of ignorance, they forgot to ask the Commishes about the real reason for needing more tax revenue. Since 2009, the Commishes have increased county employment by 41 full time equivalent employees. (No recession in county employment, is there?) At an average carrying cost of $61,000 per employee, that increase costs about $2,000,000 in increased taxes. Gee, that’s about the same as the revenues sought from increasing the sales tax. Nary a word from the ever somnambulant local Progressive media.

In most of North Carolina, a mayor would see a link between anarchists espousing the end of the capitalist system as we know it and the “Occupy My Town” movement that is espousing the end of the capitalist system as we know it. They would recognize the occupation of a privately-owned vacant building by a group of self-proclaimed, usufructing anarchists that included Occupy My Town members to be a black mark against that movement. They might even deny that movement the ability to do what the homeless cannot do – camp out on town lands indefinitely.

However, Chapel Hill is not like the rest of North Carolina.

On the weekend of November 12th and 13th, an anarchist book fair was held in Chapel Hill. The book fair include such topics as Introduction to Deep Ecology and Green Anarchy, presented by Croatan Earth First!; Hydrofracking in NC, presented by Croatan EF!; Internet Networking for Anarchists, presented by Aragorn; Confronting Police in the Northwest, presented by Seattle anarchists; Capitalism and Resistance in the 21st Century, presented by CrimethInc; an Assembly on Anti-Prison Struggle in NC, and an Assembly on Anarchist Responses to the Ongoing Economic Crisis (Occupy Everything, etc.). In the feel good verbiage of anarchists, “these assemblies are explicitly for anarchists to brainstorm, share proposals, and discuss. They do not constitute a decision-making body or function as a spokescouncil. The point is not to come to consensus but to develop strategies organically with those with whom you find affinity or resonance.”

On Saturday, more than 70 not-so-hard-working, but oh-so-hard-grabbing anarchists took over a privately owned building on the town’s main thoroughfare, 419 West Franklin Street. According to police reports, they were alerted to the break-in on Saturday, and monitored the group overnight.

In a law-and-order response, Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said the town is investigating what link, if any, exists between these protesters and the Mayor’s pet homeless project - Occupy Chapel Hill. Perhaps the Mayor will use the crack investigators who reviewed the backdoor links between the Town, UNC, and the IFC in the re-siting the homeless men's shelter.

Apparently, the Mayor has not visited the Occupy Chapel Hill website. OCH declares that “this [Yates Building] occupation is not an official action of the General Assembly of Occupy Chapel Hill, but [it] is part of the larger Occupy movement.” Nothing like Progressive gobbledygook presented in its finest form to baffle common sense.

According to OCH representatives, “a group 'in solidarity with occupations everywhere' marched to the building, amassing outside while banners reading ‘Occupy Everything’ and ‘Capitalism left this building for DEAD, we brought it back to LIFE’ were raised in the windows and lowered down the steep roof. Much of the crowd soon filed in through one of the garage door entrances to find a short film playing on the wall and dance music blasting.

People explored the gigantic building, and danced in the front room to images of comrades shattering the glass of bank windows 3,000 miles away in Oakland. Others continued to stay outside, shouting chants, giving speeches, and passing out hundreds of ‘Welcome’ packets to passersby.”

Fueled by meaningless hairsplitting, beloved of academia, OCH tries to propel the anarchist message forward while denying responsibility for anarchist trespassing. Even thought the illegal occupation (read trespass) usurped someone’s else’s property rights and involved OCH participants (the last event of the anarchist book fair being an assembly at the OCH site, an event post-occupation and without a condemnation by OCH of the mob occupancy), OCH claims the work not be them, but part of autonomous, anti-capitalist occupiers. Such logical legerdemain is too clever by half. (Just don't try to take any rights away from OCH using such sophistry.)

Moreover, OCH saw no problem with occupiers moving wooden pallets, doors, water jugs, and a desk into someone else's facility, along with pots and trays of food donated by a nearby Indian restaurant. Indian restaurant. Who cares about public health laws? After all, they have public dance music, a capella singing, and yoga lessons!

Sadly, Mr. Kleinschmidt represents local Progressive feelings (thought is not necessary) that OCH has nothing to do with the Franklin Street occupation. “It is my expectation, looking forward, that Occupy Chapel Hill and the town will maintain an open and cooperative relationship, The Occupy movement carries an important message for our town, our state and our country. I suspect it will be heard more clearly from Peace and Justice Plaza than from the Orange County jail.”

In a stunning breakthrough, Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt has discovered the solution to homelessness.

In the past, Chapel Hill Police have not allowed the homeless to camp simply anywhere on town-owned lands. However, since October, Mr. Kleinschmidt has allowed people with no known (to the police) address pitch tents on town-owned sidewalks and public spaces.

How could these apparently homeless people get away with this move? They simply had to express Progressive ideas with which Mr. Kleinschmidt agrees. In his words, ”It is my expectation, looking forward, that Occupy Chapel Hill and the town will maintain an open and cooperative relationship. The Occupy movement carries an important message for our town, our state and our country..”

Amazing. Homelessness is no more a problem in Orange County. All the homeless have to do is hang a sign or symbol on the outside of their tent expressing a political opinion in agreement with the Mayor or the Town Council, and they can camp on Town property.

Apparently, vagrancy and trespassing are allowed in Chapel Hill so long as it is coupled with the Progressive ideological agenda. Only the politically ignorant homeless must move on.

No word on whether or not the Town will issue a list of politically correct opinions that will allow camping. After all, it would be sad to see a homeless person have to remove their tent if the expresses a sentiment in common with the Tea Party. Mr. Kleinschmidt could not permit such intolerance.

In most counties in the United States, the use of methane from a public landfill to create electrical power would be viewed as a natural investment for the county government owning the landfill. By investing a turnkey generator set onsite at the landfill, methane produced by the landfill could be burned, creating electrical power that would be sold to the electrical power grid. The county would even get credit for converting methane into carbon dioxide, a less powerful greenhouse gas than methane.

Not so in Orange County, North Carolina. Here we have the twin powers, public power utilities and public universities. Citizens exist to serve them, not the other way around. Under state law, only public utilities like Duke Energy can sell electrical power.

That’s right. Imagine your neighbors wanted to group together and form a company to install photovoltaic (PV) panels for local installation of fellow neighbors. They would finance the venture by selling the power from the panels to the homeowners. Too bad state law does not let them do that. Only a public utility can sell power to the public. You can make electrical power, but you can only use it for yourself or give it away.

The financially astute Commishes decided to give away the methane gas to UNC. We still don’t know who is paying to run the methane pipeline down to UNC’s Carolina North property. Nor do we know how the pipeline will get there, considering there is no contiguity between the landfill and Carolina North. Details, details.

Why would the county, so strapped for money that it sought an increase in local sales taxes, give away generator fuel with a commercial value? Look at to whom they are giving the fuel – UNC. What UNC wants, it gets in this factory county where UNC is the factory. UNC needs a carbon fig leaf.

UNC is going to claim carbon credits for burning the landfill's methane. (See the Herald Sun UNC Carbon Story.) Yes, UNC has announced that it is seeking permits that would allow the generator to be located on the Carolina North campus and for the landfill gas pipeline to extend within the new utility corridor on Carolina North. This magical chemistry plan is the same Climate Action Plan that considers torrified wood not to be equivalent to coal. Thankfully, most UNC graduates are not scientifically literate enough to know the difference, and to Progressives facts are optional.

Let’s not talk about who paid for the half mile corridor connector along Homestead Road, another UNC benefit paid for by Chapelboro residents. Gee, first Duke Energy sells UNC land on Homestead Road near the utility corridor connector to Carolina North at an underpriced value. Then UNC leases the land to the Town of Chapel Hill for $1 a year so that it can lease the land to IFC for a men’s shelter, increasing both the Town's and UNC's commercial property land values in the business district. Then UNC will ask the Town for permits to run the gas lines.

Duke Energy wins. UNC wins. The Town government wins. You lose. Crony capitalism has nothing on crony municipal connections.