Even with the cutting edge news and analysis of Squeeze the Pulp, it’s easy for those having a real life to lose track of the swirl of political events in Orange County. What may seem to be a string of inconsequential or unrelated incidents may actually reveal something more when looked at over time, Like repetitive rains carving erosion gullies in lovely Orange County red clay, after a while incompetence, inefficiencies, and unintended consequences can change the landscape in which you live.

Signs that the crashing national economy could affect Orange County began in 2008. It continued in 2009. With the Ponzi residential growth scheme DOA, there was no reason to continue to spend more tax dollars to support the growth infrastructure. Evidence of the collapse can be seen in the Commishes canceling plans to build the 11th city elementary school.

What’s an Orange Progressive to do? Decades of telling people how to live their lives through land use planning are suddenly gone. Where would they direct their “nanny state” angst? Never fear, another hallmark of local progressivism is finding infinite ways to be insufferably superior in spending your money to make you behave. Excellent examples of social engineering can be found in the stewpot of zaniness, the Carrboro town government.

Instead of trying to find jobs for people, the Carrboro governance board, the Boa, focused its energy on the social injustice of having gender specific restrooms. Not willing to support gender binary oppression, the Boa voted to make all town bathrooms unisex. Yes, it’s wet toilet seats for all in Carrboro!

The Boa didn’t stop there. It also voted to turn down NCDOT funds to add bike lanes and sidewalks on Smith Level Road. What, Carrboro doesn’t like bike lanes and sidewalks? No, the Boa didn’t want the road widened to handle safely the existing traffic flow. Got that?

It’s more important to create traffic bottlenecks to get people out of their cars than to provide safe road travel, even for cyclists. Alderman Jackie Gist again most clearly reveals the creativity used by the Boa in addressing local transportation issues. If she can walk to her part-time job, why can’t you? “People will do what’s easiest for them to do. I would love to see it become a pain to drive a single occupancy vehicle because when it’s a pain in the neck people are going to change their behavior.”

Smugly pronouncing the Boa’s rejection of NCDOT aid, Alderman Dan Coleman states, “So the motion is, then, as “Mythbusters” put it, ‘We reject your reality and substitute our own'.” (Say, that doubles for a criminal defense too.)

That statement sums up progressive governance in Orange County. Philosophy is based on an entertainment television show. Enlightened government? Your pain is town gain.

If the year ends in an odd number, then it’ll be doubly odd in southern Orange County. Ending in odd means local election time! Job one whenever a new un-anointed candidate appears is to smear the candidate through the local media. This election year proved no exception. That wanton party guide, [http:indy.com|[the Independent]] swung first. The Indy ran an article on the late child support payments of Carrboro mayoral candidate Ms. Amanda Ashley. Perhaps this wouldn’t seems so out of place except that two years earlier, the Indy virtually ignored incumbent Carrboro Alderman candidate Dan Coleman’s vehicular assault on a woman volunteering to help local athletes. Mr. Coleman needed to get his child to T-ball! Why the different treatment? Mr. Coleman is a pal of Indy editor, Ms. Lisa Sorg, a paragon of progressive bias.

Once smearing is done, then the labelmaking starts. The key is to hang the label “conservative” on a candidate. Nothing shuts down the cererbral cortex of a progressive like saying the word “conservative”. The Chapel Hill News awoke from its election coverage slumber just long enough to crank out the labels against those opposing its mayoral candidate, Mr. Mark Kleinschmidt. Perhaps what’s most striking about this election year is the exodus of long time Orange Progressive candidates from local office. Carrboro Alderman John Herrera left town unexpectedly, moving to very non-progressive Apex, North Carolina. No explanation was given other than it’s cheaper to live outside the oppressive high cost of Carrboro living.

Even a commish abandoned their cushy job. Mr. Mike Nelson announced he wouldn’t run again for county commissioner. With the disastrous state of county finances, he won’t be able to spend money on his favorite projects. So instead of helping his constituency, he abandons them, just as he did his former Carrboro constituency to run for the commish spot.

But the award for best exit goes to former Chapel Hill Councilor Bill Strom. Having studied the capital of election shenanigans, the town of Carrboro, Mr. Strom decided to follow the example of Carrboro officials. He quietly sold his house and lived in an RV. He allegedly told none of his fellow councilors, a statement patently not believeable to those who have observed the loquacious Mr. Strom for the past decade. No matter, the local stenographers believe it! Mr. Strom announced his retirement after the 2009 election filing period closed and late enough that his spot couldn’t be filled by an election. In other words, he manipulated the system to allow an appointment to fill his vacancy as opposed to an election.

That’s Orange Progressivism at its finest.

The Chapel Hill mayoral election was a squeaker, being decided by less than 100 votes. Mr. Kleinschmidt was benefitted by the criminal activities of former Chapel Hill town councilor Cam Hill. In the last week of the election, Mr. Hill distributed a mass flyer in Chapel Hill calling Mr. Matt Czajkowski a “conservative” that did not have Chapel Hill values. Trouble was, he courageously performed this act as an anonymous and unregistered political action committee. His timing allowed him to register AFTER the election. How coincidental. Mr. Hill failed to obey the law, which required him to send a notice to all who received his illegal flyer before the election. He didn’t. He will suffer no consequences.

To celebrate his tainted victory, Mr. Mark Kleinschmidt proceeded to fill the vacated Strom seat not with the highest losing candidate for town councilor (over 3300 votes). Mr. Kleinschmidt felt that racial quotas for office are more important than running for office in Chapel Hill. An African-American supporter was appointed instead.

Having followed Carrboro in its preference for appointment over election, perhaps Chapel Hill will follow suit next year and gag its planning board the way Carrboro progressives leaders did in 2009.

No omen better represents the true spirit of Orange Progressivism than the stellar passing of “Haley’s Vomit” in 2009. More particularly, UNC Morehead Scholar Haley Koch led a successful suppression of free speech on the UNC campus, all in the name of free speech.

Such nonsensical logic makes sense to an Orange Progressive. For only righteous (read progressively approved) speech is subject to the rights of free speech. In the temper tantrum world of Ms. Koch, the concept of free speech should be limited to the speech you like to hear. In Ms. Koch’s favor, she learned her privileged progressive principle from her elitist parents.

Probably most telling in this example of the suppression of rights for non-progressives is the reaction of UNC to the incident. UNC leaders were shocked to discover that an atmosphere of intolerance exists on the UNC campus.

The incident ended in satisfactory manner. Ms. Koch was not found guilty of disrupting the peace despite video evidence to the contrary. The blame for the incident was placed on those wishing to bring alternative views onto the UNC campus.

An exciting new trend for small town urbanism is the promotion of fecal producing livestock in an urban environment. Despite the public health implications, the Boa approved changes to its ordinances to allow goat raising on less than one half acre of land.

Even better, a Local Living Economy candidate, the self-described Hispanic candidate, Mr. William Samuel "Sammy" Slade, won an alderman slot on the promise of promoting chicken slaughtering in every Carrboro backyard.

At least with the “Great Recession”, the pathetic local efforts at economic development, or “ED” for short had a reason for not creating any news jobs. Despite the loss of tax revenues, one area kept on spending dollars. Four separate ED bureaucracies spent your money at a combined cost of over $500,000 per year.

Following the trend of 2008, another artistic outlet left Carrboro. This time it’s not music, but art. That loss was followed by the one of Carrboro’s bead stores that just happened to have recently taken out a revolving loan. Carrboro couldn’t even hold on to the operational side of the quintessential Carrboro business- Weaver Street Market.

The most important development trend is the rise of the Local Living Economy movement. Think Locavores on steroids. The North Carolina local economy that most sucks the marrow from the rest of the state declares itself to be seeking to be independent from other economies. Logical? No. But the local living economy movement fits the anarchist flavor of Orange Progressivism. Facts are optional. Incompetence and failure are the hallmarks.

Failure is most definitely the preferred option, as the local media continues to serve as a lapdog. For another consecutive year, not one local media ED story addressed who created the current ED mess in which Orange County exists.

Even the UNC person responsible for branding Carolina North left town.

With no growth to justify Carrboro town expenditures on its million dollar developer service department, the town staff looked elsewhere. Carrboro’s surrogate mayor, town attorney Mr. Mike Brough led the charge by going after the barn apartment of a widow living in Carrboro’s extra-territorial jurisdiction (ETJ), Ms. Kille. So good is Mr. Brough, his firm was being paid to issue advice simultaneously both for and against a text amendment to get rid of this offensive barn apartment.

In true Orange Progressive fashion, the bloodsport of going after Ms. Kille had nothing to do with the barn apartment. The real object of the exercise is to use the undeveloped land belonging to Carrboro’s ETJ farmers to allow more dense development in Carrboro proper. The town is in trouble because it’s polluting the Jordan Lake reservoir with excess plant nutrients. By counting ETJ land as part of Carrboro and keeping it with a minimal number of houses, Developer/Mayor Mark Chilton can make more money.

Another sign of the deteriorating economy was the state of the largest slice of the local economy outside government and UNC, the nonprofit economy. By their very nature this portion of the economy only knows how to spend other people’s money. They create little sources of revenues, depending rather on handouts from other institutions.

A local favorite, El Centro Latino, had to shutter its doors. It went from a surplus to out of cash in less than six months after a new executive director was appointed. Did the local media investigate? No. A bailout is expected in 2010.

Vying for the title of “turnaround story of the year” is affordable housing. It dove off the radar screen. Affordable housing was the least discussed issue of the 2009 local municipal elections. Quite a reversal from two years ago.

With retirement nest eggs in tatters and housing values dropping like chicken heads in Carrboro backyards, suddenly few were talking about the crisis of affordable housing. Mind you, affordable housing bureaucrats continued to push for funding increase. Mr. Robert Dowling even called for a 14% increase in a year in which tax revenues fell. But fewer elected officials aped concern.

One of the more curious developments was the increase in the affordable housing stock in Carrboro. Private apartment complex owners are becoming so tired of the socialist leaders in Carrboro that they are converting apartments into condominiums.

Tearjerker laurels continue to rest on the shoulders of the affordable housing canard. Local politicians are too afraid to ask UNC and local businesses to pay a living wage, leaving you to pay for an unaffordable hosing.

Even in an economic downturn it’s good to be a pal of the local governance boards. Good deals were available for pals. East 54 is a new “luxury urban village” built on NC 54 at the old site of the University Inn. Developer dream team pal East West Partners (Mr. Roger Perry, Meadowmont developer and retiring UNC trustee) is the lead group building another Chapel Hill mixed use village having 113,000 square feet of class-A office space and 60,000 square feet of retail space. These spaces support about 400,000 square feet of residences. At an average of 1300 square feet per residence, that’s over 300 residences.

Councilor Mark Kleinschmidt was concerned about how big East 54 will be, but he allowed it anyway.

The big development for 2009 was the exposing of the how UNC will develop in the future. With little money available from the legislature, UNC will be making partnerships with private equity interests of enormous wealth. Not only will UNC develop housing at Carolina Commons with private interests, but it will do so at Carolina North as well. As usual, local progressive leaders want to talk about the parking spaces instead of following the money.

The election of Mr. Obama to the presidency in 2008 had unintended consequences for that long standing political train wreck, the “have-vacant-lot-will-travel” Eubanks Road trash transfer station siting.

The stock scenario from the political establishment “found” yet again more time before having to close the existing Eubanks landfill.

Retiring Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy then announced that he “found” a new spot close by Eubanks Road, some town land off Millhouse Road.

County staff announced that it no longer needed 25 acres. The smaller Foy spot would do.

Then the unexpected happened. Reverend Campbell, one of the leaders of the Rogers Road community, was invited to meet with Obama administration officials. Suddenly those who had spent years enabling the Commishes to stuff the trash transfer station on to Eubanks Road abandoned the Commishes. Commish enablers invoked the “Mad Hatter routine”. Act as if you had always been against the Eubanks site. Act as if you opposed incumbents who in 2008 denied any trash transfer station problems.

At one Commish “Mad Hatter tea party”, Mr. Marc Dorosin, a UNC Center For Civil Rights attorney made an impassioned speech chastising them. He failed to point out that as a Carrboro alderman and as the local ACLU head he failed to advocate for not splitting the Rogers Road community between Chapel Hill and Carrboro. An NAACP attorney. Ms. Michelle Laws, also made an impassioned anti-commish speech. She failed to point out that she didn’t speak out for the rare few candidates supporting the Rogers/Eubanks Road community in 2007 and 2009 elections.

That great progressive beacon, the Carrboro Board of Alderman, enablers all, joined in the hypocrisy at the very end with a resolution. Years of cowardly silence, but the courage of the Mad Hatter masses finally enabled them to speak out.

The malfeasance and misfeasance of local politicians can’t occur without the vigorous support of local pundits willing to sell themselves at the going local rate. Orange County is no exception.

The local political analyst Ms. Ruby Sinreich continued her display of “geniousity”. Fresh from her 2008 call for eradiating capitalism, Ms. Sinreich began 2009 by declaring that the domestication of animals is “whacky”.

On the “microinterest”, Orange Progressive environmental side (just don’t develop it in my backyard), Mr. Dave Otto displayed the ultimate political whoring in announcing an award to the incumbent Carrboro mayor on the eve of the election. It’s pure coincidence that Mr. Otto sits at ground zero for a bridge connection to his stubbed out cul-de-sac.

Putty-like punditry at an affordable price, that’s Orange Progressivism at its finest.

Perhaps the strangest story in 2009 was the relentless search by N&O bloggers to uncover the identity of “Elvisboy77”. The anonymous “King” didn’t agree with the progressive groupthink of the progressive bloggers. So, they had to out the detested one. After all, you can’t practice ad hominem attacks in response to policy questions unless you know who to attack.

OWASA exists to provide water and sewer service for UNC and Chapelboro land developers. At any meeting you can find UNC representatives asking only one question, will UNC have to pay more? (Of course, the answer is rarely “yes”.) Even though the land development is “on pause”, OWASA wants to be ready to meet the needs of its pals by financing capital improvements for anticipated future growth on the backs of its customers.

After increasing water rates by 17% in FY 2008, OWASA came back in FY 2009 with a almost 10% increase. Water costs have gone up over 25% in two years with nary a peep out of the local customer base.

Pulpsters should note that no incumbent candidate in the 2009 municipal elections mentioned a word about the cost of water in southern Orange County. Not one asked, why does it have the highest water rates in the state for its size?

Orange County loves to embrace diversity, not real diversity, but cosmetic diversity. What matters is people having different ethnicities while thinking the same thoughts and having similar beliefs. Diversity of thought is not welcome.

For 2009, the big diversity issue was enabling lawbreakers to enter the country illegally.

When making local use of a federal Secure Communities system for identifying high-risk illegal aliens who are criminals was proposed, the predictable anarchist strain flowered. Showing the acute respect of Chapelboro elected officials for obeying the law, Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton chastised those who saw benefit in the Secure Communties prgram with the following reminder of selective law enforcement. “There are thousands of immigrants in our community who are just trying to make a living. Some of them have the correct paperwork from the feds. Some don't. Personally, I am far more concerned about criminals who are hurting people and stealing property - no matter where they are from or how they got here.”. That the Secure Communities program is designed to do precisely that escaped the steel trap mind of Mr. Chilton.

Yes, illegal immigration is reduced by Orange Progressives from a conscious decision to flaunt the legally authorized system for entering this country into simply not having the right paperwork. Perhaps in Orange County grand theft auto also isn’t a crime. It’s simply not having the right paperwork for possession of someone else’s car.

Waste not and you won’t get more. That’s the mantra of Orange County governments, who never met a tax or a benefit that they didn’t like. Despite the continuing economic downturn of 2009, local government is unrelenting in its pursuit of “unexcellence”. Who cares if your taxes have doubled in the past decade and far outpaced your income gains?

It being both a municipal election year and a reassessment year, Carrboro hid yet another 5% tax increase behind the principle of the state “tax revenue neutral” law. Under this wonderful excuse for inefficient town government, the reduction in sales tax due to the poor economy can be made up by increasing the ad valorem property tax rate and revenue haul. Although the property taxes increase, they are called “tax revenue neutral”.

All in all, Orange County lead the way in the tax growth industry in Orange County, local government hiring. Orange County property taxes increased 12%. The county was so desperate for funds it approved an across-the-board 22% average real property reassessment despite the housing market crash. Remember it wasn’t an election year for the commishes.

A fine example of the unaccountability of Orange Progressives for failures can be found in the case of the $8,700,000 shortfall in county funds. No one lost their job. No one lost retirement benefits. No one paid a price for having county finances so fouled up that they indicated $8,700,000 more in county funds than existed.

The Pulp asked the question, how much money does this median Orange household have to save in order to have investment income sufficient to pay for its property taxes during retirement? The answers are 24 years of tithing (saving 10% of your income) if you live in the county, 32 years if you live in Chapel Hill, and 35 years if you live in Carrboro. In essence, our hard working, and gullible median income family must save about 10% of its pre-tax income for most of its entire working career just to feed the municipal tax beast.

Orange County redefines the term “sustainable” yet again.

Zany is as zany does.

This year may not have the defense by local politicians of a man twirling bricks in a public place endangering children, or the election of a man who tried to run over a woman in a public park who lied to the police about it (Alderman Dan Coleman), but it did have its bright spots. Senator Ellie Kinnaird equated the controlling of national borders with anti-Semitism and a lack of morality.

Chapel Hill Town Councilor Sally Greene defended the right of the cleanliness challenged, chronic unemployed to solicit on Franklin Street, while lamenting the lack of families on Franklin Street.

The decades-long contractor county attorney, Mr. Geoff Gledhill, left his cushy relationship with the county just around the time that the county reported a $8,700,000 shortage from mis-accounting. Of course, the local media accepted the mis-accounting report at face value.

The privately owned Orange County Rescue Squad sued Orange County and Emergency Services Director Frank Montes de Oca, claiming discrimination, libel, breach of contract and violation of due process. OCRS is asking for $1,200,000 in damages plus compensation for legal fees and $550,000 of new equipment OCRS purchased in 2008. These damages allegedly have resulted from a July 2008 ban placed on their contracted services by Mr. Montes de Oca.

For 2009, the top award has to go to Carrboro government. Over the last six year Carrboro municipal employee growth reached an unsustainable 15%, as opposed to a paltry 8% effort by Chapel Hill.

Local governance boards are out of touch with the economic realities of families struggling to make financial ends meet. No better example can be found than that of the Chapel Hill governance board forced to look at the issue of paying a living wage to all of its employees.

A group called the Orange County Organizing Committee (OCOC) approached the Chapel Hill board to complain about the lack of a living wage for all Chapel Hill employees. (According to the OCOC, a “living wage“ means earning at least $15.31 per hour.)

The lowest paid Chapel Hill municipal worker earns $11.79 per hour. The OCOC wants the Chapel Hill Councilors to commit to a minimum base wage of $13.00 per hour, or 15% less than a living wage. According to the OCOC, the town could meet this “less than living wage” by paying 49 employees (about 7% of the present employee base) about $88,108 more in total personnel expenditures.

In classic Orange Progressive fashion, the OCOC proposal ignores the fact that employees choosing to live ten miles away in a county with a lower cost of housing are still eligible for a living wage increase.

More importantly, there is no talk of redistributing the $46,230 spent on the average Chapel Hill town employee in FY 2009, an amount that has increased over 11% during the past two budget. In the context of the total town personnel expenditures, $100,000 is about 0.3% of the budgeted amount.

Instead of increasing taxes, why doesn’t the town redistribute 0.3% of the existing compensation spent on the highest quartile of municipal employees to the less than the bottom 10% of municipal employees making less than a living wage? Or is the principle of income redistribution not meant for municipal employees?

The loss of vibrant and independent journalism in Orange County is more dramatically revealed in 2009, a local election year. Local media outlets are suffering from self-inflicted wounds. Serving political pablum to their customers, the customers have turned to other outlets for more savory fare. The local media has been reduced to becoming real estate advertisers, and even that income was falling before the economic downturn as more buyers and sellers turned to the internet. The party guide masquerading as a news publication, the "Independent" is anything but independent. You can know who they endorse as soon as filing closes.

The election of an un-anointed Orange Progressive is the most dangerous act possible for the local media. Equipped with the bully pulpit of office, such a person could expose the in-the-tank stenography of the local media.

That danger was front and center in 2009. Chapel Hill Councilor Matt Czajkowski ran for mayor against the ultimate useless Orange Progressive, fellow councilor Mark Kleinschmidt A new local political blog was started (Chapel Hill Watch) by former media people. It was only a matter of time before the local media swung into action in support of Mr. Kleinschmidt against Mr. Czajokwski.

The N&O showed how far they have fallen by publishing a hatchet job first. Mr. Czajowski had been named in a baseless lawsuit that was dismissed without discussion. That was news enough for the N&O. Of course, if it had been Mr. Kleinschmidt, then it would not have been news. Just think of Ms. Koch’s concept of freedom of speech.

Over in Carrboro, the task was much easier. The local Carrboro birdcage liner, the Carrboro Citizen, accepted a $50,000 low interest loan from the incumbent town politicians up for election. The editor, Mr. Kirk Ross, swore that coverage wouldn’t be affected by the loan. Not one live interview was conducted of any non-incumbent candidate running for Carrboro office in 2009, EXCEPT for one with Mr. Slade, the anointed replacement for the abandoning Mr. Herrera. The best local media that town money can buy!

Further assurance of the corruptibility of the Carrboro Citizen can be seen in its most biased coverage of the candidates. Although no incumbent had a child in public school (they prefer using private schools outside of town), nary a word from the Citizen.

So egregious is the bias, Carrboro mayor Mark Chilton can spout total historical tripe as fact and nary a word from the local media.

The irresponsibility of the local media even extended to that great social engineering tool – global warming. Despite a published report that the great drought striking Orange County of 2005 to 2007 was not due to global warming but to population growth, none of the local media discussed that report.

Finally, the local media continued its golden silence over the former senator and former presidential candidate disaster known as Mr. John Edwards. Despite the nationally reported news that Mr. Edwards had sired a bastard with his former campaign videographer, the local media found no news value in that story.

The one ray of hope was the appointment of Mr. Dan Way as editor of the Chapel Hill Herald. Willing to practice journalism, he has become the pariah of every local politician in Chapelboro.

Chapelboro has been, is, and always will be a company town. Chapelboro exists at the whim of UNC. So if you live in Orange County, expect your pocketbook will be picked to support UNC even if you don’t work there.

Last year Carrboro gave a nice special gift to UNC, this year it’s Chapel Hill’s turn. One of the high wage Carolina North UNC planners moved from the UNC payroll to the town payroll. The job, she will lead Carolina North through the town approval process.

The Pulp forecasted that the UNC Airport site will circle back and land at Carolina North. Only time will tell on the accuracy of that forecast.

One thing’s for sure. In Orange County, if UNC really wants it, then UNC’s going to get it.

Clearly there is little hope for any substantive change in a badly flawed Orange Progressive form of government. Nationally, with progressives celebrating the election of an equally incompetent group of progressives in the nation’s capital, the concept of local political administrations being faultless was extended to the national scene.

In the zany world of Orange County, there’s little hope for any change in local government in the foreseeable future, as shown by the 2009 local elections. Any society, like Orange County, based on ignoring the cause of real problems and shooting the messenger for pointing out the problems, is doomed to muddle through. But for the economic largesse of UNC, Orange County would have financially imploded a long time ago.

Finally, this year saw a continuation of the mythical falsehood about Orange County seeking a self-sufficient existence. With UNC as THE economic engine, Orange County, in general, and Chapelboro, in particular, plainly and clearly suck the fiscal marrow from the bones of 99 other counties in North Carolina. Locavores clamoring for a “local living economy” and the development rights of rural buffers being taken for increased urbanization don’t change that fact.

So bring on the new decade, and let’s see what zaniness is in store for 2010!

Even with the cutting edge news and analysis of Squeeze the Pulp, it’s easy for those having a real life to lose track of the swirl of political events in Orange County. What may seem to be a string of inconsequential or unrelated incidents may actually reveal something more when looked at over time, Like repetitive rains carving erosion gullies in lovely Orange County red clay, after a while incompetence, inefficiencies, and unintended consequences can change the landscape in which you live.

The Orange Progressive politicians who looked down their noses at for-profit economic development awoke in 2008 from a long dream, a dream about how Orange County lives in an economic bubble different from the rest of North Carolina. “There will be no WalMarts or Costcos in Chapelboro”. Orange County could afford for decades to turn aside big box stores and national chains… until 2008. Facing informative election campaigns from political upstarts, the facts started to be exposed. Orange County suffers from massive “retail leakage”.

Orange County could have avoided having the highest tax rates in North Carolina if those living here shopped here. The reason they don’t is because 20 years of retail snobbery finally caught up to local politicians when the government sponsored “Ponzi residential growth scheme” collapsed. What’s that? Every home built in Orange County for the past 20 years has cost existing residents higher taxes. The dirty little secret is that due to imbalanced growth excluding those national chains and big boxes, every time the front door opened on a new residence, existing citizens owed more money to pay for the municipal demand of that new residence. When the growth slowed, past bills became due. In 2008, less and less new home buying “investors” joined the Ponzi scheme to cushion the blow.

Amazingly, not one Orange Progressive pundit or local media stenographer assigned any blame to any incumbent elected official. The hallmark of progressivism in Orange County is “failure is an option”. Here, no one is ever held responsible for failure or mismanagement.

Case in point of failure, look at the pathetic local efforts at economic development, or “ED” for short. – While Orange County labors under four separate ED bureaucracies at a combined cost of over $500,000 per year, little is done in the way of attracting businesses that offer living wages and career opportunities. In Carrboro a long time music studio pulls the plug, followed by Mr. Frank Papa, a long time user and promoter of public ED funds, moving his business from Carrboro to Chapel Hill after using Carrboro taxpayers’ money. Now that’s classic Chapelboro hypocrisy!

Not to be out-trumped by Carrboro, Orange County’s ED office advocated negotiating a discount for county employees at local stores, a discount not available to you.

Failure is most definitely an option, as the local media continues to serve as a lapdog. Not one local media ED story addressed who created the current ED mess in which Orange County exists.

Tearjerker laurels must rest on the shoulders of the affordable housing canard. Rather than ask UNC and local businesses to pay a living wage, local politicians want to create a new non-governmental bureaucracy to administer an affordable housing fiefdom, a fiefdom paid for by you, not UNC.

In the beginning of 2008, local governance boards admitted that land developers couldn’t really create affordable housing by accepting cash for actual units on the ground. Next, they admitted that the affordable housing model was financially flawed, inadequate provision had been made for maintenance costs of the affordable housing fiefdom. In its continued role as lapdog, the local media failed to inform you that after seven years of intense affordable housing policymaking, the median Chapelboro home values had reached 14 times the median income, but in the county kept pace with that same median income.

In 2008, it was another banner year to be a pal of the local governance boards. Good deals were available for pals. The Developer Dream Team of Roger Perry, John Fugo, D.R. Bryan, and Rosemary Waldorf (all big names for development deals in 2009) scored the big one, landing the Buckhorn Village mega project on I-85/I-40. Orange County officials cooperated immensely by their concerted series of actions designed to force the current landowner to see the light and to sell out to the only real game in town.

But even little developers could reap big benefits.

In Carrboro, the cost of parking for business district developers was shifted to the public. Carrboro also showered gifts onto the developer of the Butler building. Once the package was approved, the CUP owners turned around and put the project up for sale. Who cares about the mess left for those in Carrboro?

Chapel Hill looked at lending the public’s bond rating to private developers for an apartment complex. Such action is not surprising considering that Chapel Hill gives a million dollar tax exemption to a retirement home for the well-to-do.

Not to be outdone in governmental generosity, Orange County refused to burden land developers with the real cost of their development to government. Although commishes could have raised impact fees almost four times in Chapelboro and three times in the county to reflect those true costs, they settled for about doubling them.

Most importantly, a warning shot was fired at those standing in the way of development interests. If you have a piece of land a town wants developed, then heaven help you. As usual, such governmental thuggery flowers in Carrboro.

Although Chapelboro politicians rave about their foresight in creating a malleable rural buffer limiting the physical boundaries of growth, they remain as silent as possible about what will happen within that boundary. Most people living in Chapelboro twenty years ago weren’t told that the towns would double in population so soon. Today, they are not being told that they may double again if densification land use policies being promoted by town governance boards reach their full potential. You may not want to live in a town of 200,000, but what you want doesn’t matter. Sadly, Chapelboro is hooked on the unsustainable policy of growth for growth's sakes.

A bad political idea never dies in Orange County. It remains undead, ready to reappear or mutate in another guise. As seen in 2008, local citizens are overwhelmingly against a local transfer tax on the sale of real estate. However, what you want doesn’t matter here.

Expect a re-emergence of the tax in 2009.

The malfeasance and misfeasance of local politicians can’t occur without the vigorous support of local pundits willing to sell themselves at the going local rate. Orange County is no exception.

The local media appointed Ms. Ruby Sinreich to the position of local political analyst. Ms. Sinreich, a local bourgeoise rentier who never met a government that shouldn’t shower her with favors, promptly called for the eradication of capitalism in Chapelboro.

Ms. Sinreich followed up on that historic pronouncement with a shameless campaign to badger a free junketeering trip to Ann Arbor, Michigan form the local Chamber of Commerce. On the micro interest, Orange Progressive environmental side (just don’t develop it in my backyard), Mr. Dave Otto was quoted this year as being against creekside development of a daycare center at Winmore, the horribly delayed and unbuilt mixed use village project in northern Carrboro. Too bad, they didn’t look in their own archives to find Mr. Otto joyously

supporting that development just one year earlier.

Putty-like punditry at an affordable price, that’s Orange Progressivism at its finest.

OWASA exists to provide water and sewer service for UNC and Chapelboro land developers. At any meeting you can find UNC representatives asking only one question, will UNC have to pay more? (Of course, the answer is rarely “yes”.) When drought again struck Orange County, there was never any question that OWASA would stop digging more deep holes for UNC and land developers. In OWASA’s words, they exist to serve the towns. So it should come as no surprise that OWASA used capital revenues (hookup fees) to pay for operating expenses, thus lowering the UNC and town water bills. Nor should it be a surprise when local residents responded to OWASA’s pleas to reduce water use, they were rewarded with significantly higher fee rates (17%).

In the words of Carrboro’s mayor and pseudo-progressive land developer, Mr. Mark Chilton, the problem with water supplies in Orange county is not due to land developers and town governance boards wanting Manhattan densities, but to residents who don’t live as if in a desert.

Orange County loves to embrace diversity, not real diversity, but cosmetic diversity. What matters is people having different ethnicities while thinking the same thoughts and having similar beliefs. Diversity of thought is not welcome.

So the wagons were circled in 2008 when an elected official with an independent mind arrived onto the local political scene, one who questioned the municipal staff (heavens!) and looked for alternative ways of increasing the efficiency of government. Mr. Matt Czajkowski quickly became the local pariah, asking the dirty question, shouldn’t the people living in Chapel Hill decide how big it gets?

Waste not and you won’t get more. That’s the mantra of Orange County governments, who never met a tax or a benefit that they didn’t like. Despite the economic downturn of 2008, local government is unrelenting in its pursuit of “unexcellence”. Who cares if your taxes have doubled in the past decade? Carrboro made a 5% tax increase, using a large increase in debt to cover their tracks. More importantly, the similar town of Boone, North Carolina, shows the bloat that is the boutique government of Carrboro.

Hillsborough announced an 11% tax increase.

Chapel Hill announced a 10% tax increase for 2008, referred to by the local media as a nickel increase, which sounds so much better. Part of the tax increase went to important jobs like a public arts administrator .

All in all, Orange County helped lead the way in the real job growth industry in Orange County, local government hiring.

Meanwhile, dozens of government officials (over 40) took a junket at your expense. But don’t you worry, local officials stood ready to send the country into deeper debt building important infrastructure projects like sidewalks and a footbridge.

Zany is as zany does.

This year may not have the defense by local politicians of a man twirling bricks in a public place endangering children, or the election of a man who tried to run over a woman in a public park who lied to the police about it (Alderman Dan Coleman), but it did have its bright spots. Chapel Hill politician Mark Kleinschmidt defended an exhibitionist, public micturator and fecal smearer.

The Carrboro BOA defended the right of a careless parent to endanger the life of an infant by stuffing them into a car about to be towed because it violated the parking rules of an apartment complex.

Chapel Hill town staff waited until one of their bus drivers had their tenth moving violation and multiple bus accidents before firing that employee.

For 2008, the top award has to go to Orange County government. They finally admitted to the loss of tens of millions of dollars. No fraud or embezzlement was involved, just good old fashioned bungling and incompetence.

Local governance boards are out of touch with the economic realities of families struggling to make financial ends meet. No better example can be found than that of the Chapel Hill governance board voting to give itself free lifetime healthcare benefits after serving only eight years in a part-time job.

Their excuse, “well Orange County does it, so why can’t we?” The fact that it’s probably illegal is of no consequence, as no local judicial authority would ever haul any local governance board into court. That’s not what pals do to each other. The blame for this debacle was clear to town leaders, it's those darn “Chapel Hill Republicans”.

And who can forget Commish Mike Nelson getting his cavities filled in Tijuana on the public dollar. The concept of public service is dead in Orange County, if it ever existed.

Nowhere can the loss of vibrant and independent journalism be more readily seen than in Orange County in 2008.

Local media outlets are suffering from self-inflicted wounds. Serving political pablum to their customers, the customers have turned to other outlets for more savory fare. The local media has been reduced to becoming real estate advertisers, and even that income was falling before the economic downturn as more buyers and sellers turned to the internet. So there’s little wonder that the local media throw their support behind every initiative that helps land developers and their political minions and costs average citizens. Despite a costly education campaign, voters turned down a real estate property tax supported by the local media. “Coincidentally”, the local media waited until after the vote to announce home sales declines, sales which were used to support the arguments for the tax. Meanwhile, while drumming up support for a local option sales tax, the local media dutifully announced a shortfall in sales taxes.

Sometimes the local media is backed into a corner and must tell at least a half truth. In 2008, the local media at last had to admit the presence of gangs in Orange County. With the death of the popular UNC student president, Ms. Eve Carson, the existence and influence of gangs could no longer be swept under the rug as the media had in the past. In the last municipal election of 2007 some candidates were lampooned by incumbents and the media for suggesting that gangs were present in Orange County. Just one year later the truth can’t be hidden, so it’s fudged. Local politicians are praised for uncovering the gang presence! The big lie works every time in any place without substantial political opposition.

The local media blamed the 2008 economic downturn for the repercussions of mismanaged growth, and not their pals, the local politicians. They praised them as being ”tough on taxes” as they rolled over for developers on raising impact fees.

However, the biggest failure of the local media involved local presidential candidate John Edwards' love child. Incredibly the local media sat on the biggest local story of 2008.

Watchdogs have become lapdogs.

Chapelboro has been, is, and will be a company town. Chapelboro exists at the whim of UNC. So if you live in Orange County, expect your pocketbook will be picked to support UNC even if you don’t work there.

Carrboro continued to shower money on UNC. Although Carrboro will not get any development benefits from the massive Carolina North UNC development project, it paid over $250,000 for the construction of a new OWASA sewer line to Carolina Commons, the new UNC residential complex north of Homestead Road.

Chapel Hill gave UNC a tax break for land owned by the UNC foundation at the corner of Homestead and Airport Drive. Orange County gave UNC a super deal on natural gas from the Eubanks Road landfill. Whereas, comparable deals elsewhere had paybacks of about ten years, the UNC deal has a 100 year payback.

Most importantly, Chapel Hill is tailoring its land use policies in response to UNC trustees who are heavily involved in local development. Mr. Roger Perry, developer of Meadowmont, announced that UNC wants to densify the Chapel Hill downtown with residences. That densification will be done outside the normal UNC bond construction program.

In Orange County, if UNC really wants it, then it’s going to get it.

Clearly there is little hope for any substantive change in a badly flawed Orange Progressivise form of government. While nationally progressives were assigning blame to the Bush administration for everything, from the local weather to individuals living high on the hog, local political administrations remain faultless.

In the zany world of Orange County there’s is little hope for any change in local government in the foreseeable future. Any society like Orange County, one based on ignoring the cause of real problems, that shoots the messenger for pointing out the problems, is doomed to muddle through. But for the economic largesse of UNC, Orange County would have financially imploded a long time ago.

Finally, this year saw a continuation of the mythical falsehood about Orange County seeking a self-sufficient existence. With UNC as THE economic engine, Orange County, in general, and Chapelboro, in particular, plainly and clearly sucks the fiscal marrow from the bones of 99 other counties in North Carolina. Locavores and rural buffers don’t change that fact.

So bring on 2009!