It is entirely appropriate to take a moment or two out of March Madness to appreciate a frenzy of activity of a different kind.

Just a short drive out Jones Ferry, Old Greensboro, N.C. 54 or Mount Carmel, there are people hard at work nurturing seedlings, weeding through coldframes, getting crops in the field and preparing the land for another rotation.
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By Robert Dickson
Staff Writer

This is the column where I’m supposed to tell you that this isn’t my grandfather’s newspaper. He’s the gentleman you see in the photo accompanying this piece. He and my grandmother started a paper in Raeford, bought another one and merged them into The News-Journal in 1928.

The more I think about it, however, The Carrboro Citizen that I envision is just an updated version of The News-Journal of 79 years ago.

What community newspapers are supposed to do is keep up with the normal workings of a town. Sure, we’re going to cover the unusual and the sensational but we’re not going to create the news TV-style or twist some story into something it isn’t.
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Well, nothing lasts forever. That’s essentially the message of a couple of upcoming local screenings — the “nothing forever” in question being the good life, as we’ve heretofore known it, here in the U.S. of A.

On Sunday, March 25, from 1:00 to 5:00, the Community Church of Chapel Hill Unitarian Universalist will be hosting a screening and discussion of What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire from Chatham County filmmakers Sally Erickson and Tim Bennett. This documentary examines our capacity for denial, and the urgency to confront that denial, as we relentlessly pursue this wholly unsustainable lifestyle, and as our physical world just keeps tumbling down. A discussion with Erickson and Bennett will follow.
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Tests show powder sent to campaign not harmful

According to preliminary test results from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services lab, white powder contained in a letter that arrived at John Edwards’ presidential campaign headquarters in Southern Village on March 14 was not harmful.

Edwards’ staff evacuated the building after a staff member opened the letter and white powder spilled out. The offices reopened on March 15 after preliminary tests on the powder revealed no chemical or biological agents.

The FBI is investigating the case.

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Blunden with N.C. State Energy Office Director Larry Shirley.

By Mary Beth Bardin
Staff Writer

Whether he’s riding his bike to work in rain or shine, advising councils on environmental issues or designing affordable co-housing communities, Giles Bluden is always thinking about sustainability.

That’s why on March 8, Blunden, president of Blunden Studio, a green architecture firm in Carrboro, received one of two N.C. Sustainable Energy Leadership Awards for Environmental Stewardship.

Larry Shirley, director of the North Carolina State Energy Office, presented Blunden with the award during a luncheon banquet at the N.C. Sustainable Energy Conference in Raleigh.

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The Orange County Board of Commissioners on March 13 postponed a vote on the site of the county’s future waste transfer station, requesting more information from solid waste director Gayle Wilson and County Manager Laura Blackmon.

The board is considering three transfer station sites, including two sites off U.S.  70 in the Eno Economic Development District along with the Eubanks Road landfill. The landfill will reach capacity in 2010. The county plans to set up the transfer station to transport its solid waste out of county.
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You hold in your hands the inaugural edition of The Carrboro Citizen. (You folks reading from afar on the Web, well, you’ll just have to imagine it.)

This is not the first newspaper based in Carrboro. Roland Giduz rang us up the other day to talk newspaper history and remind us that he had a little paper in the early 1950s based out of the building at 306 East Main Street where Surplus Syd’s is now located. His paper, the Chapel Hill News Leader’s motto was “Leading with the news of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Glen Lennox.” The pressman did show up the first day with a zinc plate that said “Carrboro News” on it, Giduz said. But it wasn’t used.
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The Carrboro Board of Aldermen set the date on a public hearing on proposed changes to the town’s land use ordinances that could ease the way forward for residential and mixed-use projects downtown.

The board is studying a revision that would swap requirements for open and recreational space for residential developments downtown for “urban amenities” like public art, plazas, fountains and greenspace.

The way the rules are written, all residential developments are required to set aside 40 percent of the total land used for open space and recreation amenities. The requirement has made it difficult for several downtown projects to move forward because the inclusion of residential units in the developments triggers the open space rule.

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Representatives from Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools on Tuesday presented their capital funding needs to the Orange County Board of Commissioners.

Steve Scroggs, Chapel Hill-Carrboro superintendent of support services, projected that CHCCS will need $136 million over the next ten years to keep up with growth in the district. Orange County Schools superintendent Shirley Carraway presented a plan that estimates OCS will need $11 million over the same time period.

According to Scroggs, growth projections for Chapel Hill and Carrboro indicate that the district will need three new elementary schools, one new middle school and an addition to Carrboro High School in the next ten years.

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The Carrboro Board of Aldermen will open a public hearing Tuesday on plans for a six-month development moratorium on nearly 4,000 acres north of town.

The hearing is scheduled during the board’s regular meeting at Town Hall, which begins at 7:30 p.m. (Check www.carrborocitizen.com for exact times and details).

Mayor Mark Chilton said the moratorium is aimed at giving the town’s new advisory board for the area time to look at the pace and type of development in the area and work on changes to the town’s land use plan.

There are two things driving the moratorium effort, Chilton said Tuesday evening.

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As the war on Iraq entered its fifth year this week, our community observed this somber occasion with several actions.

On Monday night, a vigil was held in front of the post office on Franklin Street. Carrboro Citizen photographer Isaac Sandlin was there. He tells us: “It was really quiet out there. The people keeping vigil were taking turns reading from a collection of personal accounts of soldiers who have been killed in the war, written by the people closest to them. Each account was followed by a moment of silence. The sound of passing cars often swallowed that of the reader. The silence was also occasionally broken by a honk of support or a scream of protest from passing vehicles.”
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Alamance farmers Alex and Betsy Hitt look over seedlings in their greenhouse.

Sheila Neal is as calm as a mother can be while her son Hank, an affable toddler, sends the last few carrots on his plate floorward. And she’s remarkably calm when you consider the pace she been keeping in preparation for the opening of the Carrboro Farmers’ Market.

Neal, full-time market manager for three years, has been meeting with volunteers—there’s a roster of 20 this year—and getting the special events schedule finalized. Last week was full of the same, along with a string of meetings like a Thursday evening discussion with the market’s meat committee. Even though it’s the first market of the season, Neal said, there is going to be plenty waiting for the first round of customers.

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The Carrboro Board of Aldermen meet Tuesday ,March 20 at Town Hall, 301 West Main Stree. The meeting starts at 7:30 p.m. Audio, video and action summaries for past meetings are available on the town’s Web site within 12 to 18 hours at http://www.townofcarrboro.org/BoA/Agendas/boaAgendas.htm.

Tuesday’s agenda includes:

1. REQUESTS FROM VISITORS AND SPEAKERS FROM THE FLOOR
2. RESOLUTIONS AND PROCLAMATIONS
3. CONSENT AGENDA
   1. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meetings
   2. A Request to Dispose of the House on the MLK Park Property by Private Sale
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
   3. Request to Set a Public Hearing for the Permanent Closing of the Todd Street Right-of-Way
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
   4. Appointment to the Appearance Commission/NPDC
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
   5. Award of Contract for the Bolin Creek Watershed Study
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
   6. Additional Appointments to the Smith Level Road Task Force
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
   7. A Request to Approve a Budget Amendment for Facilitation Services from the Dispute Settlement Center
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
4. OTHER MATTERS
   1. Presentation by “Signal: The Southeast Electronic Music Festival”
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
   2. Report on Chapel Hill Transit Operations and Planning
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
   3. Request to Set a Public Hearing on a Land Use Ordinance Text Amendment to Establish Urban Amenity Space Requirements for Developments in the Downtown
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
   4. A Report on the Ecosystem Enhancement Program’s BMP Conceptual Plan for the Roberson and Carrboro Tracks Sites
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
   5. Discussion of Possible Revisions to the Draft Ordinance to Establish a Six-Month Moratorium on Many Development Projects in the Northern Study Area
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
   6. Additional Appointments to the Northern Study Area Plan Implementation Review Committee
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
   7. Discussion of an Appointment to the Planning Board
      • Additional Agenda Item Attachment
5. MATTERS BY TOWN CLERK
6. MATTERS BY TOWN MANAGER
7. MATTERS BY TOWN ATTORNEY
8. MATTERS BY BOARD MEMBERS