Rev. Robert Campbell says most people don’t even know what Rogers Road looks like. Photos by Isaac Sandlin

Be it further resolved

Vocal and vigilant, Rev. Robert Campbell and the Rogers Road community continue to demand justice

By Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer

“The church,” Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “is the place we go from.” Makes good sense to Rev. Robert Campbell.

The sanctuary of the Faith Tabernacle Oasis of Love Church is certainly no refuge for Robert Campbell. Outreach is his calling. For 34 years, Rev. Campbell has been ministering to the needs of a finely knit community on and around Rogers Road of, as Campbell observes, “many faces, many skills.”

It was in 1972—the year prior to Campbell’s arrival in the Rogers Road community—that the town of Chapel Hill bought a piece of land just north of town on Eubanks Road for the purpose of placing upon it a new landfill. (Rogers Road runs into Eubanks Road to the north and Homestead Road to the south.) The residents of this largely black community—many of whose families have lived there for generations—were told the landfill would be temporary, that in ten years or so it would be covered, a park placed upon it, and that their duty to the greater community would then be done, a new landfill would be located elsewhere.

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By By Erica Eisdorfer

Maybe I’m paranoid, but I think there’s a tendency for some readers to dismiss the whole genre of the historical novel. My paranoia may sprout from an experience I had about 20 years ago in Sweden. I was reading Kristen Lavransdatter, the saga-ized life of a 14th-century Norwegian girl, by Sigrid Undset. “Oh,” a cool Swedish guy said to me, “why are you reading that? It’s for old ladies!” I was too abashed to point out that the author had won the Nobel Prize, pretty much for that book alone. But maybe that was his point.

Was he intimating that having won a major literary award all but proved the book’s stodginess? No, he wasn’t thinking that hard about it. Instead, he knew that the book took place in the great Past and thus wasn’t part of his experience, and was thus irrelevant.

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The natural beauty of the Dogwood is under increasing competition from the Bradford Pear. Photo by Ken Moore

By Ken Moore

Approaching Carrboro along Jones Ferry Road is always a botanically joyful experience of viewing our seasonal wild flora from the spectacular flowering trees in the spring to the more subtle beauty of native grasses in the late summer and fall. Right now the roadsides are magical with the overlap of the flowering of the pink-colored redbuds (Cercis Canadensis) and the pure white of the dogwood tree (Cornus florida), the official state flower. Our North Carolina redbud and dogwood are just two of the numerous native plants that are ideal for urban and residential landscaping. Local nurseries and garden centers are well stocked right now with special cultivars of these two beauties. These cultivars, special forms of wild occurring plants, have been propagated by nurseries for sales to the admiring public, who always want to plant something special.

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You may have heard that one day the Orange County landfill on Eubanks Road will close and the plan is to have in its place a site for collecting and preparing for redistribution the county’s solid waste—scratch that—our solid waste.

From there the waste will be sent out of sight, but where it goes and the consequences of that decision on our part should not be out of mind.

As recently elected commissioner Mike Nelson noted upon the county decision to locate a waste transfer station at the landfill, we will not be shipping our waste to some “happyland with elves dancing.” No, more likely we’ll be shipping our waste to one of the very megadumps proposed for North Carolina that has many of us around here in an uproar.

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By Kirk Ross

Angry Suburban Ethos

As I write these words I can see the line just beyond the back fence where gently — for now — laps that rising tide known as the municipal limits of the town of Chapel Hill.

My neighbors and I know that one day we’ll be engulfed by that tide, absorbed into the town, offered its services and taxed accordingly. Some of us will go willingly or without struggle—others will put up a fight.

Such is the fate now of thousands of North Carolina homeowners each year as the urban boundaries in this urbanizing state swell. And while the number of us living unincorporated-style shrinks, so grows the ranks of angry suburbanites.

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By Barbara Bradley
Action for Children

The greatest long-term impact on the state can by made this year if our lawmakers work to ensure that North Carolina cares for all of its children. North Carolina policymakers have a strong tradition of enacting policies that are good for families, but growth in the number of children, the rapid pace of technology and transformation of the state’s economy present new challenges to state institutions and to our children. Action for Children North Carolina recommends legislators work on the following five priorities:

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By Chris Fitzsimon

The 2008 political season is somehow already upon us, whether we are ready for it or not. Virtually every day brings news from the presidential race and candidates are now announcing for governor and other statewide offices. There is already talk in political circles about the 2008 legislative races, even though the 2007 session is just two months old.

By now the conversation is familiar and has little to do with issues facing the state and nation. The New York Times reports this week that Sen. Hillary Clinton has raised $26 million in the first three months of the year, while former Sen. John Edwards has raised $14 million. Sen. Barack Obama has yet to release his fundraising totals, prompting national pundits to speculate that it could be a surprise, whatever that is.

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By Frank Heath
Sports Columnist

When the horn sounded late Sunday evening, ending the UNC Women’s basketball team’s quest for the ultimate college basketball glory one stop shy of the NCAA finals, it would have been difficult for any observer to not reflect back almost exactly a week, to a similar disappointing ending for the UNC Men’s hoops team.

The Tar Heel women, leading No. 3 Tennessee by 12 points with eight minutes left, proceeded to play their final 15 possessions without making a single basket. Eight missed shots, seven turnovers, no offensive rebounds and two Ivory Latta free throws later, Carolina had been outscored 20-2 at the end and gone down in a burning wreckage of a defeat, 56-50.

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If you’re one of those eternal optimists, feel free to view voter turnout numbers the conventional way.

But try turning the number around. For example, a 17 percent turnout actually means 83 percent of the registered voters stayed home. Depressing? Well, that’s peanuts compared to a new look at civic participation courtesy of our friends at Democracy N.C.

Bob Hall, the group’s director recently sent around a press release noting this state’s rankings compared to the other 49.

A few facts quoted in the release:

• Young adults are more likely to be binge drinkers than voters;
• Only two out of five adults [40.8 percent] bother to vote in the typical state election;
• North Carolinians age 18 to 25 are half as likely to vote as their grandparents;
• More men own guns than cast ballots.
• You can download the report and the Civic Participation Index at www.democracy-nc.org/improving/CPI.pdf

Keep up with the Warp and Woof of Carrboro and surrounding environs at The Mill—the official events, ideas and whatevah blog of The Carrboro Citizen. www.carrborocitizen.com/mill

 Nicole Atwater, 10 years old, completes a writing assignment with her tutor.  Photo by Allison Parker

By Allison Parker
Courtesy of the Carrboro Commons

McDougle program helps UNC students learn as well

Matthew Coplin, a 10-year-old fourth grader at McDougle Elementary School, says he wants to build things just like his father.

“My dad wants me to follow his dream,” he says. “I think I’ve got the building genes.”
Matthew looks up to his dad as his role model.

Suddenly, he busts out in a song about multiplication. “I have trouble memorizing my timetables,” he explains. “But I have cool rhymes that I use to make me learn them.”

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By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen approved a plan to set up a town greenways commission to study and plan for greenways along Morgan and Bolin creeks.

At its meeting Tuesday night at Town Hall, the board voted unanimously to follow the advice that came out of a greenway summit last fall attended by more than 50 residents.

The new commission will expand on work by the town’s Morgan Creek Trail Planning Committee to prepare a Morgan Creek project that would run from Smith Level Road to University Lake and a Bolin Creek greenway that would run from Estes Drive to Homestead Road.

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By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

At a joint meeting of local boards last week, Carrboro alderman Joal Hall Broun urged county and town leaders to develop an economic development plan in line with long-term goals and take a serious look at future revenue needs.

The Board of County Commissioners and the town boards of Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Hillsborough discussed economic development and heard from county economic development director Dianne Reid at the a meeting of the county’s Assembly of Governments in Chapel Hill.

“I hope the county, the town and other municipalities have some, what I call, definable goals that we can look at year after year to make sure we have enough tax revenue to do what we want to do,” Broun said.

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By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

The Orange Community Housing and Land Trust will need $3 million over the next 20 years in order to keep its homes maintained and affordable, director Robert Dowling told county leaders last week at the Orange County Assembly of Governments meeting.

“I wish I could tell you that we were doing both of those things very, very well,” Dowling said. “Our homes are not staying affordable to people who need to buy them.”

The land trust was created in 1999 to help low-to-moderate-income buyers purchase affordable, quality homes. Through the program, people who earn less than 80 percent of the area median income can buy homes at prices below market value because of government assistance provided to the land trust.

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Legislation introduced in the N.C. House would take Highlands neighborhood out of Carrboro

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

Residents of the Highlands neighborhood took their complaints about their recent contentious annexation into Carrboro to the legislature and the result, House Bill 1061, would reverse the inclusion of the neighborhood in the town limits.

And though the bill, filed last week by Rep. Bill Faison, who represents Orange and Caswell counties, is not given much of a chance of passage, longtime opponents of Carrboro’s moves say it sends an important message.

Katrina Ryan, a Highlands resident who ran for the Board of Aldermen in the last election, said the fact that 70 out of 93 households in the neighborhood signed on to a petition asking for the de-annexation bill shows how widespread the discontent is.

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Pamela Duncan, of Saxapahaw, has been awarded the James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South by the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

The award was presented March 30 at the Arts and Education Conference on Southern Literature in Chattanooga, Tenn. Duncan is the first woman to receive the award.

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