By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

CHEESE IT — Volunteers dish out the cheese samples for some of the thousands who visited Chapel Hill Creamery and other local farms on this year’s Piedmont Farm Tour. Photo by Kirk Ross

Nothing like good weather to boost prospects around the farm, and for the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association’s annual spring farm tour a beautiful weekend certainly helped.

Roland McReynolds, CFSA’s executive director, said the tour is going to be a record breaker.

“It was a fantastic weekend, outstanding for CFSA and for sustainable agriculture in our area,” McReynolds said. “We’re still tallying up the numbers but we had 2,000 people on the tour last year and 7,400 farm visits, and we expect to far exceed those numbers.”

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By Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer

Jamie Bishop

For Jacques Morin, it was exactly that – a coin toss – that brought him to Chapel Hill, which is where he met Jamie Bishop. Bishop, 35, a former Carrboro resident and UNC IT technician, was one of the 32 people shot and killed by Cho Seung-hui at Virginia Tech last week.

Morin is associate director at the UNC Office of Arts and Sciences Information Services (OASIS),
in charge of academic computing and educational technology. Some years ago, while working oversees, he was tasked to come to the States to look at classroom designs.

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PROUD POP STARS — Michael Rank and John Howie Jr. have new children to tend to. Both have recently entered fatherhood and, together, they’ve just launched a new label, 8th House Records. Photo Courtesy of 8th House Records

Howie and Rank launch new label this weekend

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

For Michael Rank, the idea of starting a record label was about as far from the top of his to-do list as it gets.

“It’s right at the top of the list of things I said I’d never do,” he said in a recent interview.

Never say never, especially when the person asking is someone like John Howie Jr., band leader for the honky-tonking Two-Dollar Pistols and, for the past few years, drummer for Rank’s hard-rocking Snatches of Pink.

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Your best landscape plants may already be in place

By Ken Moore

A group of folks on the Haw River Assembly’s Earth Day walk along the new Haw River Natural area this past Saturday were happy to discover one of those pawpaw patches described in last week’s Citizen. A few of the flowers had survived the recent cold, so the walkers got a good look at the seldom-noticed burgundy flowers, and, sure enough, the main tree had suckered so that numerous stems had indeed formed a patch.

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By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

The Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 on Tuesday to approve a plan that would provide $2.267 million toward the development of soccer fields at the West Ten soccer complex in Efland.

Nearly 40 residents from the southern part of the county showed support for the development of four full-size fields at the Twin Creeks park in Carrboro prior to the construction of the West Ten project, citing higher population density and demand for soccer fields in the southern part of the county.

By contrast, northern county residents spoke in favor of the West Ten complex because of the lack of fields in the northern part of the county.

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Former aprtments along Todd Street are being rennovated as condominiums. Photo by Kirk Ross

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

By a vote of 4 to 2 the Carrboro Board of Aldermen approved a plan to close the Todd Street right-of-way and put the short downtown street into private hands.

The board acted after a public hearing on a request by Todd Street LLC, developers of The Flats. The group has bought the 32-unit Todd Street apartment complex and refurbished it into small condominiums. The developer wants the 560-foot-long street to belong to the condominium association so that the owners can configure the parking lot and assign specific
parking spaces.

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By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

The clock could start ticking on a six-month development moratorium on roughly 3,700 acres on the north side of Carrboro.

The Orange County Board of Commissioners are expected to take up the proposed moratorium passed by Carrboro earlier this month. If the county approves the plan, the moratorium would take effect.

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Photo by Kirk Ross

Close to 80 local realtors from a variety of firms joined what has become an annual bus tour of new development in Chatham County on Monday. Itinerary for the two-bus tour of Chatham included visits with school officials and stops in more than a dozen new and proposed developments
off U.S. 15-501, Jones Ferry Road and Mt. Camel Church Road, among others.

By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

The Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday decided to appoint a task force that will develop and recommend improvements to the historic Rogers Road community.

The board in March voted to develop a solid waste transfer station at the site of the Eubanks Road landfill in the Rogers Road neighborhood. As part of the development plan, the board approved an effort to address concerns regarding the community and make enhancements to the neighborhood.
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By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

The annual town budget rolls out next week, and look for at least one disappointing number — a drop in sales tax revenue from the 1 percent local-option sales tax.

Carrboro Town Manager Steve Stewart said he’s putting the final touches on a new budget he plans to put before the Board of Aldermen for review next Tuesday.

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By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer
Don’t be alarmed if you see a chicken strolling down the sidewalk in downtown Carrboro.
Carrboro resident Phillip Duchastel has five pet chickens, one of which was “hijacked” this weekend, he said. His chickens live with him on Oak Avenue.

Duchastel said one of his chickens was walking around the neighborhood close to his house when it was spotted by a concerned passerby, who called Carrboro Animal Control.

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UNC News Services

The percentage of North Carolinians under the age of 65 who lacked health insurance for a year has risen from 15.3 percent in 2000 to 17.2 percent in 2005. The proportion of uninsured residents ranged from a low of 13.4 percent in Wake County to a high of 27.5 percent in Tyrrell County.

Lack of health insurance is a particularly acute problem in Eastern North Carolina; nine of the 10 counties with the highest proportion of uninsured lie east of Interstate 95.

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Tethering committee member resigns citing article

The animal welfare and health expert on the Orange County Tethering Committee resigned on Monday, citing a “series of death threats … from unknown persons.”

The tethering committee was created by the county board of commissioners to work with the Animal Services Advisory Board to determine if changes should be made to the tethering laws under the county’s animal ordinances.

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Thanks students

Even the most curmudgeonly among us know that this community always gets a boost from the enthusiasm brought in by the young people attending the university.

This week they buckle down for exams and next week they prepare to bid us adieu. The year has not ended well, first with the sudden loss of Jason Ray, a beloved member of the cheerleading team and the man in the Ramses suit. Within weeks they were mourning again in tearful solidarity with their counterparts in Blacksburg.

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By Chris Fitzsimon 

As the immigration debate rages on in Washington and North Carolina with an eye toward the 2008 elections, the rhetoric grows more disturbing, especially from the virulent anti-immigrant groups and the candidates pandering to them, even ones who had reasonably open minds on the issue just a few months ago.

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