The Orange County Share Your Holiday and Toy Chest programs supported more than 2,500 children and families this past Christmas.

Through the Share Your Holiday program, the Orange County Department of Social Services paired 313 community sponsors with children or families and provided gifts to 514 children and elderly or disabled adults in the county. More »

Laura McIver Boggess, 25, of Carrboro, N.C. has been accepted into the Peace Corps.

Boggess departed for Guatemala on Jan. 9 to begin pre-service training as an environmental education Peace Corps Volunteer.

After graduation in April, Boggess will work with rural schools to integrate conservation and environmental awareness into the curriculum. More »

A few things to keep in mind

As has been reported, a formal complaint has been filed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency alleging a pattern of environmental racism on the part of local governments in the matter of the Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood. Such a complaint is serious business and should be thoroughly and properly addressed.

The review of this complaint and the process for resolving the dispute will take time and move at a federal pace. At the same time, the community has to move forward in a number of areas to settle questions about the future of the landfill, our solid-waste strategy and, most specifically, the siting of a waste transfer station. More »

In your “Town’s taco trucks in jeopardy” article on Jan. 24 article, Mayor Mark Chilton and Board of Aldermen member Jacquie Gist [said they] don’t understand why a complaint was filed against trucks selling prepared food from parking lots.

Gist writes, “I am worried by the real possibility that hard working entrepreneurs who are adding to our community could be put out of business and have their livelihood threatened. It is un-American and certainly un-Carrboro. If Carrboro cannot offer a welcoming home to immigrants trying to achieve the American Dream, then maybe I don’t know Carrboro as well as I think I do.” More »

Editor’s note: following is an open letter to the board of county commissioners.

Congratulations for reversing your earlier decision to unilaterally select the Eubanks Road area as the site for the new waste transfer station. That change of heart was a step in the right direction.

You are now embarking on a critical phase in the history of Orange County — the selection of the next waste-handling site. The future of this system is in your hands. The history of environmental racism regarding this issue is well established. It is time for you to break this cycle. More »

Robert Dickson

Our family’s Honduran holiday vacation was feeling like anything but a holiday.

Our bags had first been reported as late, then later, then stolen from the truck on which they had been sent from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba. “Hijacked” was the term used. And I had contracted the Honduran version of the two-step. More »

(via Mike Harris)

We got ‘em! Culbreth 60 - McDougle 51.

McDougle had not lost a game all year and did not lose a game all year last year as 7th graders. This was their last regular season game. They were playing at home with a chance to complete an undefeated two years. Culbreth, behind the outstanding play of Denzel Ingram, did not allow that to happen. More »

By Frank Heath
Sports Columnist

The current North Carolina basketball team has played its way into a situation resembling that of a chicken drumstick in those old Shake ‘N’ Bake advertisements: all covered with delicious coating and ready to be cooked up by the opposition for good eatin’.

Cuz if the Tar Heels don’t win — and play well — in their next stretch of three games against Boston College, Florida State and Duke, that’s how Jay Bilas and all the other college big-time basketball observers around the country are going to treat the Heels. They’re going to need to prove themselves with an exclamation point. More »

Update to story 1/26/08: Mayor Chilton posts a clarification, outline of the zoning issues and possible solutions offered by town planners on Orange Politics. Link.

After receiving an anonymous complaint, Carrboro officials notified three property owners that so-called “taco trucks” parked on their properties are not in compliance with local zoning rules and will need to cease operations.

The owners of Fitch Lumber, Cliff’s Meat Market and Johnny’s Sporting Goods were notified by letter last week that allowing the trucks to operate on their property puts them in violation of the town’s zoning ordinances. They were given seven days to shut down the trucks or face action from the town. The letter, dated January 17, stated that the businesses could appeal the decision through the town’s board of adjustment, a process that requires a $250 filing fee.

More »

Closed for the winter, it’s quiet around Univerity Lake these days. Though not nearly as drawn down as Cane Creek Reservoir, Assistant Lake Warden Robert Glosson says “you could harvest a lot of hay around here.” Photo by Kirk Ross.

The Orange Water and Sewer Authority will hold a public forum tonight (Thursday) regarding “The State of Our Local Water Supply,” to provide information and receive customers’ questions and feedback.

The forum will be held at 7 p.m. at the Chapel Hill Town Hall and will be televised live on local cable channel 18.

The forum will cover local water supply and demand and weather forecasts for coming months along with the short and long-term financial implications and the options, costs and timetable for addressing the worst-case drought scenario.

More »

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

A new five-story mixed-use development slated for the site of the old Andrews-Riggsbee hardware store won’t provide enough parking and will exacerbate a growing downtown parking crunch, residents and business owners told the Carrboro Board of Aldermen Tuesday night.

The comments came as the board opened a public hearing on the proposed Roberson Square project on North Greensboro Street that would span the block between Carr, Roberson and Maple streets. The project includes two floors of commercial space, with the ground level dedicated to retail and restaurants and the second floor office space, and three floors of residential space with 18 condominiums.

More »

After a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day tour of Barbee’s Chapel’s new education assistance center, Rev. Gene Hatley reflected on the need to do something within the community to address the acheivement gap. Photo by Kirk Ross.

By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

Ten years ago, Bishop Gene Hatley started thinking about a program run through the church to help educate the members of the African-American community.

The program would reach out to children and adults who needed help with reading, math or other skills.

Although Hatley – who serves as pastor of Barbee’s Chapel Missionary Baptist Church – tried to launch such a program several years ago, it was too small to succeed. But about a year ago, Hatley and other volunteers started work on a new program, Barbee’s Chapel Harvest Word Community Resource and Enrichment Centers, which will launch next month.

More »

American Beech leaves glistening gold everywhere. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore 

A small group of us were rewarded with some beautiful and dramatic surprises during our woods walk on the Adams Track this past Saturday afternoon. It was very cold, the rain began to fall, and it was two hours before the Tar Heel basketball game. It’s hard to believe that a small group of 11 adults and two lively youngsters would set off into the woods at the edge of Wilson Park at such a moment. But we did, and we were rewarded.

At the beginning of our adventure, I asked the two youngsters, Flora and Jasper, to serve as junior naturalists and lead us forward. Flora immediately initiated a game called “Find that Tree.” She beat us all to the base of the biggest of several sycamores and explained that she could find it because of the bark. We all admired the brilliant white upper trunks of the big trees brightening the dark gray day.
We left the big white trees behind down on the low ground as Flora ran ahead up hill into the piney woods to find leaves of different trees to show us. Young Jasper was proud to find a cone of one of the three different common pines, and that discovery was so important that it did not matter what pine it was.

More »

By Valarie Schwartz 

Having a library within walking distance of my childhood home fed my growing mind and kept me out of trouble. It even provided a safe place to break up with my first serious boyfriend. Throughout life, my local library was the place to go when bored or needing a lift — where there’s always something new waiting to be found.

Members of Friends of the Carrboro Branch Library know such facts about libraries. They knew it 20 years ago when they first started petitioning for one and have kept the knowledge fresh through the years since 1995, when the Carrboro Branch Library opened up inside McDougle Middle School.
They have been grateful for the library there, but they will not be satisfied until Carrboro lives down the statistic of being the largest town in North Carolina without a freestanding library.

More »

By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

Students and teachers were left saddened and bewildered after racially-charged comments led to a fight among three students at Carrboro High School last Thursday.

According to Principal Jeff Thomas, the fight broke out after a white student made racially charged comments to a black student. After faculty members broke up the fight, one of the students had to be taken to the hospital for injuries and was released later that evening.
According to a police report, the fight involved three offenders, including a 16-year-old black student, a 17-year old white student and a 15-year old black student. According to the report, two of the students fought while the third student struck one of the other students repeatedly.
The students have not yet been charged, according to Carrboro Police Captain J.G. Booker.

Possible charges include assault as well as ethnic intimidation.

More »