Daisy fleabane is drought-tolerant and attracts goldfinches. Photo by Ken Moore.

They began flowering weeks ago and they are still making a show along roadsides and wherever folks allow them on their lawns and in their gardens.

I give native daisy fleabane, Erigeron annuus, freedom to grow wherever it suits itself in my wild landscape. Masses of tiny white daisy flowers on multi-branching stems, three to five feet tall, cheer up my yard and garden areas for weeks and weeks. This year, they’re flowering in profusion everywhere, in spite of the continuing drought.
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Jennifer Curtis finds ways for sustainable growers of North Carolina to keep farming and raises chickens in the backyard of her Carrboro home. Photo by Valarie Schwartz.

Even with 90 pages left to read, this column acknowledges the affect of Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma on yet another previously unconscious grocery shopper.

That I started shopping in health food stores in the early 1980s and have supported farmers’ markets in money and words and have been a longtime Weaver Street Market member did not truly make me aware until my neighborhood book club read the tome that has opened eyes across the nation since its 2006 publication. The book was a winner of the New York Times Book Review’s “One of the 10 Best Books of the Year” award.
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by Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Neil Pedersen said on Wednesday his recent decision to replace Jeff Thomas as principal of Carrboro High School was based on unsolicited feedback from staff and parents, as well as the results of surveys that indicated both students and teachers were unhappy with their experiences at Carrboro High.

The district announced last week that Thomas was reassigned to the district’s central office and that Rodney Trice, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction, will serve as interim principal. The release announcing the change did not indicate why Thomas was being replaced.
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by Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

The Orange County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a $183 million budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year, including a 4.8-cent property tax rate increase.

The increase sets this year’s tax rate at 99.8 cents per $100 of property valuation, representing a 5 percent hike over the current 95-cent rate.
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by Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

At a public hearing Tuesday night at Town Hall, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen delved into the details of a proposed five-story condominium and commercial complex on Brewer Lane adjacent to the Libba Cotton Bike Path.

“The Butler,” which is planned for the site now occupied by Butler’s Garage at 120 Brewer Lane, would include 57 condominiums and 22,170 square feel of commercial space and a two-level parking deck. Access to the complex would be through the existing parking lot of 110 Brewer Lane, home to a Tae Kwon Do studio and small condominium complex. Under an agreement between the two property owners, the parking lot would be expanded at 110 Brewer Lane with more spaces and improved stormwater systems in addition to the access route to The Butler’s underground garage.
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The Durham County Sheriff’s Department Bomb Squad destroyed a suspicious package left in the middle of East Rosemary Street near Henderson Street Tuesday evening.

According to the Chapel Hill Police Department, a witness saw a white male between the ages of 20 and 25 place a small package in the middle of the street and walk away in a suspicious manner, leaving the area in a light-colored Volkswagen Jetta. Chapel Hill Police responded to a call about a suspicious package at about 6:30 p.m. and restricted pedestrian and vehicular traffic to the area for about four hours. The Durham County Sheriff’s Department Bomb Squad destroyed the package, which was not a bomb, according to police.
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Stop by the new Weaver Street Market on Friday at 5:30 p.m. and you could be witness to the first known store opening to include a baguette cutting in the history of Hillsborough.

In celebration of the opening of the new market — the cooperative’s third — dignitaries, including Mayor Tom Stevens, will gather around for the slicing through of a specially constructed six-foot-long baguette.
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Thursday, June 26

Cat’s Cradle: mewithoutYou, Maps & Atlases, Telescreen. 8pm
Blue Horn Lounge: Blue Diablo’s Pete Waggonner. 9pm
Local 506: Russian Circles, Daughters. 9:30pm
The Cave: EARLY: Lauderdale. LATE: Brett Harris w/ Joanna Lynne.
General Store Café: Bo Lankenau & Friends. 8:30pm
Weaver Street Market: The Tim Smith Band. 6pm
Blue Bayou Club: Lisa Kyle Acoustic. 8:30pm
Reservoir: The Here We Go Boys, The Dirty Little Heaters. 10pm
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The OWASA board’s Budget and Financial Planning Committee last week agreed to recommend a combined water and sewer rate increase of 17 percent, instead of the previously proposed 24 percent increase.

In addition, the committee recommended that OWASA carefully monitor water and sewer revenues and defer some budgeted expenses until it is clear that demand and revenues will be sufficient.
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by Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

The Orange County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday set a public hearing regarding a possible referendum for a quarter-cent sales tax increase for Aug. 19.

Voters defeated a 0.4 percent land transfer tax referendum by about 2 to 1 in May. In last year’s state budget, the Legislature gave counties the option of a 0.4 percent land transfer tax or a quarter-cent sales tax increase to help compensate for money taken away from counties in a deal to turn responsibility for paying Medicaid over to the state.
As a result of the budget deal, counties lost state-supplied school construction money this year and will lose some sales tax revenue in coming years.
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by Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

The House Finance Committee is scheduled to take up legislation today (Thursday) that would allow the University of North Carolina and UNC Health Care to create an airport authority.

Rules for the authority and its structure are contained within the university system’s capital projects bill, which passed the state Senate last week. It would allow constituent institutions of the system and UNC Health Care the right to obtain property and construct and operate an airport.

UNC officials have said they intend to try and find another site for an airport to replace Horace William Airport in order to use land on which the current airport is located for Carolina North.

Since closing the airport was proposed, legislators have been cool to the idea, in part because of opposition by private pilots and in part due to pressure from supporters of the Area Health Education Centers, which has planes based at the airport.
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Hillsborough lawyer and land surveyer Steve Yuhasz won a runoff for the Democratic primary for the new District 2 seat on the Orange County Board of Commissioners.

Yuhasz beat Leo Allison, gathering 1,486 votes, or 55.7 percent, of the total to Allison’s 1,183 votes, or 44.3 percent. Yuhasz had also won the previous round in a four-way contest, but failed to reach a high enough threshold to win the nomination outright. Allison called for the runoff.
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The Carrboro Police Department seeks assistance in locating the wanted suspect Aaron Michael Fricke. He is a white male born June 2, 1987 and wanted for several counts of felonious breaking and entering, larceny after breaking and entering and possession of stolen property. He is 6’3” tall and weighs approximately 150 pounds. Call the Carrboro Police Department at 918-7397 or Crime Stoppers at 942-7517 with information.

Licensing fees for unsterilized dogs and cats will increase by $20 for residents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, effective July 1.

Fees will increase to $50 for Carrboro residents and to $35 for Chapel Hill residents. The increase is part of the Orange County Animal Services Department’s efforts to alleviate pet overpopulation in the county and will go toward the newly created Community Spay and Neuter Fund, which will provide low-cost spay and neuter options for qualifying Orange County residents.
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The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education last week voted to build the district’s 11th elementary school in the Northside neighborhood in downtown Chapel Hill.

The elementary school is scheduled to open at the site between Caldwell and McMasters streets in the fall of 2011.
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