Last week in an op-ed Shana Becker of the N.C. Public Interest Research Group wrote for The Citizen titled “Well-intentioned bill would give utilities a blank check,” Becker stated, “the utilities also said that Shearon Harris would generate energy ‘too cheap to meter.’”

Becker has since contacted us to say that a representative of Progress Energy, in response to the piece, informed her that Progress Energy (formerly CP&L) has no record of saying Shearon Harris would be “too cheap to meter.” We hereby retract the observation.

Early voting site a necessity

The Board of Elections should reconsider the recommendation to eliminate the early-voting site on UNC’s campus this year and, instead, move early voting to the Senior Center on Homestead Rd.

For the past few elections, the early-voting site at Morehead Planetarium has provided a convenient voting opportunity to thousands upon thousands of students, staff, faculty and the members of the general public. In my opinion, it’s critical that we have an early-voting site on campus to serve the citizens who live, work and study there.

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A few significant errors found their way into print last week chief among them being our neglect in mentioning that Ilana Dubester’s essay on immigration policy (“Let’s stop pretending,” July 19, 2007) came to us courtesy of the wonderful Chatham County Line. You can visit this publication’s Web site at chathamcountyline.org/.

Our other glaring error was sending on Ken Moore’s Flora column without Marie Weiden last name and a proper headline, which should have read “Ruellia: Now you can say it in Latin.” Our fault, by the way, not Ken’s.

Cradle of what?
So the 100-member Grassroots Impeach Movement (GRIM) seeks to change Carrboro’s embraceable nickname, “Paris of the Piedmont,” to “Cradle of Impeachment” until the 2008 presidential election. I declined to comment when a local reporter (not from this paper) ran the idea by me last week. My immediate reaction would not have been fit to print.

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Editor’s note: We neglected to run this letter from our friend Roland Giduz in time for Hillsborough’s Hog Day festival, but its message is still clear. Here it is — with apologies for the delay.

It should be Hogg day
Everybody is happy about the occasion of the 25th annual Hog Day on June 15 in Hillsborough. It’s a fine celebration that has become the premiere festival in this Land of Orange.

But the sponsors are yet dreadfully missing the boat. It should rightfully and proudly also be celebrated as Hogg Day. By this homonym it would also recognize one of Hillsborough’s and North Carolina’s historically most important citizens - James Hogg.

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Land for Tomorrow needed

While legislators in the state House and Senate have been dickering over the budget this month, I’ve become increasingly worried that they’re taking their eyes off the future.

This state is booming, adding new people and businesses faster than ever and we’ve all seen evidence of runaway development. Where will it lead?   More »

Weaver Street Market’s move to Hillsborough
Our economy is, by design, dynamic. There is no such thing as stasis for a business; it is either growing or shrinking. Shrink too much and you are gone; likewise, grow too fast. Weaver Street Market exists because of the vision and acumen of Ruffin Slater. It is because of his social conscience and commitment to community that we have come to consider it a cultural institution. It is not. It is a business, and must make decisions and moves based upon maintaining its long-term health. The move to Hillsborough is somewhat disruptive, but growth is always disruptive. My understanding is that Weaver Street Market is working to provide or subsidize transportation to Hillsborough for the affected workers. How many other businesses would go that far? We should be incredibly thankful that we have Weaver Street Market in our community, and support it in the ongoing and increasingly difficult struggle to thrive in which all small businesses find themselves.

Berkeley Grimball
Carrboro

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Worried about move 

The scheduled move of Weaver Street Market’s food production facilities and offices to Hillsborough will result in a loss of around 80 jobs for Carrboro and have a detrimental effect on the town and the environment.

The environment impacts are the most obvious: 80 workers driving 24 miles each workday equals around 2,000 miles a day. That is a lot of carbon emission, and it doesn’t include the added distribution miles of having a non-centrally located production and office facility.

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 Yield to pedestrians

My wife and I live in the historic mill district of Carrboro. One of the charms of Carrboro, and the reason it’s such a nice place to live, is because of its pedestrian-friendly downtown.  Motorists in downtown understand this and give right-of-way to pedestrians as they cross the street. This courtesy if often not extended, however, to the crosswalk on N. Greensboro Street at Southern States. I know that this crosswalk is often used by residents in my neighborhood as they head downtown, yet cars rarely stop to allow people to cross the street. Indeed, sometimes they don’t even slow down. I think the town should install a yellow pedestrian traffic cone at this crosswalk, much like the ones on Weaver Street and Greensboro at the Century Center, to remind motorists that pedestrians have the right-of-way when crossing the street.

Douglas Buchacek
Carrboro

A call for subscriptions

We extend a hardy congratulations and humble thanks to the 123 people who have taken us up on our offer to become charter subscribers to The Carrboro Citizen.

It’s been fun learning the routes and the neighborhoods and some nooks and crannies we never knew existed.

One unexpected outcome of our offer of free in-town home delivery was a demand from outside the immediate area.

To satisfy that demand, with this issue we’re switching to paid subscriptions to support our home delivery efforts. (Charter subscribers will be grandfathered).

We are also expanding our home delivery range to include most of Chapel Hill and southern Orange County.

Yearlong subscriptions are available for $26 and six-month subscriptions are available for $15.

If you would like to become a subscriber or purchase one as a gift for someone else, please contact us at delivery@carrborocitizen.com or sign up at our subscriptions site at www.carrborocitizen.com/subscribe

Whether you’re a new subscriber, a charter subscriber or pick up the paper for free at our growing list of locations, we appreciate your readership and support.

Return our banner

Hi, Carrboro Citizen.  We would love to enlist you for some help with the recovery of our stolen Cackalacky banner.

The banner was removed from the side of Cliff’s Meat Market last week. It cost us $300 to have made. We are offering a free case of Cackalacky (a $60 value) to the person who returns the banner to Cliff’s. No questions asked.

H. Page Skelton, Sr.
President
Cackalacky Classic Condiment Company

Cradle of impeachment

In the cold winter of discontent of 2005-2006, when there was no hope of the Democrats winning majorities in either House, but when Bush’s clearly illegal and unconstitutional wiretaps became public, a group of Constitutionalists formed what became the Grass Roots Impeachment Movement (GRIM). Wes Hare and John Heuer booked Carrboro’s Town Hall for our first public forum on impeachment. Dan Pollitt gave a history of impeachment and I made the case for impeachment. Lucy Lewis moderated. Ruby’s website (orangepolitics.org) and word-of-mouth was our publicity and we expected maybe 25-30 people. But when Ashley, Sunny and I got to Town Hall, we could not find a place to park! It was packed. Over 150 Carrboro citizens were there. Several aldermen voiced support for impeachment.

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Compassionate friends

Our wonderful 27-year-old son died as a result of a car accident in Australia in 2003.

Our grief will never go away but healing has been taking place in our hearts and minds. One of the big reasons we have been able to heal is due to our involvement with the local chapter of the Compassionate Friends.

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Article fell short

The Town has annexed the streets in the Highlands per the same procedure that municipalities use all over North Carolina, which is a phased transition from NCDOT to Town maintenance. The Town is also moving ahead full speed with the design of the station and construction will begin as soon as is feasible.

While some folks are seeking to make the facts fit their opinion, the truth is that Carrboro has been working hard to bring as-good (or better) municipal services to northeast Carrboro as we have anywhere else in town.

Shared-ride feeder bus service began last year and we will soon have a regular bus route on Rogers Road. The town has dropped plans for numerous other sidewalks in favor of building sidewalks leading to the Highlands neighborhood.

The Citizen owes it to its readers to seek out more than one point of view on a topic of this kind. No one at the Town of Carrboro was given any opportunity to respond to the assertions contained in your article (”De-annexation bill underlines concerns,” April 4, 2007).

Mark Chilton
Mayor, Town of Carrboro

Where’s where?

I know it was only your second issue, but what happened to the “five W’s of good reporting” (who, what, where, when, why) that are supposed to be part of each story?  In the story about the Carrboro moratorium, the “where” was left out, and it was the most important of all the W’s.  New publication or old, it’s the most basic tenant of reporting and the essential foundation for publishing a good newspaper.

David Morgan
Chapel Hill