From March 6-14, Chapel Hill Transit will be ending weekday services earlier in the evenings on the CM, CW, D, J, NU and V routes due to UNC’s spring break.

The U and NU routes will not operate on Saturday, March 6 and 13 or on Sunday, March 7. The U and NU routes will begin at 2 p.m. on Sun., March 14.

Safe Rides will not operate from Friday, March 5 through Saturday, March 13. Safe Rides will resume on Thursday, March 18.
Shared Ride Services will end at 10 p.m. Monday through Friday and at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 7.

CHT will resume normal schedules on Monday, March 15.
For specific schedule information, visit chtransit.org , email chtransit@townofchapelhill.org or call a customer service representative at 969-4900.

The Hillsborough Police Department has started issuing crime reports by email again. The reports give a snapshot of significant recent reports.

Due to a computer failure, many addresses from the previous subscription list were lost and are not retrievable. To subscribe to the reports, send an email with your name to ci.hillsborough.nc.us/contact/police-reports

The reports also will be posted on the Town News section of the town’s website.

The Chapel Hill Police Department will begin hosting a Citizens Police Academy on Tuesday, April 6. The academy is a 10-week program designed to introduce participants to the inner workings of their police department. Meeting one night per week, Tuesdays from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., participants will receive information on topics including basic law-enforcement training, the criminal justice process, patrol operations, traffic enforcement, use of force, firearms, investigations, crisis unit, K-9 unit, gangs, community services and special emergency response

Successful completion of the Citizens Police Academy does not certify participants as police officers or give them police powers, but provides the opportunity for graduates to gain a better understanding of the daily operations of the police department and, conversely, the police department to become more aware of community feelings on safety and police department response.

Applicants must be at least 18 years of age, live in Chapel Hill and pass a background check. Prior felony convictions or misdemeanor convictions within the last year will prevent participation.
Applications are available at the Chapel Hill Police Department or online at townofchapelhill.org/index.aspx?page=1322. For more information, contact Assistant Chief Chris Blue at 968-2760 or cblue@townofchapelhill.org

Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

CARRBORO — For four decades, Tom Robinson sold seafood, much of that time out of a little white concrete block shop in downtown Carrboro. While he’s sure to be remembered for that, mostly he’ll be remembered for being Tom Robinson — a sharp-witted, sometimes-acerbic, honest and forthright individual. He was his own man until the end.

Robinson died Friday at UNC Hospitals from pneumonia, which resulted from H1N1. He was 58 years old.

Anyone who knew Tom will tell you that he ran at a slightly higher RPM than the rest of us. Anyone who worked for him can relate how particular he was about the way things should be done. More »

Beth Mechum
Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL — The Chapel Hill Town Council opened a public hearing on cell phone and road safety Monday night, and with it came a flood of anecdotes about what is seen as a growing problem.

Council member Penny Rich, who requested the hearing, spoke of an email from a parent of a UNC student who expressed concern after her daughter was rear-ended two separate times by two separate cell phone-wielding drivers. More »

Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

CARRBORO — Town Manager Steve Stewart isn’t known for overblown hyperbole or prone to wild exaggeration. So when on Tuesday night he called this year and the one ahead two of the toughest he’s faced in 32 years of drafting budgets, it underlined what town leaders are facing, again, as budget season rolls around.

“Sounds like it’s going to be a fun spring,” Alderman Jacquie Gist deadpanned after hearing Stewart’s reality check at a meeting of the board at Town Hall. More »

Gloria Steinem calls it “the best film I’ve ever seen on domestic violence.” To back those words up, Steinem will be traveling to Chapel Hill this weekend to host a fundraiser in support of Private Violence, a feature-length doc from local filmmakers Cynthia Hill and Rebecca Cerese and domestic-violence advocate and survivor Kit Gruelle, in which Steinem appears.

The event will take place this Sunday from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Spice Street in University Mall, with a minimum donation of $25 per person.

Also speaking will be feminist and author Ann Jones, National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence Executive Director Deborah Tucker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author George Lardner and domestic-violence survivors Fran Bumgarner and Vernetta Cockerham. Poet/musician Shirlette Ammons and singer/songwriter Greg Humphreys will perform. The event also will include an auction of memorabilia signed by Steinem. Light hors d’oeuvres will be served with a cash bar available.

For more information, call 824-0811 or email privateviolence@gmail.com

Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

Carrboro — Anyone who uses the various crosswalks in downtown Carrboro knows that not all intersections are created equal in the eyes of local motorists.

Pedestrians in the mid-block walkways near Weaver Street Market and on North Greensboro near the Century Center see a little more respect than those trying to use the crosswalks just a stone’s throw away.

The uncertainty of whether cars will stop and the ongoing battle of the right-of-way at major intersections were among the concerns raised at Tuesday night’s board of aldermen meeting at Carrboro Town Hall. More »

Beth Mechum
Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL — Chapel Hill Transit will take a hard look at Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) for Chapel Hill’s two busiest corridors, N.C. 54 and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, as part of the 2035 Long Range Transit Plan.

Both roadway corridors already exceed 3,000 riders a day, qualifying them for consideration for a higher order of transit. That’s where BRT comes in. More »

Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass, who first took office in 1982, has filed for another four-year term.

Pendergrass, who makes his home in Chapel Hill, will face Hillsborough Police Chief Clarence Birkhead in the May 5 Democratic primary. More »

The Prep School Negro, a documentary about a young black man’s experiences while attending a prestigious, mostly white preparatory school, will be screened this Thursday at UNC.

Director André Robert Lee, who made the autobiographical film, and executive producer and UNC alumna Barb Lee, will answer questions and discuss the film afterward.

The free public program will be from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Nelson Mandela Auditorium of the FedEx Global Education Center on the corner of McCauley and Pittsboro streets.

Hillsborough Mayor Tom Stevens will give a State of the Town address on Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. at the Central Orange Senior Center. This fourth-annual event is open to the public.

As in previous addresses, the mayor will outline major accomplishments of the last year, where the town is headed and how citizens can get involved.

Throughout the month of February, the UNC Visitors’ Center will serve as a contribution drop-off site for TABLE, a nonprofit organization that brings college students and community volunteers together to help feed hungry children in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area. Participating children receive loaner backpacks on Fridays containing a variety of healthy food for the weekend. Receiving food in backpacks, not grocery bags, allows children a sense of privacy. Empty backpacks are returned on Mondays to school or after-school programs for pick-up by TABLE volunteers.

Those who wish to make donations are asked to bring nutritious, nonperishable food items, such as canned vegetables, juice boxes, breakfast food and snack packs, to the UNC Visitors’ Center.

Jenny Huq received the Civic Engagement Professional of the Year Award, presented on Feb. 10 at Elon University. Huq is the associate director of the Carolina Center for Public Service and director of the APPLES service learning program at UNC.

The Civic Engagement Professional of the Year Award recognizes a staff person at a North Carolina Campus Compact member campus who has worked toward the institutionalization of service, created and strived toward a vision of service on campus, supported faculty and students and formed innovative campus-community partnerships.

Huq’s work includes fostering the engagement of faculty, students and community organizations across the curriculum by offering more than 100 service-learning courses annually, nurturing and empowering student leadership that fulfills the organization’s mission and managing program participation that is five times what it was in 2002.

Carrboro board cool to the idea of contributing funds

Beth Mechum
Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL – With concerns about library funding still front-and-center, members of the Chapel Hill Town Council want a closer look at the various options for charging for the use of the Chapel Hill Public Library along with the possible consequences of such a decision.

Council members Laurin Easthom and Gene Pease petitioned the council for a review of the funding and fee options at Monday night’s council meeting at Town Hall.

The council has indicated its support for a proposed expansion of the Chapel Hill Public Library, but members worry about the consequences, including the long-term costs of additional personnel and maintenance. once the $16 million addition is completed. More »