This Tuesday, the Orange County Planning Department will host a public information session for residents, property owners, businesses and others interested in the Eno Economic Development District at the Planning and Agricultural Building on Revere Road in Hillsborough.

The Eno Economic Development District is in the general area of Highway 70 and I-85 near the Durham County line. The session will be held as an open house and those interested can drop by anytime between 4 and 7 p.m.
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A raccoon found northeast of Hillsborough tested positive for rabies on Tuesday at the State Laboratory of Public Health.

The raccoon was submitted after a resident in the vicinity of New Sharon Church Road and Schley Road saw one of her four dogs with the raccoon. The dog was the mother of three five-month old puppies who were also outside at the time. Although the puppies were not seen with the raccoon, contact could not be ruled out.
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Bradly Broadwell has been appointed as economic development director for Orange County.

As economic development director, Broadwell will be responsible for creating and implementing strategies to enhance the economic well-being of Orange County. He will also oversee the Visitor’s Bureau and Arts Commission.
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Orange Co. Results

All results as of 12:06 a.m., Wednesday, May 7, 2008.

All results preliminary and unofficial. The Board of Elections is scheduled to certify results on May 19.

Democratic Primaries

Presidential Preference
Barack Obama 69.60% 27,824
Hillary Clinton 28.87% 11,540
Mike Gravel 0.62% 249
No preference 0.91% 363
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by Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer

Incumbent Lieutenant Governor and Chapel Hill resident Beverly Perdue scored a decisive victory on Tuesday, earning the Democratic nomination for governor over challengers Richard Moore and Dennis Nielsen. On an Election Day in which just over 36 percent of registered voters turned out statewide, Perdue gathered 56 percent of votes cast; Moore, the state treasurer, finished with 40 percent; Nielsen, a retired military officer, received 4 percent.
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Alex Maiolo (center, with clipboard) signs up last Thursday for a ticket to the Arcade Fire/Superchunk show. Photo by Lucy Butcher.

This weekend, the Town Commons will be packed with activity, kicking off with a concert sponsored by the Barack Obama presidential campaign on Friday afternoon and closing with the 13th annual Carrboro Day on Sunday.

The “Change Rocks” concert, featuring Arcade Fire and Superchunk, is intended to encourage one-stop early voting and is conveniently located next to Carrboro Town Hall, an early-voting site.

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by Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

Determined to keep their perfect score in defeating counties’ efforts to adopt a real estate transfer tax, the North Carolina real estate and construction interests, led by the North Carolina Association of Realtors and the North Carolina Homebuilders, have pumped more than $205,000 in cash and in-kind contributions into defeating the initiative in Orange County.

The figures, filed on Monday — the deadline for campaign finance reports for the first quarter and the final weeks leading up to the election — show that the state organizations that have helped organize and fund county-based groups to fight the tax represent the bulk of funding for Citizens for a Better Orange County, which was set up in February to fight the tax.
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by Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

An historic spring primary winds up this week with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and their supporters criss-crossing the state in search of votes and North Carolinians brave enough to have their televisions on, subjected to a near-endless barrage of state and national campaign ads.

Local and some statewide candidates have been working Orange County rallies and early-voting sites as well.

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by Taylor SiskStaff Writer“How, if elected, do you propose to deal with the provisioning of mental health care services in North Carolina?”It’s a question that has been posed with some regularity to this year’s candidates for governor – and urgently so: Our mental health care system is in crisis. Among those candidates, Democrats Richard Moore and Beverly Perdue and Republican Bob Orr have offered the more detailed elaborations of what they would do as governor.Last month, the Associated Press asked each of the candidates to describe how they proposed to reform our mental health care system. Richard Moore said that he would complete any outstanding initiatives that the current head of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, Dempsey Benton, had begun, toward ensuring a smooth transition. Moore said that this would include working to discontinue blended payment rates, by which agencies are reimbursed at the same rate regardless of their employees’ credentials. More »

by Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

Carrboro Police have arrested and charged three individuals in connection with a recent string of armed robberies in Carrboro and Chapel Hill that appear to have targeted Latino victims.

According to the Carrboro Police Department, Lavarus Deleon Atwater, 16, of Cedar Lake Road in Chatham County; George Lavon Gattis Jr., 17, of Hill Street in Carrboro; and Kimberly Carol Sue Nicholson, 18, of Thomas Burke Drive in Hillsborough have each been charged with two counts of armed robbery and one count of conspiracy.
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by Rich Fowler
Staff Writer

At its meeting Monday night at Town Hall, the Chapel Hill Town Council agreed to give Glen Lennox area residents a chance to prove that they want their area turned into a Neighborhood Conservation District (NCD).

Organizers now have to get signatures from 51 percent of the landowners in an area bounded by Rogerson Road, Cleland Road, Hayes Road and NC 54.

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Wilson Library’s newest exhibit examines the beginning and growth of American counterculture poetry in post-World War II twentieth century in The Beats and Beyond: Counterculture Poetry, 1950-1975 in the Rare Book Collection of UNC’s Wilson Library.

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The Board of County Commissioners is expected to consider an amendment that would limit the tethering (or chaining) of dogs in Orange County.

The amendment will recommend limiting the time a dog could be tethered, creating minimum sizes for outdoor pens and regulating the types of tether that can be used.

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Commencement for May 2008 graduates will be held in Kenan Stadium on Sunday, May 11 from 9:30 to about 11:30 a.m. A reception for graduates and their families will follow in Polk Place. This year’s commencement speaker is opera singer Jessye Norman. In the event of rain with thunder, lightning and high winds, the ceremony will be moved to the Smith Center.

Sandwhich and 3Cups reopened on Tuesday, two days after Courtyard owner Spencer Young changed the locks on the doors and posted a letter claiming the businesses had failed to pay $85,000 in rent.

The West Franklin Street businesses have had an ongoing dispute with Young regarding parking, claiming that he has failed to provide parking that he agreed to provide in the lease. Most of the parking behind the Courtyard is owned by P.H. Craig, and Young has refused to pay Craig rent for the spaces, so Craig has blocked off the parking.

Because of the parking dispute, Lex Alexander, owner of 3Cups, said he has been putting rent into an escrow account instead of paying Young.