Chancellor-elect Holden Thorp checked in the other day via email. I’d inquired how he felt about having to pack up the family and move from Carrboro to the chancellor’s quarters on Raleigh Road. (Nice place, by the way, with a swell pool.)

The chancellor said he had mixed feelings about the move, especially since his band is a regular on the Weaver Street Lawn and his son loves Little League here.
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• You’d think we’d at least get the name of the mascot of Carrboro High School right. Most times, we do. Last week, we didn’t. Go, Jaguars.
• The fellow helping Scotty Mclean in a front-page photo of the capture of the Century Center bees is Leo Gaev.
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No one has a monopoly on the truth, and most certainly no one political party or persuasion has a monopoly on the desire to make this country a better place and a more positive force in the world.

But to read without getting angry what is passing these days for discourse on which candidate is more patriotic and who loves America more is becoming harder and harder. More »

Adam Searing

As the NC General Assembly gets underway this week – even in a so-called short session year, it’s a little like watching an aircraft carrier try to do a three-point turn in Beaufort channel – a reasonable citizen might wonder what steps legislators will be taking to make health care more affordable and accessible. The answer is likely to be a disappointing “not much.” More »

Peter Kramer

May is Mental Health Month and this year’s theme is “Get Connected.” The importance of social connectedness to good mental health has led some of us to consider Carrboro’s role as a leader in innovative programs that promote mental health wellness.

Carrboro is home to, among other organizations, the Mental Health Association of Orange County, the Caramore Community and Club Nova. For example, for two decades, the latter “clubhouse” program has supported its members’ efforts to improve the quality of their lives. At the homey house on West Main Street, Club Nova members drop by daily to socialize, develop personal skills, improve their employment outlook and more. More »

Chris Fitzsimon

The General Assembly session is less than a week old but the budget process is steaming ahead, as lawmakers continue not only to analyze the $21.5 billion plan proposed by Gov. Mike Easley, but also to narrow down their own spending recommendations.

The House will pass the budget first this summer and House leaders have set June 2 as the deadline for sending a bill to the Senate. House budget subcommittees met again in public Monday and reportedly House leaders spent much of the weekend working on the budget, which some legislative observers expect to see this week. More »

Two accidents and a senseless act of violence, and this community is without three bright lights that once walked among us.

Our hearts go out to the family and friends of James Karpinos, Jake Billings and Irina Yarmolenko, who grew up here and, just as they were taking wing, are now gone. Each had left for college and was just preparing to show the world what they were made of. Their deaths, coming in rapid succession over the past couple of weeks, have left many of us with a profound sense of loss.

A friend of ours who used to work at the Inter-Faith Council once lamented over another in the string of attempts to find a new home for the downtown homeless shelter by noting that, “If we were talking about dolphins, we’d have no problem.”

He was absolutely right. If Chapel Hill and Carrboro suddenly found themselves inundated with homeless dolphins, we’d go all out. There’d be the best dolphin shelter money could buy.
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A belated Bravo to the Carrboro High School football team, several dozen of whom turned out to volunteer on Carrboro Day. The purple-jerseyed Jaguars and their super coach, Jason Tudryn, arrived in time to help set up and stayed all afternoon moving tables, chairs, books and band equipment. They played with little kids and ran the water balloon toss. And they danced.
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Just a few weeks before they are to graduate, hundreds of high school seniors in North Carolina have been punched in the gut. Today, the North Carolina Community College system announced that no community college will accept undocumented students.

These children did not make the decision to come here, and most do not have the option to return to their native countries. Mexican universities do not accept U.S. diplomas. Columbia is mired in a civil war. Crushing poverty makes life in Guatemala and El Salvador impossible.
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Leo Allison is the better choice to fill the Orange County Board of Commissioners position in the June 24 run-off election because he is caring, thorough and a tireless contributor to the community he has loved since childhood. And, he is known to do his homework!

At Efland-Cheeks Elementary, “our school,” where we both volunteer for RSVP, who would ever guess Leo’s credentials as he checks in early Wednesday mornings at the bell, regular as the school year, same as he has done for eight years? (We began the same year.)
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By Robert Dickson
I shuddered last fall when I read that UNC Trustee Roger Perry had said that the search firm hired to find the new chancellor knew every “player” in the country.

That description implied to me that our school was in for yet another development-minded leader and that the university of never-ending construction would continue its march across the Orange County landscape.
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Ordinarily, the editorial after an election day, and especially after a primary, is our opportunity to scold. Turnout has been so dismal for so long that it’s part of the drill. We even took to reporting the numbers in inverse as a form of shock therapy (as in, “73 percent of the registered voters failed to vote Tuesday”).

But by late Tuesday night, it was clear that an energized presidential primary in an already-tumultuous and not-so predictable election year has sparked a serious interest in the act of voting. In Orange County, 47.8 percent of registered voters cast a ballot this primary.
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By Paige Johnson

For a senior in high school, there is no greater season than spring. Warm weather and trees in bloom seem to coincide with a 12th grader’s growing sense of triumph and potential. Prom night, family celebrations and high school graduation are only days away. Her future is filled with promise or, at least, that’s how it should be.

The future of far too many students in our state does not include this rite of passage. They never celebrate reaching the milestone of high school graduation because they drop out. In fact, roughly one-third of North Carolina’s high school students fail to receive a high school diploma.
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By Elaine Mejia

Earlier this month, presidential hopefuls John McCain and Hillary Clinton, along with gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham, endorsed a temporary gas tax holiday to last through the summer vacation season. These proposals should come as no surprise given the squeeze that rising gas prices is putting on middle-class families.

While the notion of suspending the federal and state gas taxes is attractive in its simplicity and political popularity, it would do little to help working families affected by the downturn in the economy. Moreover, it would have devastating consequences on already-strained public-road construction and maintenance budgets.
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