The year of hunkering down Not a lot of fireworks at any of the budget hearings this year, but most of what did take place was over items dear to Carrboro in the county budget. The town and its residents continue to press their case for not closing the Carrboro Branch Library while those with…
Category: Opinion
Life in the glass house
Robert and Vicky Dickson Given the frenzied media response to the Town of Carrboro’s approval of The Carrboro Citizen’s application for The Loan last week, we thought it would be good for us, the people who signed the documents, to set the record straight. There have been misquotes and accusations of bad intent, and our…
The question of health insurance
Giles Blunden The basic question boils down to this: Should Americans of all means be entitled to a quality level of health care as a standard everyday practice? I think most Americans would answer yes. Right now, this does not exist. There is not a level playing field and certainly not a consistent level of…
A modest plan for paying college costs
Robert Reich I’m just about to head off to a commencement here at U Cal, Berkeley. The news that keeps banging around in my head is that the state has just announced a whopping 9 percent increase in fees for next academic year, the third fee increase in three years. The average young person now…
Get involved in Carolina North dialogue
By Julie Mcclintock At times, grassroots actions can advance community dialogue about local problems better than official meetings. This happened on May 3, when over 100 Chapel Hill and Carrboro citizens exchanged ideas about traffic concerns and transportation solutions with other citizens, members of the Chapel Hill Town Council and UNC officials, at a single-issue…
Don’t believe the hype
Finally a Carrboro Board of Aldermen meeting gets wide coverage and, we’re sorry to say, we’re the cause of it all. There’s been a good deal of tut-tutting about The Citizen’s successful application to the town’s revolving loan program. There’s an implication that because we qualified and got a small business loan we are somehow…
The coming fight over health care
On the heels of a pledge of cooperation between providers and the government on reducing health care costs comes a much less friendly indication that health care reform will be a down-and-dirty fight. This week, the Washington Post got ahold of storyboards for three commercials being planned by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina….
Taking the ‘low road’ to economic development
By Elaine Mejia North Carolina often acts like a fool in love with big business. State leaders continue to aggressively pursue an economic-development strategy that relies on offering as much as possible by way of cash and tax incentives to a few large, typically well-known corporations. These corporations, which have included Dell Computers and Google,…
Millhouse Road is no solution
To quote a good friend of mine today, it is clear some people remain absolutely “clueless.†No, we are not applauding Mayor Foy’s proposal to site a [waste transfer station] on Millhouse, which still amounts to dumping the entire county’s garbage in our community. As a matter of fact, one community member I spoke with…
Who runs Carrboro?
Who’s in charge of Carrboro anyway? No, it’s not a silly question. It’s brought to mind by the recent soap opera of Carrboro suing a farm owner for building a small barn apartment and forcing a major subdivision as a cure. Kudos go to a planning board member (see Ms. Cook’s letter, April 9) for…
Government shouldn’t run health care
In reading an opinion editorial that ran in your paper on Thursday, I was surprised at how out of touch the author was with the concerns of North Carolinians when it comes to health care. He talked about certain reforms that might sound good in theory, but in practice, they have nearly doubled and tripled…
Carrboro Branch a vital resource
By Graig Meyer The county manager’s recommendation to close the Carrboro and Cedar Grove library branches is preposterous. The fact that the idea came from the library director is absolutely baffling. The Carrboro Branch Library means a lot to my family. We use it at least two or three times a week. My young sons…
Closing libraries a huge mistake
By Alexandra Brown I would like to comment on the proposed closure of the Carrboro Branch Library and the Cedar Grove Branch Library. I was employed at CBL from 1996 to 2003 and at CGBL in 2007-08. My experience working at these two facilities gives me unique insight into the vital role they play in…
Pushback brings results
If there is anything more tedious to plow through than a traffic impact analysis (TIA), please don’t forward it on to us. In a lot of instances of public policy, the devil is in the details. A TIA is pretty much all details and the devil is in trying to make sense of it. So…
Thanks again
Many of us are still a little exhausted by basketball season but certainly not tired enough for one more thing to cheer about, especially if it’s the team’s trip to the White House for a visit with the First Fan. President Obama won more than a few nods of approval and probably a good number…