State employees are riled about a 0.5 percent pay cut? Kinnaird thinks its “very unfair†to lower-income workers? You’ve got to be kidding me. Someone making $30,000 per year is looking at a pay cut of about $12.50 per month. And bunching the pay cut into the end of this fiscal year means that same…
Category: Opinion
Richard Burr’s dismal record on health care
By Adam Linker When politicians get nervous that they have done nothing to advance a cause dear to many of their constituents, the savvy politico will file a bill with a catchy name to misrepresent his or her voting record. That way, the politician can at least claim that he or she did something. The…
Not in this house
By Lydia Lavelle In Carrboro, we try to play fair with our house rules. We have this silly notion that housing opportunities should be available to everyone. Not so in the big House, where our local bill could not make it intact out of the Local Government II Committee. Our town charter addresses housing discrimination,…
Education Matters: From gap to chasm
By Steve Peha I’ve lived in Carrboro for six years now and each year there’s been discussion of the achievement gap issue in our local schools. But this year, the gap has reached an unprecedented and, frankly, shocking level. Currently, we have almost a 60-point difference in the achievement levels of white and black students….
Missing Mother’s Day
By S.A.M. Brooks Like most women, I have an abundance of Mother’s Day memories. The clay pots I shaped and colored, necklaces made of paper-mâché, paste and various organic items that could be found around an upper New York State schoolyard. Yearly, one of these priceless gifts would find itself at the breakfast table the…
Reasons not to resume executions
By Chris Fitzsimon The ruling by the North Carolina Supreme Court Friday that the state medical board can’t discipline doctors who play a role in executions has reignited the debate about capital punishment and is prompting calls from death penalty supporters for executions to resume at Central Prison. Executions have been on hold for more…
Frustrating, but better than the alternative
By Tom High The politics of misplaced frustration subsequent to last week’s Carrboro Board of Aldermen vote to reject the N.C. Department of Transportation’s latest “improvement†project for Smith Level Road led a frustrated Mayor Mark Chilton, who cast the lone vote in favor of the project, to vent thusly: “I’m frustrated because there was…
In pursuit of human rights
By Judith Blau I’m increasingly convinced that the reason why human equality, human dignity and social pluralism are illusive in American society is that we do not have what Miguel de Unamuno called “el público†and Alexis de Tocqueville called “the public spirit.†Instead, American communities, towns and cities are segregated by race, class and…
The storm before the storm
By Chris Fitzsimon Tuesday morning began at the Legislative Building with officials with the Department of Public Instruction dispelling many of the common myths about the agency’s staffing levels, making a strong case for House budget writers to reject the Senate’s proposal to cut 300 jobs at the department. That task looked a lot tougher…
Letter to the Editor: The wrong approach
I applaud and thank the BOCC for their decision to delay the vote on the Howell forest property in rural Orange County in order to gather additional information. It was a nice Earth Day gift. Consider this following quote from the Natural Resources Defense Council: “The transportation sector is the second-largest and fastest-growing contributor to…
Letter to the Editor: Not a fact
The April 23 For The Record regarding Smith Level Road says, “The fact that such a heavily traveled road and key artery into town is unsafe for bicyclists…†If it is a “fact†there ought to be collision statistics supporting that assertion, but there are not. Further, collisions don’t prove a road is unsafe because…
No happy alternatives
Evidently, Tuesday evening was decision night in southern Orange County, as both the Carrboro Board of Aldermen and the Orange County Board of Commissioners reached conclusions on two of the more controversial issues in their jurisdictions. Carrboro has long tried to find a workable compromise with the state Department of Transportation on the widening of…
Online and off base
North Carolina is reviewing the idea of dropping requirements that legal advertisements run in local newspapers. The North Carolina Press Association’s ad campaign, which featured a confused, elderly woman, probably didn’t do much to burnish the industry’s image as a place to reach younger readers, but it made a solid point that many people do…
Honoring a true leader
Editor’s note: Following is a mayor’s proclamation in honor of Shirley Marshall read at Tuesday’s Carrboro Board of Aldermaen meeting: WHEREAS, Shirley E. Marshall was born on April 27,1925 in Hempstead, New York; and WHEREAS, guided by a deep inner core of strength, when faced with the inconceivable tragedy of losing both her husband and…
Toward a deeper understanding of autism
By Peter Kramer April is Autism Awareness Month, a good time to learn about and focus on one of the more perplexing disorders. On Thursday, April 30, from 1 to 3 p.m., Geri Dawson, the chief science officer for Autism Speaks, an advocacy group, will present a talk entitled “Recent Findings on The Diagnosis, Causes,…