
{"id":15636,"date":"2011-02-03T10:10:46","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T15:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=15636"},"modified":"2011-02-03T10:23:53","modified_gmt":"2011-02-03T15:23:53","slug":"council-retreat-to-focus-on-plan-rewrite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/02\/03\/council-retreat-to-focus-on-plan-rewrite\/","title":{"rendered":"Council retreat to focus on plan rewrite"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Kirk Ross<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p> Chapel Hill  \u00e2\u20ac\u201d The Chapel Hill Town Council goes into its annual retreat this weekend with a big decision looming on the potential for moving the town library and the beginning of a yearlong effort to revise its comprehensive plan.<br \/>\nThe major focus at the retreat will be developing a process for public involvement in the rewrite of the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comprehensive plan.<br \/>\nMayor Mark Kleinschmidt said the council wants to make sure there is meaningful citizen involvement in shaping the plan. The recently completed process for gathering feedback and increasing community participation in the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s negotiations with UNC on the Carolina North project provided a lot of lessons in that area, he said.<br \/>\nUNC School of Government professor David Owens, who worked with the town in developing the Carolina North Development Agreement, will discuss that process and offer suggestions for improving involvement.<br \/>\nAlso scheduled at the retreat is a review of the council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s goals set last year, a discussion of economic-development strategies and preliminary discussion on the 2011-12 budget.<br \/>\nThe retreat will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday and from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday,  at 523 E. Franklin St. Materials for the retreat are available at the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s website at townofchapelhill.org\/index.aspx?page=958<br \/>\nAlthough it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not on the retreat agenda, what to do about the library \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and its impact on the town budget \u00e2\u20ac\u201c will no doubt be in the air.<br \/>\nAt press time for The Citizen on Wednesday evening, the town was conducting a public-information session on the potential for moving the library to University Mall.<br \/>\nKleinschmidt said the meeting is another chance to get the mall proposal before the public. He objected to some of the criticism the council has received, especially the claim that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a backroom deal and that it represents a reversal of the council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s commitment to the library.<br \/>\nKleinschmidt said the town has been very out in the open on the potential deal.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When we got the offer, we put it out there and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcTell us what you think,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kleinschmidt said.<br \/>\nThe council, he said, has shown its commitment to the library with the approval of a $16 million expansion at the Pritchard Park site. The town has an obligation to study the mall proposal, he said, because of the potential for significant savings.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just trying to determine if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a better deal,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<br \/>\nKleinschmidt said he expects that the council will have enough information by its meeting on Feb. 14 to make a decision on whether to move forward with negotiations with University Mall owner Madison-Marquette or reject the offer and move ahead with the already-<br \/>\napproved expansion project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chapel Hill Town Council goes into its annual retreat this weekend with a big decision looming on the potential for moving the town library.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15637,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15636\/revisions\/15637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}