
{"id":26081,"date":"2012-05-24T12:15:15","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T16:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=26081"},"modified":"2012-05-24T12:20:30","modified_gmt":"2012-05-24T16:20:30","slug":"a-town-county-disconnect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/05\/24\/a-town-county-disconnect\/","title":{"rendered":"BIG CITY: A town-county disconnect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Kirk Ross<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I had a funny feeling about this primary election. There were a lot more so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153X\u00e2\u20ac\u009d factors than usual.<\/p>\n<p>The Amendment One vote was bound to drive up turnout, especially in Orange County, which was among the group of counties where amendment opponents wanted to drive turnout. That made it a little unclear about how things would play out elsewhere on the ballot. But it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take a political sixth sense to figure that when it came to the county commissioner races, it was a tough time to be an incumbent. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just that the county budget has taken hits over the past few years from the General Assembly and the recession; the current board of commissioners has had to deal with a transition at the top of county management, a lot of thorny policy issues and an ambitious and costly capital project plan begun by previous boards.<\/p>\n<p>When all you can do is try to make the best possible choices in programs and positions to ax and write the checks for the vision of previous administrations, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not going to have a lot to hang your hat on. Add in a few tone-deaf moments on libraries, solid waste and changing the county\/town split on the sales tax, and all the ingredients were in place for what we saw in the totals on Election Day.<\/p>\n<p>I think what got under people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s skin more than anything was the disconnect between the county and the towns. For many, it translated to a lack of leadership. We want our local governments to work together, not at odds \u00c2\u00ad\u00e2\u20ac\u201c especially during times of scarce resources.<\/p>\n<p>One of the big selling points for both Mark Dorosin and Penny Rich was their experience as elected officials in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, respectively. Neither was shy about pointing out that none of the current commissioners have served in a similar capacity.<\/p>\n<p>Presuming that Renee Price, who obviously put together a very effective campaign in the primary, and Bernadette Pelissier can win out in the fall \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and I am \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the county board that takes over in December will be a much different beast than the one that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s currently in office.<\/p>\n<p>The new board arrives with rebuilding confidence among citizens and the elected boards around the county as a top goal. To tackle the problems ahead, particularly solid waste, the board will need all the cooperation it can get.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to taking on some difficult issues, the new board also has a unique opportunity to shape the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s future. It will inherit a much leaner county government and a much more modest list of capital expenditures. As economic growth and revenues start to come back, the board won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be as hamstrung in seeing through new ideas and initiatives as well as restoring funds to programs hard-hit during the recession. And in policy matters, there is plenty of opportunity for new ideas and direction. In the coming years the board will have a chance to put its stamp on regional efforts in transportation as well as local initiatives in economic development, land-use planning, agriculture and the arts.<\/p>\n<p>Most importantly, as was pointed out during the campaign, the new board of commissioners will have a chance to show this county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s citizens and the rest of the state the kind of leadership we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been lacking. As times have gotten tough, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve let that slip.<\/p>\n<p>We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also seen a rise in poverty in this county that few seem willing to acknowledge. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to fault anyone who has had to deal with the tough combination of dwindling state support and a deep recession, but coming out of it we should be clear that we haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t compromised our long-term goals and long-held values.<\/p>\n<p>The people have spoken. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve bought into Dorosin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fair county,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rich\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s call for cooperation and Price\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s call for innovation and greater transparency.<\/p>\n<p>Their new colleagues would do well to heed the message \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 26,527 votes say they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on to something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Amendment One vote was bound to drive up turnout, especially in Orange County, which was among the group of counties where amendment opponents wanted to drive turnout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26081","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=26081"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26101,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26081\/revisions\/26101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}