
{"id":445,"date":"2007-06-19T13:28:09","date_gmt":"2007-06-19T21:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/06\/19\/for-the-record-10\/"},"modified":"2007-06-19T13:28:09","modified_gmt":"2007-06-19T21:28:09","slug":"for-the-record-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/06\/19\/for-the-record-10\/","title":{"rendered":"For the Record"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>An idea worth exploring<\/strong><br \/>\nWe have no illusions that funding schools will be anything but a perpetual struggle between the passion of parents and educators and fiscal realism.<\/p>\n<p>The annual debate changes from year to year, but the fundamental reality that we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford all we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, and most of the time there aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a lot of ideas being floated about how to change the dynamic. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But this year, more heated than most, has yielded at least one solid prospect: Creating an endowment or a special community fund to provide an extra boost to the budget.<\/p>\n<p>The idea is not new, especially if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re paying attention to how public universities are dealing with the downward drift of state and federal support. And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a local model, the Public School Foundation, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already helping to reward exceptional teaching.<\/p>\n<p>At recent public hearings, more than 100 people stood up to say they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be willing to pay more than the proposed 3.7-cent tax hike if it meant fully funding or better funding the schools. Presumably, those who made it out to the meetings represented hundreds, possibly thousands, more who feel the same way.<\/p>\n<p>If everyone who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s willing to pay more were to make a healthy contribution to a well-run, well-defined foundation, school and county leaders might at last have a little less to fight over in years to come.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dear Grads: Help!<\/strong><br \/>\nMemo to the graduating class of Chapel Hill and East Chapel Hill highs: This is the space normally reserved for lofty salutations, good wishes and platitudes marking the occasion of your filing in and out of the Dean Dome without serious incident.<\/p>\n<p>We dispense with this formality reserved for the annual commencement in light of several conditions demanding your immediate attention.<\/p>\n<p>First off, please take a minute and register to vote. The participation rate of the young has dropped to new lows. The number of young people who vote in local elections is even lower. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll need to change that. Believe us, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll pay off in the long run. Second, consider sticking around. A recent study showed that while Orange County produces some of this state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best and brightest, not enough of them remain in county and in state. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to need your energy and talent to deal with a few things we haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite been able to solve just yet.<\/p>\n<p>So, to paraphrase all those speeches you just sat through: Welcome to your bright, promising future. Some assembly required.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Citizen and local elections<\/strong><br \/>\nRight now, in hushed and not-so-hushed voices, there is talk about who is and who isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to be on the ballot for the 2007 elections.<\/p>\n<p>Filing for municipal offices in Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Hillsborough and for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education opens at 12:00 noon, Friday, July 6, and closes at noon on Friday, July 20.<br \/>\nSince we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a new publication, we just want to state at the outset that we do not intend \u00e2\u20ac\u201d ever \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to endorse any candidates for elected office.<\/p>\n<p>We do intend to provide voters with strong coverage of the issues and the views and records of those running.<\/p>\n<p>We also want to encourage greater participation in civil discourse (underline civil) and invite our readers to send us your views on the elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An idea worth exploring We have no illusions that funding schools will be anything but a perpetual struggle between the passion of parents and educators and fiscal realism. The annual debate changes from year to year, but the fundamental reality that we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford all we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, and most of the time there aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t&#8230;<\/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-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","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=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}