
{"id":5973,"date":"2009-05-28T06:50:04","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T14:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=5973"},"modified":"2009-05-28T06:50:04","modified_gmt":"2009-05-28T14:50:04","slug":"scenes-from-the-budget-hearings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/05\/28\/scenes-from-the-budget-hearings\/","title":{"rendered":"Scenes from the budget hearings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The year of hunkering down<\/strong><br \/>\nNot 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 students at Carrboro High joined with Chapel Hillians from the school to advocate for their arts wing.<\/p>\n<p>Budget hearings for the towns, which usually see a few advocates for various items, were practically ghost towns this year sans the tumbleweeds.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not sure if this is a signal of resignation, frustration, or both. Our best guess is that the citizenry knows that the economic forces playing havoc with government budgets are going to be hard to overcome no matter how persuasive the comments offered.<br \/>\nThey also know that how things play out at the state level and how much federal stimulus money ultimately becomes available are the big factors, and for the most part the outcome is not in the hands of local officials.<\/p>\n<p>In this climate, officialdom and the citizens appear to have reached the same conclusion: Hunker down and wait for the storm to pass.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jaguar pride on display<\/strong><br \/>\nKudos to the inventive boosters of Carrboro High\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arts wing, and not just for those snappy purple T-shirts. They managed to convince the school board to back a plan to move forward on the wing. And they made their case with the participation and attendance of a good number of students.<\/p>\n<p>At Tuesday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s meeting, the CHS students received a particularly good seminar in democracy. Not only did they have the opportunity to make their points, but they also stuck around and observed that theirs was not the only case being pressed Tuesday night. They heard from supporters of pre-school programs, public libraries, social services and residents hurting from the recession while facing a 100 percent jump in sewer fees.<\/p>\n<p>A few Jaguars melted away as the night wore on, but most stayed and took it in. We hope they gained a little deeper understanding of the phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153all politics is local\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and take to heart that, especially in years when money is tight, their interests compete with the interests of others.<br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\nSomeone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to say it<\/strong><br \/>\nBen Lloyd has been and remains a one-man tax revolt. Since his days as a commissioner, and pretty much at every budget public hearing since, Lloyd, who has about 700 acres west of Hillsborough, rises to preach for living within one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s means and against taxing life-long residents off their land.<\/p>\n<p>When Mr. Lloyd should leave us, hopefully no time soon, the county would do well to hire someone to deliver a similar message at every budget hearing hence.<\/p>\n<p>Year after year, Orange County has been one of those unique places where those queuing up at budget hearings are doing so to ask the county to spend a little more money. Mr. Lloyd has long been among the minority advocating the opposite, and some years, it seems, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that argument\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sole representative.<\/p>\n<p>This year, he had a couple more comrades. But given the enormous organizing and turnout capabilities of the nascent Orange County Tax Revolt, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have thought there would be a few more people there. It was, after all, a very teachable moment, considering the number of young people in the audience Tuesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#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-5973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5973","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=5973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5974,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5973\/revisions\/5974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}