
{"id":6003,"date":"2009-05-28T07:16:42","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T15:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=6003"},"modified":"2009-10-30T06:57:22","modified_gmt":"2009-10-30T14:57:22","slug":"carrboro-high-supporters-in-full-force-at-budget-hearings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/05\/28\/carrboro-high-supporters-in-full-force-at-budget-hearings\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrboro High supporters in full force at budget hearings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/resizedcountycA.jpg\" alt=\"In case you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wondering what the plans for the proposed arts wing look like . . . Photo by Kirk Ross.\" width=\"150\" height=\"113\" align=\"left\"\/><strong>By Kirk Ross<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>At last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s county budget hearing in Hillsborough and again Tuesday night at the Southern Human Services Center in Chapel Hill, the color purple and the plans for a new arts wing at Carrboro High School were on display.<\/p>\n<p>Wearing Jaguar purple T-shirts with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Build It Now\u00e2\u20ac\u009d emblazoned on the front and architectural plans for the new wing on the back, speaker after speaker, many of them students, filed up to the microphone to voice support of the project.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nStudents described how the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bands and theater department had to make do. The band often practices in the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weight room because the classroom it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s based in is too small. Theater performances are off-site at Culbreth Middle School.<\/p>\n<p>Sophomore Elliot Darrow said the status quo was frustrating to students, parents and teachers alike.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I urge you to build it now, build it now, build it now,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said to the cheers of his classmates.<\/p>\n<p>Several parents noted the facilities at Chapel Hill High and East Chapel Hill High and said that without an arts wing the high school is an incomplete facility. To save money on the initial construction cost, the school was built without an arts wing. The entryway to the proposed wing is on the right of the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s main entrance.<\/p>\n<p>Building the wing became much more likely a prospect at last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s school board meeting after the board OK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d a capital plan to delay construction on a new elementary school planned for the Northside neighborhoods and move the wing ahead of it in priority.<\/p>\n<p>The shift in the capital plans is due in part to slower-than-projected enrollment growth in the elementary schools and to a longstanding county policy to keep the debt burden under 15 percent of the annual budget. The Northside Elementary project would likely put the county over that cap.<\/p>\n<p>Also at Tuesday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s meeting, students and parents asked commissioners to increase school funding to help prevent deeper personnel cuts. The district has laid off teaching assistants and cut the pay of locally funded teachers.<\/p>\n<p>Other speakers before the commissioners included backers of the Carrboro Branch Library at McDougle School.<\/p>\n<p>Heidi Perry, a member of Friends of the Library, said the county needs more library services, not fewer. Closing the Cedar Grove branch and the Carrboro branch, she said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153should not even be on the table.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Allen Spalt called the decision to close the library a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153false saving\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because the Carrboro Branch is leveraged by the many volunteers who help it work. Closing the library after years of their efforts would be a slap in the face, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Not everyone at the budget hearings were there to ask for additional funding. Former commissioner Ben Lloyd told the board to cut deeper than the $5.4 million already trimmed. High property taxes, he said, are forcing lifelong residents to move out of the county.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153People in Orange County are hurting, folks,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Also asking for support from the commissioners were residents of Efland who are facing a steep jump in sewer rates, and representatives of Community School for People Under Six, which is on Caldwell Street Extension in the Northside neighborhood.<br \/>\nParents and members of the school staff are seeking help to renovate the facility in order to keep it open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kirk Ross Staff Writer At last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s county budget hearing in Hillsborough and again Tuesday night at the Southern Human Services Center in Chapel Hill, the color purple and the plans for a new arts wing at Carrboro High School were on display. Wearing Jaguar purple T-shirts with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Build It Now\u00e2\u20ac\u009d emblazoned on the&#8230;<\/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-6003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6003","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=6003"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7818,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6003\/revisions\/7818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}