
{"id":9200,"date":"2010-03-04T12:12:10","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T20:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=9200"},"modified":"2010-03-04T12:12:10","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T20:12:10","slug":"library-issue-sparks-debate-at-council-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/03\/04\/library-issue-sparks-debate-at-council-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"Library issue sparks debate at council retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Beth Mechum, Staff Writer<\/strong><br \/>\nChapel Hill  \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Due to weather issues, the Chapel Hill Town Council was unable to complete its 2010 retreat, but council members agree the work that did get accomplished was positive.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We liked the quality of work that we did, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to have time to finish,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d council member Gene Pease said.<\/p>\n<p>The retreat was originally scheduled for two full days, Jan. 29-30, but was rescheduled to shortened days for Feb. 28 and March 1 because of snowfall at the end of January.<\/p>\n<p>The main points of emphasis at the two days of retreat were the successes and failures of 2009, town finances and the fiscal 2011 budget plan and the council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s goals for 2010.<\/p>\n<p>The six 2010 goals were very similar to those of 2009: stewarding organizational development; championing downtown; continued focus on land use, transit and development; maintaining and improving community facilities and services; improving the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fiscal condition and planning for Carolina North.<\/p>\n<p>Each of these goals was further devolved into action steps on how to complete them. For example, stewarding organizational development (which Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt would rather refer to as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153changing the way the government works\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) calls for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153learning from Carolina North experience to strengthen collaboration with UNC.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Goals and action steps were discussed in detail and at length, leaving some of the goals to be discussed at some later, as-yet-undetermined date.<\/p>\n<p>The goal of continuing to focus on land use was not discussed, as it was deemed too complex for the amount of time, available and planning ahead for Carolina North was left out due to time constraints.<br \/>\nPease said the council decided the most important issues this year were economic development initiatives, including affordable housing and ways to maintain services without increasing taxes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The whole budget process is high-interest, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that the citizens don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want a tax increase, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to be working on and struggling on trying to make that happen,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Pease said.<\/p>\n<p>There were both calm and heated discussions between council members, with one of the most heated involving the ongoing library issue. Two of the most spirited debaters were Kleinschmidt and his former mayoral opponent, Matt Czajkowski.<\/p>\n<p>The debate is centered around when to decide whether to use the $16 million in bonds approved by the voters in 2003. Kleinschmidt suggests making a decision soon, while Czajkowski would rather wait until June, when the budget is finalized.<\/p>\n<p>Pease said the council expects to make some decisions on moving forward by the end of March. He also said that the library issue was probably as emotional as it got at his first retreat as a council member.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re learning to work together in a very positive and polite, respectful manner, and we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all agree on everything, which is a good thing for the town to have diversity of opinion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Beth Mechum, Staff Writer Chapel Hill \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Due to weather issues, the Chapel Hill Town Council was unable to complete its 2010 retreat, but council members agree the work that did get accomplished was positive.<\/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-9200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9200","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=9200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9201,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9200\/revisions\/9201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}