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Miscellany

Rain or shine, Sunday is Carrboro Day

Whether it’s held indoors at the Century Center or outside at Town Commons, Sunday May 6 is Carrboro Day — the annual toast to the town sponsored by the Carrboro Recreation & Parks Department.

The music starts at 12:30 p.m. and runs along with the festivities until 6 p.m. In addition to music, storytelling and poetry readings, the Carrboro Community Garden Club is hosting a plant exchange from 1:00 to 4:30 p.m. and the Friends of the Library are holding a bake goods sale along with a used book sale from 12:45 to 5 p.m.

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Miscellany

Town looks at tax and no-tax options for new budget

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen received twin budget proposals Tuesday night, one with no tax increase and another with a plan for raising the tax rate by 2.86 cents, a hike of slightly more than 4.5 percent.

In presenting his proposal, Town Manager Steve Stewart noted that the town has avoided a tax increase three out of the last four years.

“As you know, I am very concerned about our property tax burden,” Stewart said. With an eye on the overall tax burden, including county and school district taxes, he wanted to keep any increase in the town’s rate low and also provide a no-increase option.

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Miscellany

Former mayor pro tem John D. Boone dies

By Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer

Carrboro lifelong resident and longtime community activist John D. Boone Jr. died last Saturday at UNC Hospitals. He was 78.

Boone had retired as head of the purchasing department at UNC. He was a member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen from 1972 to 1987and also served as mayor pro tem. He was a member of the Carrboro Auxiliary Police and the Orange County Rescue Squad, was president of the Lion’s Club and was very active in his church, Carrboro United Methodist. He was named citizen of the year by the Jaycees and the Exchange Club and was awarded the 2003 Village Pride Award by WCHL-AM.

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Miscellany

School budgets a concern

By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County schools superintendents Neil Pedersen and Shirley Carraway warned that the school districts could see major cuts if they don’t receive funds requested in their annual budgets.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County boards of education met with the Board of County Commissioners on Monday night for a joint work session.

The Board of County Commissioners has said it hopes to limit this year’s tax increase to equal the amount of debt-service payment increases. The county’s annual debt payments equal about $23.4 million — $17.6 million for school facilities and $5.8 million for county facilities, according to county budget director Donna Coffey.

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Miscellany

Redistricting plan ready for review

By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

This Thursday, for perhaps the final time this year, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education will revisit redistricting and consider a plan that would move nearly 500 students to a new elementary school when it opens in the fall of 2008.

The board is redistricting in order to move students to the new school, which will be located at the corner of Dromoland Road and Eubanks Road. School officials have recommended a revised plan that would move 1,078 students to different elementary schools, including 474 to the new school, which has yet to be named but has been dubbed Elementary No. 10 by school officials.

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Miscellany

Let our medians bloom


Flowing hummocks of clover filling the highway median south of town. Photo by Ken Moore

By Ken Moore

“Grass is the most abused of all plants!” decried Steve Warner, a cherished older friend of mine, an Ohio landscape architect who many years ago retired down on a farm on the White Oak River near Swansboro. Part of his property is now a streamside nature trail of the North Carolina Coastal Federation. Steve was a lively, talkative and very opinionated individual whose life experiences gave him credibility as he worked hard to protect the wild nature of our landscapes. I remember him describing to me his response, soon after settling in coastal Carolina, to the sincere question: “Steve, when did you become an ‘environmentalist’?”

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Miscellany

Weather helps boost farm visits

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

CHEESE IT — Volunteers dish out the cheese samples for some of the thousands who visited Chapel Hill Creamery and other local farms on this year’s Piedmont Farm Tour. Photo by Kirk Ross

Nothing like good weather to boost prospects around the farm, and for the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association’s annual spring farm tour a beautiful weekend certainly helped.

Roland McReynolds, CFSA’s executive director, said the tour is going to be a record breaker.

“It was a fantastic weekend, outstanding for CFSA and for sustainable agriculture in our area,” McReynolds said. “We’re still tallying up the numbers but we had 2,000 people on the tour last year and 7,400 farm visits, and we expect to far exceed those numbers.”

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Miscellany

Todd Street to close


Former aprtments along Todd Street are being rennovated as condominiums. Photo by Kirk Ross

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

By a vote of 4 to 2 the Carrboro Board of Aldermen approved a plan to close the Todd Street right-of-way and put the short downtown street into private hands.

The board acted after a public hearing on a request by Todd Street LLC, developers of The Flats. The group has bought the 32-unit Todd Street apartment complex and refurbished it into small condominiums. The developer wants the 560-foot-long street to belong to the condominium association so that the owners can configure the parking lot and assign specific
parking spaces.

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Miscellany

Moratorium plans looming

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

The clock could start ticking on a six-month development moratorium on roughly 3,700 acres on the north side of Carrboro.

The Orange County Board of Commissioners are expected to take up the proposed moratorium passed by Carrboro earlier this month. If the county approves the plan, the moratorium would take effect.

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Miscellany

County soccer plan questioned

By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

The Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 on Tuesday to approve a plan that would provide $2.267 million toward the development of soccer fields at the West Ten soccer complex in Efland.
Nearly 40 residents from the southern part of the county showed support for the development of four full-size fields at the Twin Creeks park in Carrboro prior to the construction of the West Ten project, citing higher population density and demand for soccer fields in the southern part of the county.

By contrast, northern county residents spoke in favor of the West Ten complex because of the lack of fields in the northern part of the county.

Categories
Miscellany

Take a closer look!

Your best landscape plants may already be in place

By Ken Moore

A group of folks on the Haw River Assembly’s Earth Day walk along the new Haw River Natural area this past Saturday were happy to discover one of those pawpaw patches described in last week’s Citizen. A few of the flowers had survived the recent cold, so the walkers got a good look at the seldom-noticed burgundy flowers, and, sure enough, the main tree had suckered so that numerous stems had indeed formed a patch.