Best entertainment value

For my money, it's the Trinity Park listserv.

Just sayin'.

Continue reading Best entertainment value

Rumors

Could it really be that a senior Durham Police official told a neighborhood association group that the department is not able to enforce Durham's traffic laws and speed limits due to manpower and prioritization issues?

I've only spoken to one person who was at the meeting (although it's someone who i've come to trust implicitly), but if that in fact happened, it's troublesome on so many levels it's hard to know where to start.

(ADDING): My source indicates that the senior police official referred to above was more indicating that the problem lay within the courts. IE - it may not be worth DPD's time and manpower to write these citations if the courts are going to allow them to be bargained down to equipment failures, or if the violators are going to simply ignore the citations, knowing they'll never be tracked down anyway. While this mitigates somewhat the statements that prompted this rant, i don't think it solves the problem or even points the way to a successful solution. The DPD's job is to enforce the laws, including traffic laws. They need to write the citations. If it turns out that the court system for collecting those fines and/or throwing chronic violators in jail is broken, that's a completely different problem.

First, speeding, especially on neighborhood surface streets, is so endemic that the city is unable to fund all of its traffic calming requests. The waiting list for speed humps, for example, is so long that the conventional wisdom regarding their effectiveness has had time to evolve while some neighborhoods are still waiting for their installation. The huge Club Blvd. project near Oval Dr. Park is supposed to be a model for similar traffic calming measures in other parts of town, but it took years to find the money for that project, and there's not much left for other projects. The perceived need to slow down traffic on our surface streets is so great that over 1200 Durham residents have signed on to the PACE Car program, voluntarily and publicly pledging to drive within the speed limit at all times in the city. Believe me, we don't do that because we like making sure we leave five minutes earlier to be on time for all of our appointments.

(MORE)

People who work on pedestrian and other, non-automotive transportation issues, like to talk about the three Es: Education, Engineering, and Enforcement. In our town, education about things like pedestrian rights-of-way in crosswalks is virtually non-existent. Similarly, the engineering of many of our roads (and i'm thinking about N. Duke St., Guess Rd., Roxboro {north and south} as examples) encourages speeding while discouraging pedestrian activity. That pretty much leaves enforcement as the sole means of making any sort of difference in the current, unacceptable, situation.

Second, though, is the incredible insensitivity of making that statement to a neighborhood association group. Our neighborhood associations and PACs are the heaviest concentrations of concerned, committed, and invested citizens. It's been the work of these people, as much or more so than any capital investment from the city, that has made Durham such a great place to live. You simply can't come into a group like that and say that their concerns are not going to be addressed. It's getting pretty damn frustrating to hear from department after department that they can't carry out their jobs because they're understaffed and underfunded. You know, a great many Durham residents have lived in other towns and cities across the US. We've seen, with similar budget constraints, that they've figured out how to enforce traffic laws and zoning regulations. I'm not asking for every pothole in the city to be fixed in 24 hours, or every broken streetlamp to be repaired the same day it's reported. But it's simply unacceptable to hear time and again from department heads that "We'd love to implement that program, or solve that problem, but we don't have the personnel." We read abot the same troublesome landlords leaving their properties to fall apart in neighborhood after neighborhood throughout Durham, while no one is able to devise a program to bring them into compliance.

We hear a lot about "broken windows" theories of community development when we talk to our municipal leaders. Think of vehicles driving at unsafe speeds through our neighborhood streets as mobile broken windows. The prompt parents to keep their kids indoors, and discourage pedestrians from using the neighborhood. There are about as many traffic fatalities in Durham as homicides over the past five or six years. It's not an insignificant problem, and it's one that deserves more of an effort from our civic leaders to fix than what we're getting.

Continue reading Rumors

Durham: Left hand, meet right hand

Longtime DE readers, and people who know me in the real world, know that i really don't like the city's current yard waste program. Durham is practically the only city in NC that charges both a start up fee, to purchase a yard waste cart, and a monthly subscription fee to have the cart emptied. It's almost certainly the only city which does that and does not have a policy in place to pick up all of the leaves that fall off our trees each autumn.

The end result is predictable - fewer than 25% of Durham's households participate in the yard waste program, there's illegal dumping of yard waste in the trash, in empty lots, and in our creeks and streams, and whenever there's a decent amount of rain, our storm sewers back up and clog, resulting in localized urban flooding.

Nevertheless, every year for the past 6 years, Mrs. D. dutifully writes, over my protestations, a check to the city to continue our participation in the yard waste program. And, just as dutifully it seems, the Solid Waste Department neglects to send us the sticker for our container indicating that we've paid up. My part in the program is to not notice that the sticker hasn't arrived until after i do my winter raking and place all my leaf bags out at the curb.

That's what i did two weekends ago. I generally wait till late December/early January to do this project because, for some reason, the trees on my block tend to hold on to their leaves till after Christmas. Some of my oaks still haven't dropped their leaves. And on Friday, Jan. 11th, the fruits of my labor lined the curb in front of my house, waiting for the yard waste truck. I made sure no cars blocked the path. When i got home that afternoon, all the other yard waste on the block had been picked up, except for mine.

That's when i realized that the sticker on the brown cart said "good through Sept. 07." So i called Mrs. D., who confirmed that we were paid up. I called Durham One-Call, who transferred me to the yard waste program, who confirmed that we were paid up, that a sticker had never been mailed, that one would be put in the mail that very afternoon, and that a supervisor would be on a truck the very next morning (Saturday the 12th) to pick up my yard waste. I said i appreciated that, but that it wasn't necessary. So long as it got picked up before the bags fell apart i'd be happy. She assured me it was no trouble.

So i was a bit surprised when i saw a yard waste truck drive up my block on Saturday morning, turn around at the end of the street, and drive away, without touching my yard waste. Maybe it was still a sticker issue?

I called back on Monday afternoon, spoke to a different person in the yard waste program who confirmed that we were paid up, that a sticker hadn't been sent to us yet, that she was putting one in the mail immediately, and that when i got it i should put it on the cart. And that my yard waste would be picked up on the next scheduled run through the neighborhood, which is tomorrow. Meantime, i should just leave my yard waste at the curb.

Sticker arrived in the mail on Tuesday. I put it on the cart immediately.

And lo and behold, when i got home from work last night, the yard waste had magically disappeared. Now i can get the leaves that are piled up in the backyard out to the curb this weekend.

I can't wait till we lose this program later this year, and start picking up everyone's yard waste regardless of whether they've got a sticker or not. Kudos to Donald Long for getting council to go along with the new program.

UPDATE: Cool. Our second yard waste sticker arrived today. Maybe i can sell it on eBay.

Continue reading Durham: Left hand, meet right hand

Impressions of the drought forum

First off - Kevin's play-by-play is here. The N&O report by Matt Dees is here. And Ray Gronberg's report in the Herald-Sun is here.

Adding - there's a good analysis of the meeting over at Bull City Blue also.

Two things struck me, and they're kind of hinted at in the various reports, but i wanted to put a magnifying glass on them.

A number of the panelists were clear in stating that Durham and the Piedmont have seen longer periods with less rainfall in the past, and not necessarily going back into prehistory, either. Forum moderator William Chameides remarked, and i'm paraphrasing here, that a natural response to this knowledge is to think that what we're experiencing now is no big deal.

Actually, and maybe this is more an example of my twisted thought processes than anything else, i think just the opposite. If this moderate shortage of rainfall is causing such a serious crisis, then how much worse are things going to be in 8 months if rainfall remains 30% below "normal"? I suspect the answer is "a lot."

The second thing i noticed was a more general disconnect between the "citizens" and the "experts" on the panel. I think this was represented best by Sydney Miller, who attempted to point out that Jordan Lake is a vastly underutilized water storage medium that, if tapped more completely, could help the region meet its water needs for the next several decades. On the other hand, citizens were consistently pushing to have our leaders start taking bolder steps, like requiring developers to install state of the art water conservation fixtures in their new construction, or follow best practices in xeriscaping as well as preserving older growth mature trees rather than clear cutting and replanting with water intensive foliage. Or continuing and enhancing education efforts to get everyone to understand that reducing water consumption is a permanent lifestyle change that needs to happen.

There is, in almost all fields, a tendency on the part of "experts" to listen to the little people, nod their heads sagely, and remind the folk that, after all, they're the ones who study these things and that the rest of us shouldn't worry.

Ummm, no. That's not how it works.

Decision makers need to be listening to all of the rabble on this issue. Quite frankly, that's where the best ideas are going to come from.

Continue reading Impressions of the drought forum

Beaver Pond update

I'd like to think that it was my awesome photos, or perhaps my threat to stop spending eighty bucks a month or so at Compare Foods that did it, but i won't take any more credit than i have to. I heard a rumor that folks were working on the sewer problem behind the Compare Foods that i reported on earlier in the week.

Stopped by today, and sure enough, something has been done.

All three manhole covers are up, there's no apparent outflow, and all three of the holes are "protected" by pallets. As long as nobody decides they need some cheap firewood tonight, that should work. It still smells pretty rancid back there, but i can't say whether or not that's a lingering odor, or indicative of the fact that the problem has not yet been cleared up. At any rate, there's nothing flowing into the beaver pond at the moment.

Which is a good thing, because if there was, i don't think these sandbags are up to the task of keeping anything out.

Continue reading Beaver Pond update

Making a dent

Kevin picked up on my post to the PAC2 listserv about "celebratory gunfire" around town on New Year's Eve. In years past, i've heard maybe half a dozen to a dozen burst, from one or two shots to maybe 6 or 7 at a time in the period immediately surrounding midnight. This year in the same location gunfire was pretty much non-stop between 10:30 and 1 am (one emailer tells me it continued to 5 am where he was), and it certainly sounded like hi capacity magazines being emptied. I counted 17 or 18 shots on more than one occasion.

Commenters on Kevin's thread are posting all over the place. DR writes:

I think legalizing more types of fireworks would help. Or we could urge people to shoot blanks, as Michael suggested on the PAC2 listserv.

Blanks are pretty hard to come by (they're not sold at Dick's), but I usually have the more common cartridge varieties from boy scout firearms instruction. I actually thought about distributing these in the neighborhoods where I do some volunteer work, but was worried about running afoul of some law.

He then adds:

More enforcement will help, though I don't think it will eliminate the problem. With all of the drinking, assault, arson, and other shenanigans on NYE I think the police are pretty busy.

Most effective would be a public education campaign; this seems to have helped in other cities. Unfortunately it usually takes a high profile shooting death, as happened in my home town of New Orleans in 1994.

(emphasis added)

Meanwhile, MS writes:

I would be interested to know what the DPD would like to say about this method of celebration, and how, if at all, can it be curtailed in the future? I disagree with David Rollins via Michael of PAC2, comments about handing out blanks. How can the sound of blanks being shot reassure me as a responsible, law abiding citizen, that they weren't real? I would never know that. Regardless, why should the celebration of a handful of folks in my neighborhood be impressed upon me with the uncontrolled sound of gunfire? I take pride in treating my neighbors with respect. Shooting real or blank rounds to celebrate New Year or 4th of July, or whatever holiday, is not excusable. I agree with Barry that folks should be arrested for discharging a firearm in the City limits, but when it was so widespread as it was on Monday night, how would they be able to make a dent?

A quick google search on the terms "celebratory gunfire" reveals, as expected, that this problem is not unique to Durham. And in many cases, it has taken a "high profile" tragedy to inspire action. But in many cases that action has been effective, and the concept isn't that hard to dollow or the tactics that hard to duplicate.

First, City Council has to make it a felony to recklessly discharge a firearm in the city limits. currently it's a misdemeanor, punishable by 30 days or $500. Make it a felony punishable by up to 36 months and a $25,000 fine. (It may be that this falls under the "needs permission from the legislature to enact" part of our state constitution. If anybody knows for sure, please let me know. For now, i'm assuming this is within council's purview.)

Then, beginning December 1, the city and DPD make an intensive effort to inform the citizenry that celebratory gunfire will not be tolerated. A dozen billboards around town, bus sides, PSAs, newspaper articles and ads, a couple of high profile press conferences with Jose Lopez and Bill Bell announcing the new higher penalties for recklessly discharging a weapon in town. Also set up a special number for folks to call to report gunfire in their neighborhood, and publicize the heck out of it.

On NYE, put an extra couple of dozen patrol cars out on the streets specifically to respond to gunfire reports.

Make a couple of dozen arrests.

Repeat as necessary.

Experience shows that within two or three years, people get the message.

Of course, we could always wait until there's a "high profile death" resulting from this practice before we decide to do anything about it. That seems to be the way most things get done around here.

Continue reading Making a dent

Good reasons

I can think of a lot of valid reasons why people want to own guns. Firing randomly in the air in an urban area to celebrate the arrival of the New Year isn't one of them.

Continue reading Good reasons

New Year's Eve at the beaver lodge

While i was up at the lodge behind KMart/Compare Foods on Avondale Drive taking these pictures, i caught a pretty good whiff of a smell that i recall strongly from my childhood, but that i don't notice much any more.

When i was a kid, my dad's work took him into all kinds of grocery stores, usually in the hours before they were open to the public. I'd go to work with him on occasion, entering the A&P from the back and walking through the frigid rooms with their pink, white, and grey sides of beef hanging from hooks, bright purple USDA stamps declaring that they had, in fact, been inspected by someone. There's a very particular smell that beef fat takes on after it's been trimmed from the carcass and discarded.

And that's what i smelled yesterday behind the Compare Foods. It took me a few minutes to track down the source.


this grey tinged water bubbling up from a sewer manhole behind the store, running a couple of gallons a minute into the beaver pond, seemed to be the culprit. Fortunately, when i went around to the front of the store to do my grocery shopping, i ran into a guy driving a Durham Water & Sewer maintenance truck, and told him about what i had found around back. Unfortunately, when i went back to the leak after doing my shopping, the guys from Neighborhood Improvement Services who were back there picking up old pallets told me that no one from Stormwater had come by. So i phoned it in to Durham One-Call. I'm going to head back there shortly to check if anyone from the city has stopped by.

In the meantime, it was also nice to see that the parking lot in front of KMart was getting put to good use.

Kevin reports that some leases have been signed for about half of the available space at KMart. I'm not sanguine that either the owners or the new tenants appreciate the natural beauty and significance of the area around that shopping center, but business is certainly preferable to vacancy, at this point.

UPDATE: Greasy water continues to bubble up behind the Compare Foods and into the beaver pond as of 5 pm New Year's Day.

My layman's guess is that we're looking at 2-3 gallons per minute.

I just spoke with someone at Water and Sewer who said that a crew did go out yesterday after i reported to One Call, and confirmed my suspicion that a grease trap is blocking the line and causing overflow, but that it's on private property and there's nothing else the city can do at this time except notify the owners that there's a problem.

Does that seem sufficient to anyone else? The water is definitely heading straight into the beaver pond.


UPDATE II: From the ECWA list:

As far as I know, that the beaver pond is public waters, and not privately owned, so you are right that makes a sewage spill a Clean Water Act violation. The NC Division of Water Quality is the place to report it. If the City has neglected to follow up on your report (they should have auto-dialers and emergency response even on a holiday), that should be even further reason for penalizing.

Here’s the number from DWQ’s website “to report an environmental emergency” (this counts!) 1-800-858-0368.

I would also recommend a follow up call to the Raleigh Regional Office, 919/791-4200, where they handle enforcement in Triangle area counties. Here’s a map: http://www.enr.state.nc.us/html/regionaloffices.html

They may have another emergency number, or just ask that the message be relayed to the Water Quality staff assigned to Durham County. Definitely ask that they call you back, so you’ll know that someone’s taking action! I’ll be glad to work with you later to follow up and see what action was actually taken.

That's from someone at Clean Water for NC.

I've called the state DWQ number and made sure they're aware of this. To be honest, "my work here is done." I (nor any other citizen who deals with local issues like these) should have to make it a part-time job to follow up with various agencies making sure that stuff likes this gets taken care of. That's why we pay our public servants salaries.

Continue reading New Year's Eve at the beaver lodge

A few quick thoughts on the city manager announcement

First, i'm not privy to any of the internal deliberations of council, but from reading the accounts in the Herald-Sun and the N&O, as well as Kevin's speculations at BCR, some things are apparent.

That Patrick Baker didn't have the confidence of the council was made clear earlier this week. I wrote then that i thought that situation was "inherently unstable." I didn't realize how quickly that assessment would prove to be accurate. I think there's a certain amount of fudging in the public statements from council members and from Baker, but i don't think it really pays any benefits to air that laundry publicly. Whether the notion of Baker returning to the attorney's office originated with him or with council is irrelevant in the long term.

I think Patrick has done an overall good job, given the constraints he's had to operate under, and i expect that he will be a stellar city attorney for Durham for many years to come.

Ray Gronberg brings up the idea in the HS story referenced above, that some in city government, particularly Mayor Bill Bell, are considering the possibility of having the Durham charter rewritten to get rid of the Council/City Manager system, and institute what's often called the "strong mayor" system, in which the mayor functions as the chief executive of the city, and not merely the chair of the City Council. Personally, i prefer that system over the one we have now, especially since it's been a decade at least since we've had a manager who has the authority to, you know, manage. However, it would be difficult if not impossible to have voters approve that change for any sitting mayor. I think if Bill Bell wants to leave Durham with the legacy of a strong mayor position, he'd probably have to announce that he wasn't interested in retaining the office after his current term.

The problem with that, of course, is that the city now has to go out and hire a good, no make that a damn good, city manager in the next 6 months. If you know that the current mayor is thinking about eliminating the manager's position in favor of a strong mayor, why would you even consider taking the job? So i think Bill Bell, and anyone else in favor of the strong mayor system, needs to step right up to the plate and say yea or nay that this is the direction they want the city to go in, or run the risk of interfering with the process of hiring a new manager.

One of the things that Patrick Baker did really well, in my opinion, and especially in contrast with his predecessor, was oversee the hiring of Durham's new police chief, Jose Lopez. Not only was the process fair and transparent, but i really think that Baker made far and away the best choice for Durham. I hope he is allowed to have a significant input into the hiring of his replacement.

UPDATE: Kevin's thoughts here.

Continue reading A few quick thoughts on the city manager announcement

More parade photos

Our neighborhood has been marching in the parade for the past four or five years. I really look forward to it. Seeing all of the spectators is a different perspective on who actually lives in our city. One drawback is you don't actually get to see the parade itself. Here's a bit of what i saw yesterday.

Duke Park contingent. Council members Ali, Cole-McFadden, and Woodard in the center pose for a photo op.


Spaulding Elementary School pre-parade lineup


I have no idea why there's a duck on the Fox 50 float


Southern High School Band pre-parade lineup




Some crowd shots

Now, all we need is some rain.

Continue reading More parade photos

Begging for change

Interesting discussion on the ABCD list the past few days about getting more people out into the CCB (or See Say Be, as our old friend Blazer used to call it) Plaza.

The question was asked about having street musicians or artists busking there as a way of drawing interest and spectators.

Joy Mickle, Downtown Development Coordinator for the city, wrote in to explain some of the roadblocks:

DDI, and the City of Durham's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, and Parks and Recreation have had discussions related to how to encourage/support/finance street performers in the CCB plaza and in downtown. Currently the issues of insurance/risk management for performers who may be injured and/or sue the City or the sponsoring company remain a hurdle. We are still working through some of these issues for a final solution.

Fair enough, i suppose. I know that New York, for example, at one time sponsored performers to busk in the subways; so there are probably models out there for dealing with the insurance issues. but Durham may have enough liability issues on its hands in the future not to want to take on more, and that's understandable.

Ben Kimmel then asked:

But what if I wanted to hang out there and play music? I don't mean set up a stage and massive speakers - just me and a guitar and 50-80 bikers? ; )

Here's where it gets interesting. Joy responded:

Legally you can sit out and play music on the street all day long as long as you don't ask for money (which violates the City of Durham's panhandling ordinance) and if you are getting paid (by the City or by a private entity) then you need a City of Durham business license (so City taxes can be tracked) and if something happened to you and you were being paid whoever is paying you then becomes liable.

The point is that there are questions to be answered if we are to have PAID street performers in Downtown. If people want to do it for free and are not "panhandling" then you can play your guitar till your heart is content (and then as long as it doesn't create a disturbance or violate a noise ordinance).

she also posted the relevant sections of city code, which the Attorney's office apparently determined meant that you cannot play your guitar with an open case in front of you.

Let's look at the ordinance. (Note to any city officials reading this - a big fat link to the city's Code of Ordinances on the city website is probably a good idea.)

Section 12-28 is the relevant section. Paragraph (a) defines a bunch of terms, including "To beg or solicit alms or contributions," "Accosting another person," "Forcing oneself upon the company of another person," and "Public place."

Paragraph (b) states, pretty clearly: It shall not be unlawful to beg or solicit alms or contributions except when performed in the following manner:

and then goes on to use the terms defined above to expressly forbid accosting or forcing oneself upon the company of another person. The ordinance also sets some location limits, to wit, not within 20 feet of a bank entrance or ATM, or within 6 feet of a bus stop. Finally, subsection 4 reads:

(4) In a public place twenty (20) minutes before sunrise and twenty (20) minutes after sunset. For purposes of enforcement of this section, the terms "sunrise" and "sunset" shall be determined by and based on the times for those events published daily by the U.S. Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department.

I guess this last is confusing. Does it mean, between 20 minutes before the sun comes up, and 20 minutes after the sun goes down, you can't solicit? Or does it mean that prior to 20 minutes before the sun comes up, and subsequent to 20 minutes after the sun goes down (ie, during dark hours) that you can't solicit. I'd assume the latter, but i'm not a lawyer. The key is that paragraph (b) clearly says that soliciting is legal unless you do it wrong. So i'm curious to know what reasoning the city used to make the blanket announcement that it's not.

Anybody able to enlighten me on this?

Continue reading Begging for change

Downtown parking

So i'm reading the coverage of the Lakewood Y community meeting last night in the Herald Sun and over at Kevin's place. This is another one of those issues that i don't have a personal stake in. My experience with the Y over the years has been decidedly mixed. But i have a great deal of respect for the community members who are doing everything they can to convince the folks in Raleigh that the undersized facility in their part of town is worth saving. That they're having an impact on the process is a decidedly Durham thing.

But this post isn't about that.

Here's a quote from Kevin's piece that got my attention:

The Y also recommends adding family/youth locker rooms to the downtown facility (a widely-cited need) and trying to close Seminary St. with the City's blessing in order to add more parking capacity for the facility.

(emphasis added)

That's actually a throwaway line about parking. Kevin's main point is that the Y is committed to expansion, just not necessarily in the right places.

But the parking issue is a key one, at least for me. The city has some pretty misguided policies when it comes to parking. At a time when major cities are limiting the availability of free or cheap parking in their downtowns, as a means of encouraging people to get out of their cars, Durham is building parking decks and garages all over the place. Some cities have zoning laws that limit the number of parking spaces for new, urban development and redevelopment. In Durham, we have minimum parking requirements. We have pedestrian plans, we have bike plans, we have underutilized transit systems, we have new transit hubs being discussed and built and argued over. But when the rubber hits the road, what we end up with is more and more parking spaces.

Of course, what will inevitably follow is the dreaded "traffic congestion" caused by too many cars on our urban streets. And that will end up being accompanied by calls for wider streets, more turn lanes, and an infrastructure that is increasingly hostile to forms of transportation that are not automobile-centric.

More parking isn't the solution to every damn downtown problem, and it's time that all the different facets of Durham's disparate decision making authorities got on the same page with that.

Continue reading Downtown parking

Royal Ice Cream marker

There's a heightened push being made to get a commemorative marker installed by the state to make note of the 1957 sit-in for civil rights at the site of the Royal Ice Cream parlor on Roxboro St.

Although i've written about this event, (as have a number of other Durham bloggers), and the commemorative events that took place earlier this year marking the 50th anniversary of the sit-in, i don't know as i've flat out said here that i support, at a minimum, the state installing a commemorative marker at the site.

I'd like to correct that oversight. Put the marker up.

Continue reading Royal Ice Cream marker

Black Friday

There's a whole weekful of days that are called "black" in memory of some terrible event that happened on that day. For some reason, i'd had it in my mind tht Black Friday originally referred to the 1929 stock market crash, but those days are appropriately referred to as Black Thursday (October 24) and Black Tuesday (October 29).

I'm not the only one who makes that association, though.

When Black Friday comes
I'll stand down by the door
And catch the grey men when they
Dive from the fourteenth floor
When Black Friday comes
I'll collect everything I'm owed
And before my friends find out
I'll be on the road

sang Steely Dan on the 1975 LP Katy Lied.

More recently, Black Friday has come to refer to the day after Thanksgiving, the kickoff of the holiday shopping season and commonly assumed to be the busiest shopping day of the year. Generally it's not. By most accounts the term was originally a negative one, although more recently people tend to say the Black Friday marks the time when the ledger books change their ink from red (for a net loss) to black (for a net profit). I kinda suspect this is simply a folk etymology.

So, what's the point of writing about Black Friday? I'm getting there. Bear with me another paragraph or so, and your patience will be rewarded.

See, one of the things i really like about Durham is that, with very few exceptions, all of the good things are accessible. Very few restaurants require reservations to enjoy a good meal, for example. Most evenings, you can walk up to the ticket window and get seats at a Bulls game, or at the Carolina Theater. Same with Duke women's basketball. Even if you're one of those people who likes the mall on Black Friday, it's going to be pretty much navigable. I don't like it when one of my favorite haunts gets written up and becomes inaccessible, which almost happened to the Oyster Bar's Friday special last February, after the Indy highlighted it in their Valentine's Day oyster eaters special report. So i'm a little nervous about mentioning this next item.

But it's a good deal, it supports a good cause, and it's put together by good people who assure me that, regardless, i won't be iced out even if it gets too crowded.

Here at DE we're thankful for the work of Pop The Cap, who successfully lobbied the General Assembly a few years back to allow the brewing, sale, and consumption of high gravity ales and lagers in our state. Next time you're in Sam's Blue Light ogling that wall of Belgian imports, or picking up a Dogfish Head 90 minute, say thanks to Sean Wilson for his hard work. And think about coming out to his Black Friday Beer Fest (BF2) at Rigsbee Hall this Friday afternoon and evening from 3 to 7 pm. Bring a new, unwrapped toy (to be donated to Toys for Tots) and a twenty dollar bill, and enjoy some of the finest in dark and high gravity beers from the state and around the country. There'll be snacks from Pop's and Rue Cler as well.

Continue reading Black Friday

Property tax revaluation

The N&O is reporting today that Durham County is getting ready to mail out tax notices reflecting the new assessed values of property in the county.

We've talked about this in the past, mostly in the context of the transfer tax debate. NC law requires that property revaluations be "revenue neutral," so that the increase in value of property over time between assessments is compensated for by a lowering of the tax rate.

This, however, just strikes me as intuitively wrong:

The value of property in Durham County will rise an average of 30 percent next year under the county's recently concluded revaluation, officials said Monday.

Residential property values alone rose an average of 24 percent.

The 30 percent increase covers all property in the county including commercial and industrial.

It's been 7 years since the last assessment, during which time the real estate market in the rest of the country has gone absolutely nuts. Durham may have escaped some of the worst excesses of that, but residential properties are up only 24% over 7 years? That's a shade over 3% a year after compounding. Which simply doesn't jibe with anectdotal reports of home sales that i've been hearing.

I can only think of a couple of reasons for this. One is that there's a much greater number of new units in the tax base than i thought, and that most of these were already assessed at their current value. This would mean that new construction has been much higher in the last two years than in the previous 5. I don't know if that's the case. A second is that the assessment actually caught some of the recent housing market downturn. My real estate friends keep telling me, though, that Durham hasn't been affected by that so very much.

Other reasons i can think of are sheer speculation, and i don't feel like printing them, but feel free to explore your imaginations in the comments.

What i will say is, if you live in a neighborhood that's appreciated more than 30% over the past 7 years, be prepared for some sticker shock when the new tax bills come out.

UPDATE: Obviously, the simplest explanation is that, on average, property values in Durham have only increased by 24% over the past 7 years. But that would mean large chunks of town have seen property values fall in order to balance out the increases in other parts of town. I know there are major depressed neighborhoods, but is that enough to counterbalance the increases in value seen elsewhere?

Continue reading Property tax revaluation

Chickens

Holy chickenshit, Batman!

Seems like every listserv in Durham has gotten a request to sign the petition to allow chickens in the city limits.

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Currently, chickens are only allowed in Durham Residential Suburban Zone 20. There is no reason they should not be allowed in any urban backyard. A hen raised around people can be an affectionate pet that also provides fresh eggs, reduces waste by eating yard waste and kitchen scraps, provides rich fertilizer for the garden, controls pests, and brings us closer to our food source. The noise level is no more than a dog. A chicken coop that is properly designed and maintained poses no threat to sanitation. Please click on the following link to sign a petition asking the City Council to reconsider allowing chickens within the city limits:

No link provided from here. If you think it's a good idea, find the link on your own.

Here's my response:

There are two points made in the email to consider.

First: "The noise level is no more than a dog."

For a great many people in Durham, the noise level of dogs is already a serious concern, and the current means of enforcing the noise ordinance in the city and county when it comes to barking dogs is broken. Adding to this problem is not a good idea, in my mind.

Second: "A chicken coop that is properly designed and maintained poses no threat
to sanitation."

the number of dogs in Durham county that are kept in unhealthy and unsanitary conditions, tied at the end of too short chains without shelter, and often without food and water, is staggering. It's naive to think that every fowl owner is going to provide a coop that is "properly designed and maintained."

For those people who are already keeping chickens in urban environments, and are doing so without bothering the neighbors, my attitude is, what's the problem? If you're not bothering anyone, then you've got nothing to worry about.

But opening this up without providing any means for dealing with what will inevitably become a problem among neighbors is a bad decision at this time.

Continue reading Chickens

Election dissection

For starters, Kevin's got a good crunching of the numbers up at BCR. If you're interested in Durham politics, you should bookmark it.

I'm going to eventually disagree with some of his conclusions because if i didn't, well, i'd have nothing to say, right?

The Easy Races

Dianne Catotti and Eugene Brown were the only council candidates to be named on over 50% of the ballots. That makes sense. They both enjoyed broad support from across the political spectrum, they're both incumbents whose tenure on the council has been commendable. The council race was always going to be about who landed the third seat, and we'll talk about that more later.

The bond issues were similarly supported and all passed by wide margins, the Life and Science Museum bond the only one failing to attract 70% support. That probably reflects a lack of familiarity with the museum among parts of the population. Basically, if you don't have kids or grandchildren under the age of twelve, the Museum is probably not even on your radar.

I want to also add my .02 about the city's road repair bond.

Durham has not, in the time i've lived here, had any difficulty in getting bond issues passed. (The stadium bond/COPs plan was just before my time.) The problem has been actually spending that money. Much of the 1996 park bond monies weren't spent until 2001 or later, and i think it was Kevin who pointed out that some of the 96 money was still being spent. Unfortunately, the longer you wait to spend bond funds, the less you can buy with them. This is especially true when it comes to construction, as prices for steel and concrete have increased at rates much higher than overall inflation the past decade. It's also a problem that so much of the revenue raised in Durham bond issues goes to maintenance and repair. Infrastructure maintenance, repair, and even incremental upgrades to systems are items that should be budgeted for out of general revenues. Borrowing needs to be confined to capital investment and new infrastructure. If Durham continues to fund repairs by borrowing, two things will eventually happen. First, voters will stop rubberstamping new bonds. And second, new projects will be put on hold even longer than they are now, increasing citizen dissatisfaction with the government. This isn't inevitable, but the city really needs to shift gears with the way it deals with bond monies.

The Harder Races

The two contested races, for mayor and for the third council seat, especially the latter, were where all the action was. Let's start there.

Here's the primary results for the candidates who finished third through sixth:
Farad Ali . . . . . . . . . . 4,962 13.74
Laney Funderburk . . . . . . . . 3,775 10.45
David Harris . . . . . . . . . 3,414 9.45
Steve Monks. . . . . . . . . . 3,225 8.93

Ali's strong showing in the primary was the result, i think, of his early backing by key members of the progressive community who were, to a greater or lesser extent, affiliated with the Democratic Party. Steve Schewel, former publisher of the Independent Weekly comes to mind as one of the most prominent. David Harris, on the other hand, had to wait until after the primary reduced the field to three Democrats before he was able to benefit from party GOTV efforts.*

The order of the primary finish, in which Republican Laney Funderburk actually edged ahead of Harris for fourth place, created a dilemma in the minds of some voters, namely that if progressives split their votes between Harris and Ali, would that create an opening for Funderburk to sneak in and grab a seat on council? One local activist sent an email out yesterday alluding to precisely that scenario in encouraging votes for Ali:

I prefer David Harris for that third seat. I've seen a candidate forum and talked to folks and I remain lukewarm on Ali. Since Harris and Ali are in direct competition for that third seat, I considered voting ONLY for Catotti and Harris. However, Funderburk is also a serious contender. He's a conservative with no real strong sense of city functioning -- it's basically a protest campaign and he's running so that Stith will have some conservatives on council.
So withholding my vote for Ali (to help Harris) might contribute to Funderburk getting in, and I don't want that.

Finally, toward the end of the campaign, Ali started picking up financial support from some of Thomas Stith's backers, and there were rumors that Stith himself was encouraging his supporters to vote for Ali.

Kevin is of the opinion that Farad Ali's endorsement by the Durham Comittee on the Affairs of Black People, and their lack of endorsement of David Harris, was the contributing factor in determining the outcome of the race. Here's where we disagree. I think that Ali's early progressive backing and strong showing in the primary were significant contributing factors. Without those, i don't think the Committee's endorsement alone would have been enough to put Ali on the Council.

The question now, for Ali, is having won a seat, what will he bring to the table? Will he show why so many progressives backed him early, or will he lean towards those conservatives who contributed heavily to his campaign in the stretch run?

The other contested race on yesterday's ballot was the mayor's race. Incumbent Bill Bell ended up with a solid 58 - 42 victory over Councilman Thomas Stith, whose Republican star would appear to be fading. There are two ways to look at this race. One is that despite a 1-4 disadvantage in voter registration, the Republican Stith managed to achieve a respectable showing. I don't think that's a serious analysis though, for a couple of reasons. First is that Stith essentially ran away from his Republican base. He didn't trumpet his conservative bona fides on the campaign trail, especially after his initial foray into conservative hot-button issues like illegal immigration blew up in his face. I think he achieved his 42% by denying his affiliation, not embracing it. That's not going to be a model for Republicans to run on in future elections, especially those in which partisanship actually counts. The second reason is that when all the receipts are finally tallied up, we'll find that Stith outspent Bell by somewhere around 5-1. He ran an extremely well financed campaign, and raised the bar for Durham elections in years to come. And still only attracted 42% of the vote. So maybe not so respectable after all.

The other way to look at the race is that Bill Bell faced his strongest challenger since defeating Nick Tennyson by a relative handful of votes 6 years ago, and put together a winning coalition. Thomas Stith raised serious issues of Durham's problems, and attempted to lay them at the feet of the incumbent. A majority of Durham's voters understand that our problems are community based, and that one man or woman can neither bring them to pass nor solve them by force of will. These election results show that at least a strong segment of the citizenry is willing to work together to fix our problems, rather than cast about for a scapegoat to blame. That's good news, as far as i'm concerned.

Finally, what Durham voters did last night was swap Thomas Stith for Farad Ali on the city council. While i would have preferred that David Harris would be sitting in that seat come December, i'm hopeful that the trade will at least prove an upgrade.

=====================

* One of the consequences of a "non-partisan" municpal election is that the political parties do not hold primaries, and therefore cannot run official candidates. There were four registered Democrats in the council primary, and the Democratic Party would have been unable to endorse only three of them had all four survived the primary. The Republicans, on the other hand, essentially ran a slate of three candidates (remember those red signs with "Funderburk, Parrish, Monks?" That was the Republican slate.) Makes you wonder exactly why Victoria Peterson changed her registration from Republican to Democrat earlier this year.

Continue reading Election dissection

Campaign sign theft update

From the comments below, Kevin Farmer, chair of the Durham County Democratic Party writes:

the Durham County Democratic Party paid for the signs in question and was responsible for their placement throughout Durham. We purchased a grand total of 250 signs at the approximate cost of $541.00--a mere pittance compared to the amount of money Thomas $tith has paid to lie to the City of Durham about Bill Bell's record, and his own. Of the approximately 70 or so signs I myself participated in putting out, 39 are now missing and 3 were vandalized. Another 36 signs from other routes have also gone missing, and I fully expect more to go missing by Monday.

I guess the truth hurts. I guess the Republican Right doesn't really want the voters to know that their candidate was, until only recently, the VP of an organization that considers global warming to be a hoax, publicly-financed elections to be a communist plot, zoning to be the same thing as taking away property rights, or gay people to be second-class citizens.

We already have the license plate # of one potential offender, and a description of two vehicles, and that will be pursued to the fullest extent of the law. As for the anyone else, the Durham County Democratic Party is prepared to offer a $250 reward for the arrest and conviction of anyone tied to the illegal removal of our campaign signs. That amount will increase as donors agree to chip in, insofar as the amount they donate is paid out for apprehending the suspects in question. In other words, this is not a fundraising effort--money donated will be returned if no suspects are apprehended as the result of our efforts.

Continue reading Campaign sign theft update

The strange case of the disappearing campaign signs

So, sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning a couple of hundred signs appeared around Durham proclaiming "STITH: Right Wing REPUBLICAN Don't Be Fooled!"


Corner of Avondale and Trinity, Durham, NC


The signs were not attributed, but there's no reason to think that Kevin's supposition in the commentsthat local Democrats had something to do with it is incorrect. Surprisingly, North Carolina law does not require that campaign signs indicate who paid for them. You probably can't tell in the jpeg above, but neither of the two signs in the photo contains a "Paid for by . . . " disclosure statement. It would make sense that the Stith campaign, which has made little mention of Stith's conservative bona fides as a Civitas Institute VP, would not be happy to see this information becoming a campaign issue at a late date in the campaign.

But does that explain the disappearance of a large number of these signs between Saturday night and Sunday morning? Does the Stith campaign really want to keep his conservative, right-wing, Republican credentials a secret from Durham voters?

This is, after all, the same candidate who appeared in the following video, promoting a Civitas Institute conference by using the word "conservative" or the phrase "conservative movement" 11 times in just over a minute.



Who's trying to fool who?

Continue reading The strange case of the disappearing campaign signs

Exclusive: Stith campaign actually a tool of Bill Bell!

From the comments:

My god, this is not a Republican rightwing conspiracy at all, it is a clever double-blind of Bell and or the upper income black class of this town seeking to make even more bucks on the backs of their lower class brethren. Bell's people somehow infiltrated the republican ranks and led them to choose the one person in this entire town more lame as than Bell, this giving bell a better shot at re-election.

I tell you , it's a privilege to publish this blog sometimes.

If anybody has any more special insight into this election, please, post in the comments or drop me a line at DependableErection AT gmail DOT com. At this rate, I'll be scooping the Herald-Sun, the N&O and Bull City Rising for the next month.

Mwa-ha-ha!

Continue reading Exclusive: Stith campaign actually a tool of Bill Bell!