I attended a meeting at the White Cross Community Center last night. The meeting was held and attended by close to 300 concerned Orange County residents who discussed UNC’s possible THEFT of homes and homesteads through eminent domain.

Why do I call it theft? Well, many interesting facts were presented such as cost (40 MILLION), economic and ecological impact to our communities and of course, kicking people out of their homes and off their farms so rich dudes can fly in for ball games and not be inconvenienced by having to drive an extra 5 minutes from RDU! I implore anyone who cares about the environment, local economy, justice or not letting your fellow citizens get SCREWED to help STOP this Jackassary NOW!

You can educate yourself on the facts by reading the following: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sworangecounty

This is getting voted on in DC tomorrow, Sept. 23rd.  It is not really

a local issue, but I wish to post it since I work towards these goals

locally.  If it doesn't pass, perhaps local initiatives could be brought

forward. 

*H.R. 6899: Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection

Act*

I was fortunate enough to be a scholarship participant on the Inter-City Visits to Madison and Ann Arbor. I thoroughly enjoyed both experiences, but I found that I am unable to stop comparing the Madison experience to the Ann Arbor experience.

This exercise, of course, is completely unfair. Mainly because, in my opinion, Madison wins. In everything. Hands down. Period. Ann Arbor doesn't stand a chance.

Madison has an abundance of natural beauty. It had a really great downtown that seemed accessable to both students and other people. It has the Overture Center, which always takes my breath away, and Madision is a hotbed for creativity and technology. It is so much what I want for Chapel Hill.

But Ann Arbor is different (duh). I didn't see anything particularly beautiful or extrodinary about it. Ann Arbor seems much more into function, rather than form. It ain't Madison, but it has its good parts.

The country has been getting ransacked over the last couple of weeks.  On August 4th 2008  both houses of congress (Rep. David Price included) sanctioned  H.R. 3221 and the conservatorship of Fannie and Freddie  essentially saddeling the U.S. government with 5.4 trillion in debt that it is now responsible for!!! 

Had we had a debate and expressed the outrage over this back then, gone into the streets banging our pots and pans .... the latest outrage, the  proposed bail-out bill, would now be something that our Congressman David Price might think twice about before voting  ...  we should have broken down his door back in August!

The very wise, prophetic, yet ignored,  Catherine Austin Fitts has summed this bill up:

The question is simple to state but probably very complex to answer.

What are the possible ramifications to the County and the Towns from the current financial crisis including but not at all exclusively budgets, taxes, development plans, services, credit, bonds, etc....? 

A secondary question is are there any actions our local governments should be taking now to reduce negative risks?

Certainly the personal suffering of residents is likely, including potential loss of jobs, shrinking investments, sinking home values (maybe). If this gets worse the consequences will be felt by local governments.

Maybe there are skills on this blog that can provide some insights.

Via e-mail:

Last week I was at Mayor Chilton's office in Carrboro talking about how to make the most of the Inter-City Visit to Ann Arbor (which my fingers keep misspelling "Ann Arrboro"). He suggested checking out some local blogs and we started Googling away. I only found one (Arbor Update) that seemed like OP, but there are definitely some interesting sites, although several haven't been updated since this summer.