It’s a short week thanks to the Memorial Day holiday, but two of our local governments are keeping busy. Here is a look at some of the local government meetings scheduled for this week, May 31 – June 3, 2022:

Chapel Hill Town Council

The Chapel Hill Town Council will be holding a virtual work session on Wednesday (June 1) at 6:30 pm — view the agenda here, access the Zoom here if you want to comment, and it’s also streamed on the Town’s YouTube channel. There are three items this week, two of which are closely related:

  • First on the agenda is continued discussion of the Town’s budget for the next fiscal year. Prior council meetings have had a lot of discussion over the IFC (Inter-Faith Coalition) and Partnership to End Homelessness requests for additional funding, and how that relates to funding from Orange County. The revised budget includes $258,000 to fund an IFC interlocal agreement with partner governments and $126,000 for the Partnership, and provides options for other budget reductions to free up that revenue.
  • The other two items relate to parks and recreation. The second item is a presentation by Parks and Recreation staff about the department’s current programming, its highest priority projects, and its business plan. Finally, the third item is a discussion about the recent petition from five Council members directing Town staff to finally move forward with a process for developing a park on the American Legion site. The petition proposes selling part of the Legion property for private development, and using the revenue to help fund development of an actual park on the site. It’s great that Council members have stepped up with an actionable approach towards making the Legion site a great resource for the whole town. We have a lot more about that in a new blog just posted on TriBlogBlog.

Carrboro Town Council

The Carrboro Town Council is off this week, but has a meeting scheduled next Tuesday, June 7.

Orange County

Orange County commissioners will be holding a public hearing and a work session on the County’s Fiscal Year 2022-23 budget and capital investment plan.  The meeting will take place at the Whitted Meeting Room at 300 West Tyron Street in Hillsborough and can also be streamed online. Here is the full agenda.

Public comment will be accepted in three ways:

Here are some helpful resources:

Public comment will follow the manager’s budget presentation.

The work session includes three items, including the following:

  • A discussion of a proposed ordinance to regulate protests in the County. According to the agenda, commissioners initially discussed the ordinance at meetings in February and May, and also discussed whether there could be limitations on large gatherings on public school properties. The County Sheriff and school superintendents were invited to attend the meeting.
  • A presentation from GoTriangle on project expenses for the  Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit project. The project was under development beginning in 2013 and spent about $157 million by the time it was shut down in 2019, mostly on consultant fees for management and design of the light-rail system. (Full disclosure: Your author worked for GoTriangle during light rail project development.)

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Geoff Green, AICP lives in Chapel Hill. In his day job he's a practicing urban planner; in his spare time he rides his electric bike around town and advocates for improved facilities so that everyone can...