It has BEEN A WEEK! With the winter holidays well in the rear view window, there’s a buzz of activity around local government, and we have been doing our best at the Blog Blog to try to keep up. We’ve published quite a few articles over the last week, and thought it would be helpful to collect them here in case you missed some.
One of the biggest items this week was the public hearing on Chapel Hill’s housing choices proposal, a progressive policy proposal that we’ve been writing about since September. Over the last week or so, we have tackled the housing issue by:
- Answering some burning questions on the proposals that were sent to the council mail box.
- Critiquing some of the arguments in opposition to the proposal, and discussing the history behind the claim of “neighborhood character.”
- Starting a new regular feature about how many (or few) affordable homes are for sale in Chapel Hill.
- Encouraging folks to let Town Council know you support their efforts to end exclusionary single-family-only zoning.
- Pointing out that one of the websites that opposes the production of more housing may not be on the up-and-up.
- Live blogging the Town Council public hearing on Thursday.
- Republishing Melissa McCullough’s great public comment that led off Thursday’s hearing.
That’s just our articles about housing. There’s been a lot more:
- We shared a Q&A with UNC grad student Jillian Kern, whose research demonstrates how increases in graduate student stipends have failed to keep up with inflation over the last few decades.
- We posted the latest entry in our “Greenways I know” series, this time traveling to Cary to visit the Black Creek Greenway.
- We called out council member Adam Searing’s latest round of foolishness, and predicted his next step is a run for mayor.
- We encouraged people to fill out the splash pad and inclusive playground survey.
- We pointed out that UNC is a pretty important part of the town and we ought to keep that in mind when we’re criticizing the presence of the school or its students.
- We provided some context about downtown Chapel Hill and Purple Bowl, and discussed options for saving and strengthening Purple Bowl and our downtown.
- We shared some of the Chapel Hill Public Library’s pretty cool, lesser known services.
Phew. No wonder we’re exhausted.
We have a lot of exciting plans for the future and can’t wait to share them with you. If you have anything you’d like to share, if you’d like to write for us, or just want to get in touch, please reach out at [email protected], You also can follow us on Facebook, Mastodon, and Twitter.