On September 12, the Daily Tar Heel reported that the $120,000 PAC led by Julia Grumbles would not be forming. In an email sent by Grumbles to neighbors on September 18th, the reason becomes clear: instead of forming a new PAC, they plan to donate tens of thousands of dollars to the existing CHALT PAC, […]
Chapel Hill
This week in Chapel Hill Planning Commission — Sept. 19, 2023
The third Tuesday of September will bring this month’s second Planning Commission meeting, and another installment in my effort to demystify the Town’s development review process and provide some insight on development applications that Town Council may be considering in the near future. (If you’d read the last edition, you’d have been one of the […]
Fact check: How much money does Chapel Hill spend per person on parks?
At a recent backyard fundraiser in the Glendale neighborhood, Town Council candidate Renuka Soll said that Chapel Hill spends 4 dollars per person on parks. She repeated this number in an email to Chapel Hill’s tennis community, at the 9/14 candidate forum hosted by the Democratic Party of Orange County, and in a Twitter video […]
Factcheck: A new CHALT blog post is chock-full of factual errors
Labor Day marks the traditional beginning of the municipal election campaign season—one of our favorite times of the year. And earlier this week the Chapel Hill Alliance for a Livable Town (CHALT) launched a new website. CHALT is an “anti-development community group” that has “opposed nearly every major development proposal” in Chapel Hill since its […]
What’s in Chapel Hill’s Affordable Housing Plan that the Town Council is Voting on Tonight?
For the past nine months, town staff have worked with HR&A Advisors – a housing and land use consultant that in my experience does excellent work – and local stakeholders to develop a comprehensive affordable housing plan. While the town has long focused on affordable housing, this represents the first comprehensive affordable housing plan in […]
The $120,000 Wealthy Homeowners PAC Is Dead Before It Started
The effort by a group of wealthy homeowners to form a new single-issue Political Action Committee (PAC) in support of Adam Searing’s mayoral candidacy and several like-minded council candidates is no more, according to its chief proponent. The Daily Tar Heel’s Ethan Horton reported that Julie Grumbles, the coordinator of this “Wealthy Homeowner PAC,” emailed […]