A source of extra revenue

On Monday night, the executive director of the Orange County Visitors Bureau, Laurie Paolicelli, gave the Town Council scads of information about how important tourism is for Chapel Hill, how the town has a lot of features that visitors look for when considering a destination, and how much money tourism generates for town businesses and taxes.

“Everything a tourist looks for, we have in Chapel Hill,” Paolicelli told the council.

Paolicelli said tourism brings $152 million a year into the county, with Chapel Hill by far generating the most interest and dollars. And the number-one request the bureau gets from prospective visitors is whether the town has a guided tour. Apparently, such a tour is high on the list of must-do things for visitors. And there are plenty of sights to see in Chapel Hill – enough to provide plenty of stops on a town tour loop.

Paolicelli even showed a drawing of such a town tour loop – basically it would start at University Mall, wend its way along Franklin Street with a stop at the town museum, turn around at Carrboro’s Weaver Street Market, then come back for stops at the Ackland, the Carolina Basketball Museum and the planetarium.

It would be an 11-mile trip, so driving, either by bus or car, would be essential.

Now, buses can be expensive. The estimate tossed out at the meeting was $50 an hour per bus. And for such a tour you’d want several buses operating sequentially, so that visitors could get off the bus to visit a site (and especially a business or two) for more than just a casual stop. Which means that a tour that uses some means other than buses to get the tourists through the loop would be a nice alternative.

And that brings us to a suggestion by Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt. He observed that a system of self-guided stops could involve using cell phones to access tour information and presentations. Wait a minute – isn’t there a push to outlaw cell phone use while driving town streets? I wouldn’t want to see police issuing citations to drivers who were just dialing in to a historical presentation.

Then again, the town is going to need extra revenue to pay for that library renovation and those expensive parking spaces at 140 West Franklin. Great idea, Mr. Mayor!

–Don Evans

Turning down a bargain

Last week, The News & Observer sold its office space at 505 W. Franklin St. to Franklin Junto, a group of investors led by Top of the Hill’s Scott Maitland who will turn the space into a distillery. The N&O will pay rent to Maitland for a corner in the building where the dozen or so remaining N&O/Chapel Hill News employees will work.

The N&O sold the land and building for $2.15 million, about $800,000 below its tax value, considered the market value as of January 2009.

How did the N&O end up in such dire straits that it had to sell prime real estate in downtown Chapel Hill for nearly 30 percent off its market value? Its parent company, The McClatchy Co., took on too much debt a few years back when it bought the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain.

McClatchy financed $3.75 billion of the $4.5 billion purchase price. At the time, in 2006, McClatchy and its lenders evidently didn’t think the purchase was a bad idea. But time has shown otherwise. The economy spiraled downward, and McClatchy struggled to make its loan payments. The company sold off what newspapers and assets it could and slashed staff. The N&O has cut its staff, which once numbered just over 1,000, by half in the past 18 months.

Now, in a sour economy that some financial experts say has not reached bottom yet, Chapel Hill’s Town Council is considering issuing all the bonds it has available to it to finance some discretionary capital improvements, such as more than doubling the size of the library and fixing up the greenway. Because of the cost associated with issuing bonds, town manager Roger Stancil advised issuing them all at once, rather than one at a time as needed.

The town needs to have some funds in reserve in case 140 West Franklin is built, and I don’t see how the town can walk away from that contract unscathed. (I’m awaiting a reply to my e-mail to Stancil and town attorney Ralph Karpinos as to what nullifying the contract would cost the town.)

All of the people who spoke at Wednesday’s public hearing made solid cases for why the town should spend money on their particular projects. And if the economy were better, I’d feel better about the town taking on somewhat more debt to invest in those projects. But the economy is bleak right now, and we have made some spending decisions in the past that mean we may not be able to follow through on the projects voters approved a couple years ago. Even though the depressed cost of materials and labor right now would make capital improvements a bargain, they aren’t a bargain if the town has to refinance repeatedly because something unforeseen has stressed its resources to the breaking point.

As McClatchy learned, sometimes the prudent course is to say no to a bargain.

– Nancy Oates

Spending on people, not things

By any measure, town workers did a bang-up job preparing the town for last weekend’s snow storm and clearing roadways in the storm’s aftermath. They worked overtime and through the weekend to make sure life returns to normal for the rest of us. I was amazed at how quickly things got back to normal, because a half-foot of snow can really knock this Southern Part of Heaven on its collective butt.

At the Town Council meeting Wednesday night, several council members went out of their way to praise the town employees for the job they did. And that praise wasn’t coming just because there were several dozen burly firefighters and other town employees sitting in the audience. It was obviously genuine and heartfelt.

So when the talk turned to the budget, which was why we were all there in the first place, and whether there would be money to hand out a few raises and not cut into health care benefits, everyone was all ears.

Kay McDaniel, the chair of the Town of Chapel Hill Employee Forum, got to the core of the matter: Town employees worry that another tight budget year coupled with a lousy economy will mean cuts in health care benefits as well as no pay increases. She pointed out that salaries for town employees have not changed in two years while many town workers are taking on extra duties – some are doing the jobs that two or three people once did.

McDaniel’s points were echoed by several other speakers, who praised the town’s attractive work atmosphere while pointing out that it could all melt away like the weekend snow if someone doesn’t look out for the workers.

The question is: Will the town take care of its employees or double the size of the public library? Expanding the library will take a big chunk out of town revenue. Town staff played their part in reducing town costs over the last few years. Now, it’s time for the council to acknowledge that effort and put the workers first. Instead of putting the town deeper in debt, the council should provide for its workers at this crucial time. Now more than ever town workers could use that little extra in their paychecks or not to have to sweat it to find a way to pay the extra cost of health care.

As council member Jim Ward put it, the council can choose to spend money on bond debt or on other things, i.e., staff raises and health care. I say put the people first.

–Don Evans

Grasshoppers and ants

When it comes to taking on debt, there are two kinds of people: those who are comfortable living with debt, and those who aren’t. Town Council has both ilk among its members.

At last night’s meeting, it was interesting to watch council members divide themselves between spenders and savers, forming new alliances and new divisions, and to observe the passion that discussions about money engender among people who have to decide how to spend a common pot. Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt, who admitted that he used to pay his daily living expenses with a credit card until he reformed his ways, shrugged off the town taking on its maximum allowable debt. Council member Matt Czajkowski, on the other hand, went to great lengths to explain that, given a fixed amount of revenue, the town would have more money to spend on salaries and projects if it had less debt to pay down.

So whose financial advice would you follow? Someone who lived day-to-day on credit or someone who planned well enough to retire early?

My bias is showing here. As an ant married to a grasshopper, I get on this soapbox regularly.

At Monday’s meeting, some citizens spoke about the importance of increasing town salaries to keep the best workers from being lured to more lucrative districts; others talked of the urgency to issue the bonds — all the bonds at once — to spend on parks, greenways and the library expansion. Council must decide whether to spend taxpayer-generated revenue on people or things, or raise taxes and spend on both.

Council member Jim Ward backed Czajkowski and intimated that he would choose to spend on salary increases over infrastructure. Council member Gene Pease advocated for not letting short-term operating strains (i.e., the crumbling economy) get in the way of investing in the town’s infrastructure. Council member Laurin Easthom pointed out that living just below the debt ceiling allowed no breathing room for exigencies. What if the police station falls down? How would we pay to fix it if we had reached our credit limit?

Council member Donna Bell commented that the philosophical differences could be hashed out at the council retreat, delayed perhaps until early March. As a taxpayer, I feel lucky that inclement weather canceled the retreat that was to have taken place last weekend and these philosophical differences were aired in public at the start of the budget process.

– Nancy Oates

Snow day

We’re taking a snow day (yeah, I know, the stuff has mostly melted from the weekend’s Big Storm, but things just worked out this way). We’ll have something for Thursday’s post.

Think of one word to describe . . .

Amusing. Intimidating. Bewildering. Infuriating.

No, I’m not using terms that I heard over the weekend to describe the snow storm (winter storm is such a wimpy phrase, best used by uncertain forecasters to obscure the fact that they’re not sure exactly what will blow into the area when that fast-moving front arrives).

I’m referring to the town budget planning process, which kicks off Wednesday night at 7 in the Town Council chambers at Town Hall. Take the time to read through any news story written about budget planning in the past 10 years and you’ll find one of those descriptives tucked somewhere in the story. The process can easily deserve those words – just try to read through a budget document.

Although there will be more forums in April and May that will offer chances to comment on how the town plans to spend taxpayer, i.e. your, money, this is the kick-off.

And the topics include capital improvement needs, how to spend the federal money for public housing improvements and renovations, federal and state grants for transit capital projects (think: “free” buses), operating costs and transportation planning, changes in services for the Downtown Service (read: business) District and potential legislative proposals like Penny Rich’s cell phone ban.

Capital improvement needs include sidewalks, bikeways, greenways, park improvements and, what should be very interesting, construction and renovation of town buildings. Think the public library expansion might figure into any of that?

If you don’t mind entering a show midway through the first act, there’s a follow-up forum set for April 12 to give what amounts to a status report on how the budgeting is going and to receive more citizen comments. I like to be in the audience when a show starts, though, so I’ll be there tomorrow night.

Maybe only someone who was amused, intimidated, bewildered or infuriated would wait until the forums in May, when the town manager presents his spending recommendations.

–Don Evans

Doing favors

I don’t ever remember hearing longtime Orange County Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass admit that he sat on a police report for more than a year. But that’s what he did in Saturday’s New & Observer.

Turns out Pendergrass pulled an incident report at Elizabeth Edwards’ request. The wife of former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards had called the county 911 dispatcher on what the report described as a “domestic between spouses and larceny of wallet” on Oct. 10, 2008. In the report, Elizabeth Edwards told officers that her husband came home to eat dinner with his children after a sports event. She told him they were dining with a babysitter and he had no business being there. He agreed to leave, but he took her wallet with him and the $320 in it. No charges were filed in the incident.

So what was Pendergrass doing holding onto the report? You have to assume that Elizabeth Edwards asked him real nicely not to release the report. But since when does a resident get to keep a public document under wraps? Incident reports are public record. Now, you could argue that no crime took place because Elizabeth Edwards chose not to lodge charges, but a deputy cost taxpayer dollars to go out to the house to investigate.

I’ve seen incident reports withheld from being published in newspapers. Never seen one withheld from public release. Is that what my tax dollars are going for – so that the Orange County sheriff can hide public records that might embarrass a resident?

Reminds me of the time at The Chapel Hill News back in the mid-1980s when publisher Orville Campbell spiked a story about a well-known local veterinarian who had been brought up by the state on more than 30 charges of animal abuse. Seems he had forgotten, among other lapses, to take the bloody sponges out of his patients in the operating room on several occasions. The man’s wife drove to the newspaper’s West Franklin Street offices and somehow (tears were involved, I was told) convinced Campbell that reporting the news would just devastate her husband, who was looking at losing his license to practice in North Carolina. So Campbell pulled the report.

Of course, a story like that couldn’t be completely squelched; the N&O picked it up and scooped us, much to the chagrin of the reporter who had done the hard work to dig it up. And Campbell even did an about-face and gave permission for the story to run a few days after it had appeared in the N&O.

Tampering with the news is almost always a bad idea. When a former presidential candidate does something that could give him a starring role in the police blotter, that’s news. Snatching someone’s wallet is one of those little details that voters might use to base their choice on whether he has the right stuff to lead the nation.

It’s not up to a sheriff to hold onto that kind of information as a favor to someone. I expect better of Lindy.

–Don Evans

Living wage

More than 80 people packed into the Town Hall auditorium Monday night to stand up, literally, for Justice United’s push to raise the town workers’ wage floor from $11.06 per hour ($22,120 annually based on 50 weeks of pay) to align more closely with the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s housing wage of $15.31 ($30,620 annually) to enable town employees to afford to live in Chapel Hill. The group also asked that the wage be indexed — linked to a recognized standard so that the wage will automatically rise with the standard to avoid being eroded over time.

Council had no problem with indexing the wage, and passed a resolution that sets the minimum hourly rate for full-time employees of the town at not less than 7.5 percent above the Federal Poverty Guidelines for a family of four. The adjustment would be calculated annually and incorporated into the town’s pay plan as part of the annual budget process.

The N.C. Justice Center Living Income Standard for Orange County is $17.73 per hour ($35,460 annually). This is the amount NCJC calculates it would cost a one adult/one child household to live on based on working a 40-hour week. Last June, the council adjusted that to $11.06, based on the free transportation and other benefits, such as health insurance and retirement contribution, that the town provides its employees. (The lowest-paid town employee makes $12.15 an hour, or $24,300 annually.)

At the risk of going “wise Latina woman” here, as a freelance writer married to a freelance writer, I know a thing or two about balancing the “living” with the “wage.” And making more money — while always welcome — isn’t a cure-all. The two strongest factors in pushing the middle- and low-income earners out of Chapel Hill are the cost of housing and the high property taxes. The paradox is that if taxpayers pay higher taxes to boost the salaries of town employees to enable town staff to afford to live in Chapel Hill, those employees who own market-rate property will have to pay more in taxes, further stressing their modest salaries. Or, we consign them to living in rental property, though owning a home is the most reliable way of building wealth.

Justice United followed up with a second petition, that the Inclusionary Zoning policy become an ordinance. The policy addresses housing needs of those making between 60 percent and 120 percent of the median income for Orange County, rather than limiting it to those at the 80 percent mark, and considers rental property and homes larger than one- or two-bedroom units.

Council accepted both petitions for review.

– Nancy Oates

In the driver’s seat

It was around 10 p.m. on Monday night, three hours into the Town Council meeting, and Penny Rich asked to speak.

I was looking at Page 5 of the agenda and thinking we might get to go home soon, especially after Rich said she would make it brief because she wanted to get home to give her kids a goodnight kiss. I started packing up my notes and binder, half listening to what Rich had to say.

Then she proposed that the council look into prohibiting motorists from using hand-held cell phones while driving in Chapel Hill. And she asked that the town hold a forum on the increasing dangers of driving while distracted.

Huh? My first thought was that here was another impertinent effort by a daft town politico to garner attention for a pet project that the town shouldn’t get involved in anyway. You know, like the Carrboro Board of Aldermen voting to condemn the War in Iraq – shouldn’t they be spending their time working on town business instead? I wondered, Can the town make such a law?

But the more I thought about it, the more Rich’s idea appealed to me. The town, especially on the UNC campus, is just a cell phone or text message away from a horrible accident. We’ve all watched as some vehicle up ahead has weaved from shoulder to center line, on the edge of a very bad day. Too many people take too many risks behind the wheel just so they can share some trivial detail by phone or by texting. Such impetuosity doesn’t seem worth it, considering the risk. Yet people continue to do it.

A state ban on text messaging while driving went into effect this month. The next step would be an outright ban on cell phone use while driving. I’m not sure where the state is on this, but why not have a municipality such as Chapel Hill take the lead and issue a ban of its own?

There are all sorts of questions about enforcement issues. And Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos was directed to look into whether local jurisdictions need state authorization to do what Rich has proposed. But after Rich’s petition I found myself thinking I’d like to see the town issue a ban. It might curb some of that driver impetuosity and make the roads just a little bit safer.

–Don Evans

Chillin’ hard

Between all the applause and repeated standing up of the scores of Orange County Justice United folks and library supporters and before the disappearance of the status report on the 140 West Franklin project, Ryan Ogilvy stepped casually to the microphone on the council dais Monday night to petition Town Council.

He dispensed with the traditional “Thank you, Town Council members, Mayor Kleinschmidt and town staff,” in favor of “Hey, how’s it going.” An unspoken “dudes” hung in the air.

Ogilvy is the manager of the Chapel Hill Skate Park off Homestead Road. He oversees the office/shop where people can rent helmets and skateboards or buy a Mountain Dew and a microwavable burrito. He told the council about a big problem at the 10,000-square-foot skate park — overdue repairs at the 10-year-old facility. Some of the assorted 16 laminate-wood ramps are wearing out — holes in the ramps have injured kids, Ogilvy said. And maintenance by the town — the park’s landlord — has been non-existent.

The town’s role in keeping up the facility is crucial. The park is operated by Vertical Urge, a Raleigh company that took over as concessionaire in 2006. That contract is up for renewal in April. But Vertical Urge only oversees the park; it doesn’t do renovation or maintenance. That’s the town’s job as per the agreement between the two parties. Ogilvy said a town worker hasn’t been around to check out the facility’s needs in six months, and he hasn’t seen any repairs.

Membership fees run from $25 to $300 per year, or visitors can pay $7 for a single session. That price structure may be contributing to decreased use of the park. Skate parks in Durham, Cary and Raleigh have opened recently, and those parks do not charge for use. Ogilvy wants the town to make its park free because he says that would attract more skaters. Ogilvy knows what skaters want – he first appeared before the council 15 years ago to urge it to create the skate park.

Last year, town staff reported that the concession agreement executed in May 2006 had worked well. Vertical Urge had operated the facility in a professional manner. Park patrons were satisfied. The few complaints from the surrounding neighborhood have been effectively addressed by the concessionaire.

The only problem seems to be that the town is not keeping up its end of the bargain.

Ray “Butch” Kisiah, the director of Parks and Recreation, reported to the council back in April 2009 that the park needs renovation and expansion. That’s simply a commitment to maintain taxpayer property.

Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt asked the town staff on Monday to look into the issue and prepare a report for council members. Ogilvy left his number.

–Don Evans