October office hours are here! My very special guest this month is my friend and colleague Alderwoman Barbara Foushee. Join us Saturday, October 12, anytime between 5:30 and 7:30 pm at Open Eye Cafe. Drop by anytime to talk about all things Carrboro—including this new bus shelter.
Many thanks to the North Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club for their endorsement of my re-election campaign! I appreciate the Sierra Club’s recognition of my advocacy on environmental issues and my leadership for Carrboro. I especially appreciate the chapter’s emphasis on understanding “how climate and environmental quality intersect with local land use, transportation, and housing policy.”
Read the complete endorsements for Orange and Chatham Counties.
I am honored to receive the endorsements of both Equality North Carolina and the Victory Fund for my re-election campaign. As one of a small number of openly LGBTQ elected officials in North Carolina, I take seriously my responsibility to support my fellow LGBTQ North Carolinians and to show up for them whenever I can. Advocacy and support of LGBTQ people in Carrboro and all of North Carolina is one of my passions and has motivated much of my work both as an elected official and in other roles.
I’m proud to join in Carrboro’s tradition of leading the way in advancing the rights of LGBTQ people throughout the state. Please consider supporting my re-election campaign by volunteering or by making a financial contribution.
Updated December 5, 2019.
Summer is here! It’s time to plan ahead for another season of office hours. It’s been a fun and interesting year for office hours so far, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of you over the next several months.
As always, these dates and times may change. Check this page for updates, or follow along on Twitter or Facebook. And feel free to contact me anytime. See you soon!
It was a real honor to be able to join Sara Romweber’s family and friends in proclaiming Sara Romweber Day in Carrboro. Watch the video here and read the full resolution below. North Carolina’s Piedmont Laureate David Menconi assisted with the drafting of the resolution.
Motion was made by Alderman Damon Seils, seconded by Alderman Bethany Chaney, that the following resolution be approved:
WHEREAS, Sara Romweber moved with her family to Carrboro in Orange County, North Carolina, in 1977, the year she turned 13 years old; and
WHEREAS, Sara was “Little Sara,” daughter of “Big Sara” Romweber and one of seven children; and
WHEREAS, the Romweber family home on Pine Street in Carrboro was a unique artistic ecosystem in which all the kids were involved in various quirky artistic pursuits; and
WHEREAS, many of those artistic pursuits involved bands, including The Remainz, UV Prom, Crash Landon and the Kamikazes, and Flat Duo Jets, led by Sara’s younger brother Dexter Romweber; and
WHEREAS, Flat Duo Jets would go on to receive international acclaim, and Sara achieved even more as a key member of historically significant and artistically important alternative-rock bands, including Let’s Active, Snatches of Pink, and (with her brother) Dex Romweber Duo; and
WHEREAS, Sara pioneered a unique style of drumming and a playing style that displayed amazing power and versatility across a wide range of musical styles; and
WHEREAS, Sara also became a much-beloved icon, as renowned for her thoughtful kindness and on-point rock-star style as for her drumming; and
WHEREAS, Sara’s inspiration also extended far and wide as an important and enduring influence on friends, peers, fellow musicians, and younger generations; and
WHEREAS, Sara’s death at age 55 from glioblastoma on March 4, 2019, triggered an amazing and massive outpouring of love and remembrances across media platforms all across the globe; and
WHEREAS, Sara will never be forgotten as one of the North Carolina musicians who made the state great.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Aldermen of the Town of Carrboro, North Carolina, does hereby proclaim Sunday, June 23, 2019, as “Sara Romweber Day” in Carrboro and urges all residents to continue to celebrate the life and legacy of Sara Romweber and her important contributions to the artistic life of North Carolina, the nation, and the world.
This the 18th day of June, 2019.
North Carolina is ripe for progress on the rights and well-being of workers and their families. I was glad to author this resolution, which the Board of Aldermen approved unanimously this week.
WHEREAS, everyday working people in North Carolina are struggling in an economy that doesn’t work for them, and stagnant wages, cuts to public services, systemic discrimination, and a weakened social safety net are the norm for many communities; and
WHEREAS, public policy choices, not just market forces, determine whether working people have access to economic opportunities and benefit fairly from the work they do; and
WHEREAS, diverse local governments across North Carolina have enacted policies to support our own employees as allowed by state law, but are limited in our ability to extend protections and benefits to other working people in our communities; and
WHEREAS, the Town of Carrboro has supported our own employees by becoming a certified Orange County Living Wage employer, providing paid parental leave, adopting employment nondiscrimination policies and practices, and extending eligibility for employment benefits to same-sex partners of Town employees; and
WHEREAS, North Carolinians need access to safe, green, living wage jobs, free from violence, harassment, and discrimination; and
WHEREAS, worker organizing, union membership, and collective bargaining remain the most effective tools for working people to exercise their power on the job and in the public sphere;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Aldermen of the Town of Carrboro thanks our legislative delegation for promoting the well-being of North Carolina’s workers and their families and urges them continue this important work by supporting:
This is the 14th day of May, 2019.
The month of March brought new concerns about the safety of students, employees, and visitors on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Vandals desecrated the Unsung Founders Memorial, and a group of white supremacists brought weapons, including firearms, onto the campus in violation of state law. On Tuesday, April 9, I introduced a resolution to the Board of Aldermen urging the university to take bolder action in responding to and preventing these kinds of incidents. I’m proud that my colleagues on the board unanimously passed this resolution.
Alderman Damon Seils made a motion, seconded by Alderman Jacquelyn Gist, that the following resolution be approved. The motion passed unanimously.
A RESOLUTION IN RESPONSE TO RECENT ACTS OF RACIAL INTIMIDATION ON THE CAMPUS OF UNC-CHAPEL HILL
WHEREAS, Carrboro is home to many students, employees, and alumnae/-i of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, including an estimated 3500 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, or approximately 1 in 6 town residents, and the life of our community is intertwined with the life of the University; and
WHEREAS, on March 31, 2019, two persons desecrated the Unsung Founders Memorial in McCorkle Place on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus by defacing it with racist graffiti and with urine; and someone vandalized an installation outside Hanes Art Center with racist language; and
WHEREAS, on March 16, 2019, persons associated with a white supremacist group carried firearms and other weapons onto the UNC-Chapel Hill campus in violation of the North Carolina General Statutes and campus policy; and an Alert Carolina emergency notification was not issued; and no arrests were made and no citations or trespass notices were issued; and
WHEREAS, student antiracist activists have been prohibited indefinitely from entering certain areas of the campus, including McCorkle Place, despite having been found not guilty of the criminal charges related to their trespass notices or having had those charges dismissed; and
WHEREAS, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP, the Carolina Black Caucus, and others have called on UNC-Chapel Hill to take bolder action in response to acts of racial intimidation and threats by white supremacists to the safety of the community; and
WHEREAS, the Board of Aldermen appreciates Interim Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz’s statement that “we must nurture an environment where all people in our community can live, learn and work without fear”; and the Board is encouraged by the arrests on April 8 of the persons believed to have desecrated the Unsung Founders Memorial;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Board of Aldermen that the Town of Carrboro, NC, urges its neighbor and partner UNC-Chapel Hill to rescind trespass warnings against student antiracist activists; to press charges and issue trespass warnings against persons who on March 16 carried firearms onto the campus; to clarify when the community may expect the presence of an armed person on or near the campus to trigger an Alert Carolina emergency notification; and to invite community members not necessarily affiliated with the University to participate in the campus safety commission being convened by the interim chancellor.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Town wishes to partner with UNC-Chapel Hill in a shared commitment to helping students feel safe in Carrboro through better communications, education about the Carrboro Police Department, opportunities to participate in Town programming and advisory committees, continued participation in the Good Neighbor Initiative, and other efforts.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board asks the clerk to share this resolution with the interim chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill and the members of the Chapel Hill Town Council, the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Board of Commissioners.
This the 9th day of April, 2019.
Today is #TransitThursday. Today, my usual commute from Carrboro to Durham on the GoTriangle 405 bus comes a day after the discontinuation of the Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit Project. I have thoughts.
Even without the DOLRT Project, the challenge of the Durham-Orange transportation corridor that it was designed to address remains. It is one of the most intensively traveled commuter corridors in North Carolina; it will only become more challenging.
As Durham Mayor Steve Schewel said yesterday, before we look ahead, we must acknowledge the enormity of this setback for the people of Durham and Orange Counties. Planning to address the Durham-Orange corridor took many years. Planning another meaningful transit solution in the corridor will take many years more.
The DOLRT Project faced challenges from the start. Reactionaries in the North Carolina General Assembly set absurd funding limits and arbitrary deadlines to undermine years of planning that had broad community support. We persisted. The path ahead for the DOLRT Project narrowed considerably after Duke University withdrew from planning discussions, a devastating decision that showed little care for the people of Durham, as my colleague Commissioner Jennifer Weaver has said.
Thanks to the many community members who invested time and energy in a vision and a plan to transform the public transit network of the western Triangle. Thanks to the professional staff of GoTriangle and the staffs of local and regional governments and planning organizations who brought amazing technical expertise, planning chops, and passion to implementing our communities’ priorities. Thanks to the committed, visionary leaders of Durham and Orange Counties who stood up for our communities, backed up by Governor Roy Cooper, Secretary of Transportation Jim Trogdon, Congressman G. K. Butterfield, and Congressman David Price, among others.
We’re up to the new challenge. It will take renewed commitment to the community’s vision, expressed over and over again, of a truly regional transit network. And it will require a General Assembly that is responsive to democratically determined local needs.
Want to be part of the action? Watch for new opportunities to participate in amending the Orange and Durham transit plans. Completing the important local projects in those plans, and finding new approaches to regional cooperation, is where you’ll be needed.
Damon Seils is alderman and mayor pro tempore of the Town of Carrboro and chair of the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization Board.
Come talk about Carrboro!
For this month’s office hours, I’m glad to welcome special guest Joal Hall Broun, the chair of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board and a former Carrboro alderwoman. Joal also serves on the executive committee of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP. She has worked for all of us locally and regionally in a variety of roles over many years.
Drop by anytime on Saturday, March 30, between 11:00 am and 1:00 pm! We’ll be camped out in the Claremont neighborhood clubhouse at 115 Orlando Place. (Many thanks to the Claremont Homeowners Association.)
Updated June 4, 2019.
The new year means a new season of office hours! Want to chat about Carrboro? Join me for any or all. Here are the details:
These dates, times, and locations may change. So be sure to check this page for updates or follow along on Twitter or Facebook. And office hours or not, feel free to contact me anytime. See you soon!