Politics

Politics

There are 1,050 posts filed in Politics (this is page 60 of 105).

Highlights of 2011: CAC changes

Last year saw some transitions with my work with Raleigh’s Citizens Advisory Councils. After seeing how energized neighbors in the East CAC had become over a noise issue with Enloe High School’s air conditioning unit, I decided it might be a good time to turn over the reins to new leadership. When you identify leaders, the next step is to put them to work, right?

My decision did not come lightly. For over three years, I’ve been planning meetings, coordinating speakers, conducting meetings, and streaming live video from the meetings, to keep my neighbors informed and engaged. In between, I met with neighbors who needed help navigating the city departments to get something done. I also administered neighborhood email lists so that people could stay connected.
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Highlights of 2011: campaigns

The year 2011 was an election year for Raleigh and I was right in the thick of things again.

For a while now I’ve been wondering what it might take to play a bigger role in Raleigh government. In February of last year I quietly took a day off from work and drove to DC to attend a Veterans Campaign workshop aimed at getting more military veterans to run for office. It provided an eye-opening education to what it takes to win an election, some of which isn’t particularly pleasant.
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Highlights of 2011: Mordecai Historic Park

It was a bit unexpected that Mordecai Historic Park would become a milestone of the year 2011. I’ve served on this sleepy little board as the Parks Board liaison since I joined the Parks board but the last year was by far the most eventful.

Things really heated up in the spring when the board was presented with the location options for the Mordecai Historic Park Interpretive Center that’s been on the books for a number of years now. I’ve extensively covered on the blog the pros and cons and the thoughts behind my decision-making process, so I won’t do so again. Highlight entries are for reflection from a bit more distance, though, so from this perspective I see the growth opportunity this event provided me.
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The Rise Of The Mayor-Entrepreneur

Here’s an interesting take from TechCrunch about how mayors need to think like entrepreneurs. If Raleigh is gunning to be a city of innovation it might want to take this advice.

On stage at last month’s Le Web conference Shervin Pishevar, a Managing Director at Menlo Ventures, stated “The World is a Startup.” It’s an interesting perspective, and I think what’s true for the world is also true for countries, states and municipalities. With developments like last month’s announcement that Cornell was selected to build a new tech campus in New York City, it seems to follow that if “a city is a startup,” then the best mayors are the ones who are looking at their cities in much the same way as entrepreneurs look at the companies they have founded.

via A City Is A Startup: The Rise Of The Mayor-Entrepreneur | TechCrunch.

Big water bills coming due

I spent a little time this evening attending the inaugural meeting of the Midtown CAC. Among the presenters was the City of Raleigh’s Public Utilities Director, John Carman. Carman (as he’s known around the city) has been meeting with CACs and other civic groups on a speaking tour. He gave a similar talk to the East CAC back in April.

In his talk, Carman explains the many challenges of running his department, among which is the conflicting problem of water conservation. As you may remember, the city’s droughts have prompted many residents to drastically cut back on their water usage. This was good news to almost everyone but Carman, who has to fund his department through water bills. Thus when folks used less water, they actually get charged more because public utilities needs to make up the balance.
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Time for a new drug war strategy

I was surfing WRAL’s webpage the other day and, like many of their web visitors, got stuck in their gallery of arrest photos. Like the “rate me” sites like Am I Hot Or Not?, the parade of suspect photos pulls you in, making you want to click just one more time to see what’s next.

Anyway, I was clicking away one afternoon when I noticed a pattern. Of the suspects arrested for drug violations, the overwhelming majority of them were arrested for the possession or sale of marijuana. While there were some arrests for other drugs, marijuana was far and away the drug most often cited.

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Taking a u-turn on the one-way street

City of Raleigh Transportation guru Eric Lamb shared this story of one successful conversion of a one-way street to two-way in St. Catharines, Ontario. It provides hope that East Raleigh may also enjoy a renaissance once it banishes its one-way streets.

Two years ago, city crews went to St. Paul Street — the one-way spine of downtown St. Catharines, Ont. — took down the “no entry” signs, painted new lines and opened up the street to two-way traffic. According to planners, it would slow cars down, make the downtown more pedestrian friendly and spur retail development.

People, especially businesspeople, didn’t like it. And then they did.

“A prominent local businessman came up to me the other day and said, ‘I didn’t support it from the start, but this is the best thing you’ve ever done.’ ”

via Taking a u-turn on the one-way street | News | National Post.

New Citizen Advisory Councils to kick off with first meetings

I was quoted in today’s Midtown Raleigh News, discussing the city’s new CAC boundaries.

Chelsea Kellner wrote a great, concise story which explains CACs perfectly. I love how this turned out!

“The new CACs provide one cohesive community organization for neighborhoods that were right on the boundary of the old CACs, to bring people together and focus more on the needs that are specific to that area,” said Mark Turner, chairman of the Raleigh Citizens Advisory Council.

via New Citizen Advisory Councils to kick off with first meetings – News – MidtownRaleighNews.com.

Highlights of 2011: Adventures at the NCGA

How does this get me a job?

Y’all knew it wouldn’t take long for me to bring up politics in my Highlights list, didn’t y’all? This year had me doing more at the General Assembly, mostly fighting an old battle but also jumping into a new one.

My long-running efforts to protect broadband competition continued in 2011, though this time my luck ran out when the NCGA (with Perdue’s help) passed a law to block other municipalities from providing their own Internet services to their citizens. Some otherwise good legislators like Sen. Josh Stein and Rep. Rosa Gill bought into the pro-business hype and voted for the ban, to my disappointment. I think many supporters of the ban simply didn’t realize what was at stake, in spite of the opinion piece I got published in the News and Observer. (Note: I neglected to add my op-ed to my blog until now).
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Rick Santorum’s foggy thinking

Politico is taking a look at Republican Presidential nominee Rick Santorum’s past push to restrict the National Weather Service’s ability to get its data to the public.

Weather doesn’t show up as a top issue on Santorum’s presidential campaign website, and AccuWeather doesn’t appear in his 2012 campaign donations. But some of his opponents, such as the liberal website Daily Kos, have tried to revive memories of the 2005 legislation this week — including with headlines claiming inaccurately that Santorum had tried to “abolish” the weather service.

In fact, Santorum’s failed legislation would have left the weather service intact, although with significantly reduced ability to distribute its information directly to the public.

Critics of the bill say the legislation reflects an outdated worldview — one that says government data should flow through profit-making middlemen, rather than being released freely to one and all.

I used to work at a commercial weather forecasting company, so I’m aware of the commercial value of weather data. That said, I thought in 2005 that it was stupid to make the public buy data that it’s already paid for through its taxes and I still feel that way today. Santorum’s bill was about as dumb as they come, and the fact that he didn’t see any harm in hobbling one of the most valuable government services speaks volumes about him and the type of leader he is.

via Rick Santorum’s campaign could be clouded by 7-year-old attack on National Weather Service – Bob King – POLITICO.com.