Raleigh

Community-focused posts

There are 776 posts filed in Raleigh (this is page 32 of 78).

Wade CAC nominations

It was a busy day! Not only did I attend the Glorious Church meeting but this evening I presided over the second special meeting of the Wade CAC. This meeting was the one where the candidate nominations were taken and nominations closed. It was the first meeting of the Wade CAC in its new meeting room, the aptly-titled “Meeting Room” in the newly renovated Jaycees Community Center on Wade Avenue.

The meeting began with city reports from the police and parks department. Following that, the list of existing candidates was presented and nominations taken from the floor. One new candidate was nominated and things went very, very smoothly.

For new business, two upcoming rezoning cases were mentioned but I didn’t have many details to share as I’d just been told about them at noon today. Also, one member expressed concern about the daytime closing of Dan Allen Drive and wanted some CAC members to study that.

It looks like the difficult stuff is behind us now and I expect next month’s meeting to be a smooth transition to the new officers. I will then happily step back and return to my other endeavors. While I think I’ve served an important purpose for the CAC, I’ve enjoyed getting to know the personalities of the Wade CAC. Perhaps I’ll be back as a visitor someday.

Glorious Church noise issue in committee

Raleigh’s Law and Public Safety committee met at 3 PM today with the Glorious Church noise complaints on its agenda. I attended the meeting, not as a community leader but more as an interested party as the church is in my neighborhood. Before I could declare my neutral position, chairperson Mary Ann Baldwin was meeting with me and fellow neighbor John Seitz to “hash out the ground rules.”

Both John and Bishop Spain are neighbors of mine, so I sympathize with both sides. John has a right to enjoy his home in peace and Bishop Spain and his churchgoers have a right to worship any way they’d like. The only way I can see both of these rights being fulfilled is for the church to accept the neighborhood’s offer to raise money to upgrade the church’s windows. With some soundproofing in place everyone can be happy. If the soundproofing includes new windows the church will undoubtedly save money on its heating and cooling bills, too.

The upshot of today’s meeting is that the community and church agree to meet again within two weeks to plot next steps. Though I just expected to sit quietly on the sidelines today I wound up being asked by Councilor Baldwin to help set this up, so now its time for me to pull the resources together. It’s not the role I expected to be playing in this situation but I’m honored that Councilor Baldwin and the various parties involved think enough of me to ask for my help in brokering a solution.

Tough RCAC meeting

When I woke up this morning, I could feel a disturbance in the Force. My chi was simply all wrong. I felt unease most of the day and wondered what big challenge would present itself today. I knew one would, though.

That challenge came in the form of tonight’s RCAC meeting, where I expected the board to read and accept updated bylaws that have been worked on for weeks by the board’s bylaws committee. Instead there was instant suspicion on the part of some members, and I and the other bylaws committee members were put in the defensive early on. When the committee finally was able to explain the proposed changes and pointed out that these were minor edits of the same documents we’ve been staring at for the better part of a year, resistance softened quite a bit. We had a good conversation about it and lots of feedback was collected but ultimately no vote was taken.
Continue reading →

World music

AfroCubism


I kicked myself when I found out the world music supergroup AfroCubism played at the North Carolina Museum of Art on Sunday and we missed it. I’ve been on a world music kick for a few years now and it doesn’t get much better now than AfroCubism.

In surfing the art museum’s concert page, I noticed it was sponsored by a group called Friends of World Music. I’d never heard of this group but was delighted to learn it is a Raleigh-based non-profit that works to bring live world music to the Triangle. I’ve often mused that my “second career” would be being a world music promoter and Friends of World Music seemed like a serendipitous find.

On a whim I called the number listed, began leaving a rambling message on their machine, and soon the longtime executive director, Jessie Cannon, picked up and spoke to me. It turns out I may be just the person the group is looking for, she said, telling me the group used to put on more shows in prior years but haven’t been able to keep up that pace in recent years. Jessie and I are meeting for lunch on Friday to discuss the possibilities.

Kelly tells me I need another project like a hole in the head and she’s got a point. I see this one as a long-term thing that I’m happy to be patient about and grow at my own pace.

Again, I’m open to the possibilities. We’ll see where it leads.

Wade CAC getting back on track

Remember that neighborhood crisis I mentioned earlier? Well, last night was the night of the first “special meeting” to try to get the CAC back on track. Neither Dwayne Patterson and Luis Olivieri-Robert from the city’s Community Services department nor I had any idea how many members would attend the meeting, held at the Unitarian Church. It turns out that around 70 people showed up, which isn’t too shabby for a week’s notice.
Continue reading →

House Creek Greenway opening in September now

I got the word about why Raleigh’s much-anticipated House Creek Greenway will be opening in early September now, rather than the July 19th I had initially mentioned. The delay comes as a result of the contractor needing to put up over 3,000 feet of railing along the top of the retaining wall.

House Creek Greenway covers some challenging topography. It’s a big project that has been anticipated for many years. While it would be great if it was open now, another few months are worth the investment to get it right.

Jumping into a neighborhood crisis

It’s been a crazy week for me. I got word last Friday that all was not well with the Wade CAC. Elections for new CAC officers that were scheduled to take place on Tuesday were delayed and the existing leadership resigned two days before. There were lots of email flying around and phone calls made, to the point where my head began to spin with trying to unravel everything.

The Wade CAC normally meets every other month, which means that any attempt to “reboot” the election process would normally have to wait until September. That’s the approach that the city’s Community Services department wanted to take, but as the chair of the Raleigh CAC (RCAC) organization of which the Wade CAC is a part, I didn’t think it was fair for the Wade CAC membership to have to go four months without representation. Many others agreed, writing some heated emails to that effect to elected officials and city staff.
Continue reading →

Neuse Radio now on the air!

Neuse Radio


It’s been about a year since I began learning how to use the open-source Rivendell radio automation software. I’ve been fiddling around with my online radio station, perfecting it as best I can. Today I decided to see what would go into actually opening it up to real listeners, which of course means paying royalties for each song played.

That’s where the LoudCity service comes in. You select the level of listeners you expect, provide it your admin password to your icecast server, and boom – you’re broadcasting online! LoudCity pays the royalties and keeps me legal.

I only meant to prep my broadcast tonight but instead I wound up kicking off LoudCity’s free 7-day trial. Rather than let my free trial period vanish without being used, I decided to go ahead and open things up.

You can tune into Neuse Radio by clicking on the image above or via this link: NeuseRadio.Com. I’ll get around to putting an actual webpage up soon as well as adding Raleigh-specific content to the audio. In the meantime, I welcome any comments or feedback anyone might have. Thanks for listening!

House Creek Greenway to open in fall

Lots of people are excited about the new House Creek Greenway opening. I know I am! That side of town has been missing a good north-south greenway connection for years and now it’s about to take shape.

I learned this evening that this new greenway segment that was originally scheduled to open July 19th will now not be opening until early September. The contractor has alerted the city to a problem which will delay the ribbon-cutting, I’m told.

So it sounds like the greenway will be open for the cooler riding weather of the fall, but not as soon as I or many others would like!

1304 Bikes to rise again?


Astute MT.Net readers might have noticed that I referred to the now-defunct bike charity 1304 Bikes in the present tense as one of the great things about Raleigh. That’s because I have been in contact with the co-founder in the hopes of reviving this important charity.

For years I wondered why my kids were the only students at their school to ride their bikes there. This year their bikes were joined in the school bike rack by a brother’s and sister’s in the neighborhood. After a a few trips riding from school with these kids, I took a look at their bikes and felt sorry for them. One had a wheel with a broken axle and the other has no brakes. They’re absolutely fantastic kids, they’re in a loving family, but for one reason or another this is what they have to ride.
Continue reading →