Raleigh

Community-focused posts

There are 773 posts filed in Raleigh (this is page 62 of 78).

Quoted in the paper

I was quoted in the paper today regarding a proposed topless club on Capital Boulevard.

“We don’t want a concentration of places,” said Mark Turner, chairman of the East Citizens Advisory Council.

“It drags down the property values or the safety of the hotels, like the Milner Inn,” Turner said. “Something like this happening sets us back.”

While the quote was accurate I wish I’d had more time to collect my thoughts. A neighbor had given the reporter my work phone number and he called me when I was right in the middle of crunch time on a big project. Deadlines notwithstanding, I should have asked to call him back. I wonder if its just human nature for one to wonder if one sounds like a moron whenever quoted in the paper.

At any rate, yesterday morning I thought of a big reason I’m wary of the project: robberies. Strip clubs are cash-driven businesses. Latinos have a reputation (right or wrong) for keeping large amounts of cash on them. I fear a Latino strip club will become a robbery magnet and overburden our already-overworked officers with more robberies to solve.

Graffiti hotline

I’m probably one of the top callers to Raleigh’s Graffiti Hotline, the number to call when graffiti is spotted anywhere in the city. In fact, I’m on a first-name basis with them! After walking by a clean spot Monday that 24 hours earlier had spray paint on it, I felt I had to let someone know what a great job Raleigh’s Street Maintenance division has been doing to keep the city clean.

Below is my email to the division’s director, Elwood Davis, which cc’d city officials:
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Funky Towne

I love the marketing campaign for Raleigh Wide Open III, announcing the grand opening of the new convention center September 5th and 6th. The signs hanging from Fayetteville Street lightposts are hilarious. They say “Thou art now in Funky Towne,” “Get down with thy bad self,” “Get thine merriment on,” among others.

Very clever!

House moves this Saturday

LNR Properties will be moving two historic Raleigh homes Saturday morning beginning at 7AM (weather-permitting). The Watson and Merrimon Wynne homes will be shifted to new lots as part of the Blount Street Commons project, with the Watson home moving first.

If you’ve ever wanted to see a home being trucked from one place to another you’ve got two chances Saturday!

Here’s what Doug Redford of LNR Properties sent to a neighborhood mailing list:
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Back from Barack

I got back from the Barack Obama town hall meeting about an hour ago. What I thought would be a seat in the bleachers directly behind Obama turned out to be a seat about 30 yards away. Though I wasn’t in fist-bumping range with Barack I did enjoy the experience. It was fun seeing how whipped up the crowd was, too. I also got to hang out with my busy friend Grier Martin, and see familiar faces from the Kerry-Edwards rally from four years ago.

I sat with the vets on the upper bleachers, about four people to the left of the end of the “Change We Can Believe In” sign. I’m not in any of the photographs I’ve seen on the AP or Reuters wire. If anyone can find video of the event, let me know.

And by the way, the disabled veteran who had the last question tonight is Michael Bishop, a Marine Corps veteran. I shook hands with him earlier in the evening – a very friendly fellow – but until he asked his question to Obama I had no idea he was homeless.

It really burns me up that men and women like Bishop wind up on the street after all they have given to our country. In spite of being a veteran himself, McCain has an abysmal record when it comes to supporting veterans. I hope Bishop gets the assistance he needs.

Update: WRAL has the video, and if you squint you can see me on the top left side of the screen from 00:01:00 to 00:01:10.

Update Two: New Raleigh has pictures showing me in the audience. You’ll see me in this photo: above Obama’s left shoulder, back row, and behind the dude in the yellow shirt standing and holding a camera. I’m wearing a green shirt and my dorky Navy ballcap.

East CACalacky

At last night’s East Raleigh CAC meeting I was elected by the membership as chair. Also elected were Sue Sturgis as secretary and Andrew LeLiever as vice-chair. Together we hope to grow the East CAC and use it to better our neighborhoods. Wish us luck!

F-street parking

I think Raleigh officials botched the parking layout of Fayetteville Street. The city should’ve made its parking spaces angled. There’s all this wide, unused sidewalk, another four or five feet of which could’ve added a huge number of parking spaces to this area of downtown. The sidewalk wouldn’t have even missed it.

While I’m a pretty big tree-hugger and no fan of the concrete behemoth that used to be the “pedestrian mall,” inadequate street parking limits the growth of downtown business. If one wants a vibrant city core, good parking is a must. There’s enough room on F-street for plenty of parking and sidewalks. What we have now is the result of a botched decision.

New flag for the City of Raleigh

A few days with my toes in the sand made me realize the perfect new flag for the City of Raleigh was right under my nose. Or in my hand, more specifically. I held a water bottle from the Raleigh Parks and Recreation department, and on the side was Parks and Rec’s distinctive, cool logo:
Raleigh Parks and Recreation

Why not make this the official city flag? Imagine this oak tree logo emblazoned on a white-and-green flag (with no text, of course, as befitting a proper flag). It would be so much more attractive and distinctive than Raleigh’s current, tired old flag.

Unfettered walk down Fayetteville St.

For my Monday lunchtime walk I went from my building at Hargett and Fayetteville Street all the way down to Memorial Auditorium and back. It was the first time since I’ve been in Raleigh that I could make that stroll without taking a massive detour around the ugly concrete monstrosity that was the old Raleigh Civic Center or the construction site that for a time replaced it.

The plastic road barriers are still partitioning the new Raleigh Marriott from the rest of Fayetteville Street, but foot traffic now flows freely from the north end of F-street to the south. This downtown thing is coming together nicely.

Stacking the forums on the biolab?

I’m really perplexed at the outpouring of support for the troubled Butner biodefense lab which appears in the WRAL forums today. In my opinion having deadly pathogens in my backyard is on par with having a nuclear waste dump there. Yet, there are posters in the WRAL forums who inexplicably loves them some anthrax.

Either someone’s stacking the forums, they don’t fully appreciated the danger of such a facility, or these people know what it is and truly think its a good idea.