NeighborWoods shifts focus to tree maintenance

I was quoted in today’s Midtown Raleigh News about NeighborWoods:

With fewer subdivisions being built amid the slow economy, NeighborWoods organizers said they are spending more time searching for new areas where they can offer trees.

The revised approach will put greater priority on pruning and maintaining trees that were planted since the program began in 2003, said Zach Manor, the city’s tree planting coordinator.

A greater emphasis on maintenance makes sense, said Mark Turner, chairman of the city’s parks board.

“I know of several NeighborWoods trees that did not thrive for whatever reason,” Turner said. “Having the opportunity to focus on keeping trees healthy should result in a better outcome.”

Incidentally, I haven’t heard whether the Midtown Raleigh News will also be going behind a paywall, since it gets distributed across the city for free. Thus, I expect to still be able to link to it.

via NeighborWoods shifts focus to tree maintenance – Raleigh – MidtownRaleighNews.com.

Raleigh Aquatics to do away with punch passes

At tonight’s Parks and Rec Fees and Charges committee meeting, I learned that the Raleigh Parks and Recreation Aquatics program plans to do away with the popular punch passes. The passes allow 15 swims apiece but will be phased out beginning in January.

Aquatics director Terry Stroupe said the goal is to get people moved to the monthly and annual passes, which offer greater savings. I believe there is also an issue with the new “class” system and swipe cards not being able to support the punch-pass type of transaction.
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Scary car warranty mailing from Autocare

Scary looking letter from Autocare


How is this legal? In the mail today we received an official-looking computer-printed card which screamed “important.” It had words like “2ND ATTEMPT,” and “REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION – TIME SENSITIVE MATERIAL ENCLOSED,” and “TO BE OPENED BY ADDRESSEE ONLY. PLEASE RESPOND WITHIN FIVE DAYS.” It was addressed to the prior owner of this home – the guy who moved out almost five years ago. I was considering forwarding it to the prior owner until I saw that it was mailed “presorted std. mail,” meaning bulk rate. Thus it wasn’t as important as it first looked.
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Sidewalks

The sidewalks along Frank Street across from Conn Elementary don’t reach to Brookside Drive. Being the civic geek that I am, I thought I would petition the City of Raleigh to put one in.

It looked like a slam dunk to me: the city will install sidewalks and pay for them provided the affected property owners agree. There’s been a well-worn “goat trail” from the Brookside crosswalk to the corner of Frank and Norris from years of kids coming and going to school. The city owns 75% of the affected property, with only one private property owner to deal with.

Therein lies my problem. The city may own most of the property affected but it doesn’t take a position on these projects. Thus it doesn’t count towards the petition. That means instead of getting the normal 75% of property owners to agree, I have to get 100% of one property owner to agree.
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“Public Treasury” quote is bogus

The other day one of my conservative friends, grousing about the presidential election, repeated a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville about democracy:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”

The problem is that de Tocqueville never said it. Others have also attributed it to Alexander Fraser Tytler, a Scottish lawyer and writer, but Tytler never said it, either.

The statement has been traced only as far back as December 9, 1951. According to the excellent research by Loren Collins, it was seen in the Daily Oklahoman, quoted by a nobody named Elmer T. Peterson:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”

Like the Einstein Bees quote, the Jefferson Inflation quote and many others, this seems to be another case of someone attributing a quote to a famous person in order to give it added weight.

Some people think that if something gets repeated often enough it becomes true.

Veterans Day parade

Kelly and Hallie had haircut appointments Saturday morning, so Travis and I had a little free time on our hands. After a few attempts prying him from his video game, T and I went downtown to see the Veterans Day parade.

We arrived there about 10:15 but saw no parade. Fayetteville Street was deserted, with no cars and no people. We heard drumming coming from the State Capitol area so we walked over to see what was going on.

There was a crowd milling around the armed forces memorial on the north side of the Capitol but it wasn’t a parade-worthy crowd. Instead, it was kind of small. Based on the crowd after the parade, I’d be willing to bet that there were more people who marched in the parade than watched it.
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Introducing two friends from across the country

I got an unusual message on my Facebook wall this afternoon from Jacob Chitsaz, a friend who is the brother of my close friend, Mandy Reid. At first I thought it must be a joke:

In a car with Matthew Feath in Palm Springs… Small world 🙂 he says hi.

Matt and I served together in the same division on the USS Elliot back in the early 90s. We trade messages almost every day. Jacob had taken a limo in Palm Springs that just happened to be driven by Matt. Upon learning Jacob was from Raleigh, Matt probably asked the one-in-a-million question, “do you know a guy named Mark Turner?” Boom, instant connection.

Raleigh’s population is approaching half a million residents. Any one of those residents could’ve been Matt’s passenger. Instead, Jacob was and both of them figured out they knew me in common.

What’s amusing is that I know both of these gentlemen well enough to have attended each of their weddings. That puts them in a very small circle of friends. Small world, indeed!

Stepping away from CACs

This morning I let my fellow RCAC members know that I would not be running for a second term as chair of the RCAC when my term is up in January. It was a difficult decision for me as it’s been an honor to serve as the leader of leaders. I’ve really seen folks working together to a degree I hadn’t seen in a long while. That seems like a good time to step aside, though, doesn’t it? When things are going well?

I have had a few chairs ask if I would consider staying on but I was noncommittal until today. Part of my job as leader is to help create other leaders. People tend to step up when there’s a leadership opportunity. I have confidence that the RCAC will have a great leader to follow me and that the RCAC will continue to grow and prosper.
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