The moment City of Raleigh Public Utilities Director John Carmen mentioned the book The Big Thirst during a recent CAC meeting, I logged onto the library webpage and requested it. It arrived yesterday and surprisingly I can’t put it down.
Water is fascinating. We take it for granted, but as author Charles Fishman says, water is becoming more scarce and it will soon create conflicts.
I’m just cracking the book now and I’m sure to have more to say about it, but if you’ve ever wondered what goes into making water appear at your tap you should read this book!
A church behind my home has been making a exceedingly-joyful noise unto the Lord for many years now, to the dismay of sleepy neighbors. For years, neighbors have made repeated calls to police to get the church to keep the peace but police have been understandably reluctant to get involved.
At a police-organized community meeting with church leaders Friday evening, neighbors aired their concerns about the noise and church leaders offered solutions. Neighbors even offered to help raise money. It seemed everything was on track to work together.
It didn’t last long, though. The very next night, a group renting the church blasted the neighborhood with music again, causing neighbors to call police again. This time, police entered the church and shut the celebration down. It was 10:30 PM.
The pastor of the group renting the church blasted the police response as racist, and characterized the neighborhood as a “white neighborhood,” though neither is true. Among others, she sent her response to WTVD, which did a story. Reporter Ed Crump asked for a neighbor to be interviewed and I accepted his offer.
I thought Mr. Crump did a fine job with the story and his point about the visiting pastor not being notified is probably true. Since the story ran, the inflammatory post from the visiting pastor has been removed from the church’s Facebook page. I see tonight the story’s headline has also been changed to remove the racist charges and stick more to the facts.
I’m hopeful the church and neighbors can continue to work out our differences and become good neighbors again.
People attending a celebration on the eve of Martin Luther King Junior’s birthday say actions by a Raleigh police officer were racist and violated their civil rights.
It happened at the Glorious Church just northeast of downtown Raleigh Saturday night. A group had rented the church but didn’t know about an ongoing dispute with neighbors over loud music late at night.
Just the night before, church leaders and neighbors had met and begun working out their differences. So, when neighbors heard loud music the next night they called police.
As I hinted in my post from earlier this week, today the Raleigh City Council approved moving forward with the purchase of a home that may one day become the Mordecai Historic Park Interpretive Center. The plans were announced during the council’s Budget and Economic Development real estate report.
The plan is for the city to renovate the home of the late Arthur Danielson, who lived at the corner of Wake Forest Road and Cedar Street up until his death in April of 2011. The home dates from 1913, provides almost 5,000 square feet, fronts Wake Forest Road, and is directly adjacent to the park. Continue reading →
Today marks the ten year anniversary of my blog, MT.Net, with the first post being added 17 January 2002. I couldn’t have possibly known on that day how active I would become at blogging, with over 5,304 posts logged. That’s an average of almost 1.5 per day for ten years. Not too shabby!
Besides all the obvious fame and fortune, blogging has made me a better writer and speaker. It has led to lasting friendships. It has emboldened me to have an opinion on things – any things – and be able to defend my position. It has shown me that there are others who think like I do but might have not have been brave enough to say so until I did. It has changed minds and made me a better leader. But to put it in simple terms, it has provided me a platform with which I can help form my world through my thoughts and the words that convey them. Continue reading →
This evening I chaired my last meeting of Raleigh’s East Citizens Advisory Council (East CAC). It was a bittersweet moment for me, knowing how much work I’ve put into it over the past three and a half years.
And yet, I leave it in very good shape. I accomplished almost everything I set out to do. The new leaders are engaged and ready to take it to new levels, too. It’s time for me to turn over the reins and let some of my fantastic neighbors take over.
As I said last night, I don’t know what the future holds in store for me but I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything more rewarding than what I’ve done with the CAC.
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. Continue reading →
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. Continue reading →
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.
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.
