Looks like the long-rumored Walmart at Starpoint is one step closer to becoming a reality. The Chapel Hill Herald reported on Sunday that the property owner, Lee-Moore Oil Co., has contacted Chatham and DOT officials about building a retail center on their 62.9-acre tract. "DOT and Chatham County officials familiar with Lee-Moore's planning say that while the company hasn't identified its main tenant, there's a lot of talk that the center will house a Super Wal-Mart."
One of the neighbors here in Heritage Hills put out a "tell me it's not so" message on Sunday afternoon and the discussion has been raging since. For some of my neighbors, finding cheap places to shop is a financial necessity even though they have all expressed dismay at having to shop at Walmart. For others the social justice issues take precedence. A few have raised questions about the impact on local property values. I appear to be the only one concerned about impact on the watershed. Taken as a whole, there are more reasons to oppose this development than to embrace it. But the issue of access to affordable shopping is important and I'm glad it has been raised.
Both Chapel Hill and Carrboro have taken extraordinary measures to improve the availability of affordable housing. But, even though the majority of a families income is spent on housing, there are other local factors (like shopping spaces for basic services, taxes, etc.) that make this community more and more insecure for those of us who are middle class.
The area median income (HUD) for Orange and Chatham counties is $56,500. A household making $35,000-$56,000 is considered to be low income. $21,000-$35,000 is very low income, and less than $21,000 is extremely low income. Given the number of retired folks and single parents living here in Heritage Hills, I bet a lot of my neighbors would be classified as low or very low income. The fact that the county and the school system are raising taxes doesn't help. And then there are rising fuel costs and grocery prices. Even if our housing is affordable, the rest of what we are obliged to pay out each month is taking a larger bite out of anything that's left after the mortgage is paid.
Someone needs to write up a case study on middle class life in Orange County--my neighborhood would be a good place to start.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Monday, June 27, 2005
Open Meetings, Public Records, and Technology
Staff from the Attorney General's office and the NC Office of Archives and History (Public Records management) have been educating me. Anytime the majority of members of an elected or appointed body interacts, that session becomes an official meeting. How that communication occurs is irrelevant. The limiting factor in terms of the listserv is time. Currently the Open Meetings Law is time-restrictive since since an announcement of time and place must be posted in order to comply with the law. Therefore, a listserv discussion could take place but only if 1) notice of when the discussion would take place is given to the public 48 hours in advance; 2) restricted to the time indicated on the notice; and 3) anyone who wanted to could subscribe. Voting could be handled online but would have to be time-based, anyone who wants to would have to be included in the communication, and each individuals vote MUST be public. The final disposition of the election, name of individuals voting and how they voted, becomes a long-term public record (see below). This is also the requirement for face-to-face votes. Lots of violations........
So the manager was a little bit right and a little bit wrong. Listservs can be used but they must be used in the "old" or static way rather than a more dynamic anytime/anyplace way. Rather than making communication more inclusive and more thoughtful, the open meetings law reduces email/listserv to an overlay of face-to-face practices. Yet another example of how new technologies are forced into old modes of practice rather than adjusting practice to the capabilities of new technologies (although email is certainly not new).
There is a very intimate relationship between open meetings and records management. Anytime town officials (elected, appointed, or hired) communicate in writing, that communication becomes a public record. Therefore, if 2-3 members of the IT committee or any other appointed/elected body have an email discussion about any issue that could be considered public business, those email messages become official public records, regardless of what computers or accounts they are sent from or received on.
The issue of "substantive" discussion is somewhat irrelevant. Even if members use email to arrange a meeting time, those messages are public records although they can be destroyed quickly (short-term vs long-term retention schedule). Documents subject to long-term retention include:
What the manager referred to as 'substantive' would be considered deliberative: "To deliberate is to examine, waive or reflect upon the reasons for or against a possible decision." Any of those messages, regardless of how many participants are included in the discussion, fall under the public records law. Wonder how many violations that makes........
All very complicated and very very fascinating. Both of the state officials I discussed this with are incredibly helpful, aware of the problems, and very interested in how we improve access through technology.
So the manager was a little bit right and a little bit wrong. Listservs can be used but they must be used in the "old" or static way rather than a more dynamic anytime/anyplace way. Rather than making communication more inclusive and more thoughtful, the open meetings law reduces email/listserv to an overlay of face-to-face practices. Yet another example of how new technologies are forced into old modes of practice rather than adjusting practice to the capabilities of new technologies (although email is certainly not new).
There is a very intimate relationship between open meetings and records management. Anytime town officials (elected, appointed, or hired) communicate in writing, that communication becomes a public record. Therefore, if 2-3 members of the IT committee or any other appointed/elected body have an email discussion about any issue that could be considered public business, those email messages become official public records, regardless of what computers or accounts they are sent from or received on.
The issue of "substantive" discussion is somewhat irrelevant. Even if members use email to arrange a meeting time, those messages are public records although they can be destroyed quickly (short-term vs long-term retention schedule). Documents subject to long-term retention include:
- Issues policy
- States decisions
- Outlines procedures
- Shows action
- Gives guidance
- Is unique
What the manager referred to as 'substantive' would be considered deliberative: "To deliberate is to examine, waive or reflect upon the reasons for or against a possible decision." Any of those messages, regardless of how many participants are included in the discussion, fall under the public records law. Wonder how many violations that makes........
All very complicated and very very fascinating. Both of the state officials I discussed this with are incredibly helpful, aware of the problems, and very interested in how we improve access through technology.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Soil workshop
Attended a soil workshop at the NC Botanical Gardens this morning. Among other things, I went to learn about 
nitrogen. Back when I lived in Norfolk VA I took a gardening in the watershed class from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. At that workshop we learned about the negative impacts nitrogen from home gardens was having on the Elizabeth River. Excessive nitrogen levels depletes oxygen in streams and lakes, ultimately threatening water quality.
Curiously the North Carolina Department of Agriculture doesn't test for nitrogen levels when they do soil tests. Instead they give a blanket recommendation to add 1 lb of nitrogen per 1000 sq ft. on every soil test. Since nitrogen doesn't bind to anything, it passes through the soil and into the water table very quickly. So if gardeners are simply following a blanket rule, without understanding when to fertilize and how much of what nutrients their soils need, they could be seriously contributing to our local water quality problems.
"The goal of fertilization is the intelligent replacement of plant nutrients (maximize nutrient absorption)." Plants need nitrogen but only when they are growing (spring/summer) and setting in for winter. Once plants are established, they probably won't need much nitrogen. My garden seems to be growing very nicely without any commercial fertilizer other than an occasional top dressing of mushroom compost or composted chicken manure. All the leaf mold I add as mulch improves infiltration (drainage) as it breaks down. Infiltration/drainage is another positive factor in maximizing nutrient absorption.
So all the work I've done to amend the soil in the front is working and not contributing to nitrogen leaching. However, I'm going to test the soil in the back and side yards to see if I
can get a greater variety of plants to grow in those areas, without resorting to the use of nitrogen additives.
I didn't leave today's workshop with a clear understanding of how to improve the problematic soils on my side and backyards, but I did meet an Orange County Master Gardener who I will be calling for advice since she too gardens organically.
I did learn enough today to confirm my feelings that we need to look more carefully at how residential yard and garden practices may be contributing to algae growth and odor in our lakes and streams.
Pictures from Workshop
nitrogen. Back when I lived in Norfolk VA I took a gardening in the watershed class from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. At that workshop we learned about the negative impacts nitrogen from home gardens was having on the Elizabeth River. Excessive nitrogen levels depletes oxygen in streams and lakes, ultimately threatening water quality."Eutrophication is the slow, natural nutrient enrichment of streams and lakes and is responsible for the "aging" of ponds, lakes, and reservoirs. Excessive amounts of nutrients, especially nitrogen and phosphorus, speed up the eutrophication process. As algae grow and then decompose they deplete the dissolved oxygen in the water. This condition usually results in fish kills, offensive odors, unsightliness, and reducedattractiveness of the water for recreation and other public uses. These poor conditions have been observed in eastern North Carolina in the Neuse, Chowan, and Pamlico river systems. However, this condition occurs only when excessive nutrients are present; a certain amount of nitrogen and phosphorus is essential for any life to exist in water."
NCSU Nitrogen Management and Water Quality
Curiously the North Carolina Department of Agriculture doesn't test for nitrogen levels when they do soil tests. Instead they give a blanket recommendation to add 1 lb of nitrogen per 1000 sq ft. on every soil test. Since nitrogen doesn't bind to anything, it passes through the soil and into the water table very quickly. So if gardeners are simply following a blanket rule, without understanding when to fertilize and how much of what nutrients their soils need, they could be seriously contributing to our local water quality problems.
"The goal of fertilization is the intelligent replacement of plant nutrients (maximize nutrient absorption)." Plants need nitrogen but only when they are growing (spring/summer) and setting in for winter. Once plants are established, they probably won't need much nitrogen. My garden seems to be growing very nicely without any commercial fertilizer other than an occasional top dressing of mushroom compost or composted chicken manure. All the leaf mold I add as mulch improves infiltration (drainage) as it breaks down. Infiltration/drainage is another positive factor in maximizing nutrient absorption.
So all the work I've done to amend the soil in the front is working and not contributing to nitrogen leaching. However, I'm going to test the soil in the back and side yards to see if I
can get a greater variety of plants to grow in those areas, without resorting to the use of nitrogen additives.I didn't leave today's workshop with a clear understanding of how to improve the problematic soils on my side and backyards, but I did meet an Orange County Master Gardener who I will be calling for advice since she too gardens organically.
I did learn enough today to confirm my feelings that we need to look more carefully at how residential yard and garden practices may be contributing to algae growth and odor in our lakes and streams.
Pictures from Workshop
Friday, June 24, 2005
Email & Public Records
The tie between open meetings and public records is indistinguishable. But the status of email as public record is not well understood. We were told the other night that while the listserv constitutes an official meeting (due to the quorum), email between 3-4 individuals was not a problem. That's not accurate according to the Records Branch of the NC Office of Archives and History. Nor do they have a definition of substantive. They do distinguish between those records that have long term value and those that have short-term value. I'm still waiting on a response from the Attorney General's office about how email/listservs are viewed in terms of open meetings.
QUESTION
Are email communications considered to be official records? It's my understanding that 'substantive' discussions are considered as official, but I'm not sure what constitutes 'substantive' and if the email has to be sent from a town-owned computer/email address to fall under this provision of the law. My advisory board has begun making our listserv discussions public:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/chtechcomm/
In this case, does the website itself become the public record, the individual emails, or only those emails sent from town addresses?
RESPONSE
Any record (email or not) is a public record if it's by or to someone in government for the purpose of transacting public business. How 'substantive' the email is not an issue. For example, my emails to Linda (in our office) that simply give her a completed form are still public records, even though there's nothing interesting about them. They do qualify for destruction under the Guidelines for Public Records with Short-Term Value, because they transmit a document without comment.
The sending or receiving address is irrelevant. That's part of why we strongly recommend that elected officials, especially, do not conduct public business with private email accounts. While their personal records do not become public records simply by association, those personal records would be at risk of exposure in the case of a dispute over a request.
I would judge the website you've set up for the listserv as public. I would limit that judgment to the files most closely associated with the text of the list itself, thereby excluding both the code that causes the website to function, and any other web content that may be hosted by the same account, server, or provider. Again, I know of no mandate that public records must be posted to the web.
QUESTION
Are email communications considered to be official records? It's my understanding that 'substantive' discussions are considered as official, but I'm not sure what constitutes 'substantive' and if the email has to be sent from a town-owned computer/email address to fall under this provision of the law. My advisory board has begun making our listserv discussions public:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/chtechcomm/
In this case, does the website itself become the public record, the individual emails, or only those emails sent from town addresses?
RESPONSE
Any record (email or not) is a public record if it's by or to someone in government for the purpose of transacting public business. How 'substantive' the email is not an issue. For example, my emails to Linda (in our office) that simply give her a completed form are still public records, even though there's nothing interesting about them. They do qualify for destruction under the Guidelines for Public Records with Short-Term Value, because they transmit a document without comment.
The sending or receiving address is irrelevant. That's part of why we strongly recommend that elected officials, especially, do not conduct public business with private email accounts. While their personal records do not become public records simply by association, those personal records would be at risk of exposure in the case of a dispute over a request.
I would judge the website you've set up for the listserv as public. I would limit that judgment to the files most closely associated with the text of the list itself, thereby excluding both the code that causes the website to function, and any other web content that may be hosted by the same account, server, or provider. Again, I know of no mandate that public records must be posted to the web.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Open Meetings & E-democracy
At last night's Chapel Hill Information Technology Committee meeting, the Town Manager informed us that use of a committee listserv was a violation of the state's Open Meeting Law. He used David Lawrence from UNC-Chapel Hill's Institute of Government as a reference. I have a booklet written by David Lawrence and published by the Institute of Government in 2002 on Open Meetings in North Carolina. In the author's opinion, and reiterated by the Department of Justice, conference calls and electronic meetings are legal as long as they are available to the public. If conference calls are legal, then email should be also as long as this list is available to anyone who wants to subscribe. Rather than banning the use of the listserv, I would recommend opening up subscription to anyone who is interested.
The impact of discontinuing use of email for all future advisory board communications is to limit access, an outcome that is counter to the intent of the open meetings law. Experience in the e-democracy world is that more people participate electronically than they do in face to face meetings. I hope we can take this opportunity to educate staff and council on how the use of electronic communications will expand citizen access to governmental communications rather further restricting it.
The other option is to sponsor an Issues Forum for Chapel Hill but that doesn't address the fact that advisory boards typically meet once a month for 1-2 hours. That is simply not enough time to complete any substantive work. Using electronic communications can help boards be more productive and make better use of individual volunteers time and expertise. While I am frustrated, this is the type of interaction and challenge I was hoping for when we began talking about e-democracy more than a year ago. E-democracy is all about getting more citizen input into government and opening the doors for citizen-official communication. While this recent development may seem to some as having our wings clipped, I hope it is the beginning of e-democracy in Chapel Hill.
I'm not sure how the group is going to respond to this. At least one member has already asked to be unsubscribed from the list. Personally, I see this as an opportunity. Before changes occur there is often a setback such as this. I hope the outcome of last nights meeting is that we clarify the intent of the law (I've emailed the Attorney General's office) and develop sound policies on what constitutes 'access,' and 'substantive discussion,' in such a way as to move forward the town's adoption of e-democracy.
The impact of discontinuing use of email for all future advisory board communications is to limit access, an outcome that is counter to the intent of the open meetings law. Experience in the e-democracy world is that more people participate electronically than they do in face to face meetings. I hope we can take this opportunity to educate staff and council on how the use of electronic communications will expand citizen access to governmental communications rather further restricting it.
The other option is to sponsor an Issues Forum for Chapel Hill but that doesn't address the fact that advisory boards typically meet once a month for 1-2 hours. That is simply not enough time to complete any substantive work. Using electronic communications can help boards be more productive and make better use of individual volunteers time and expertise. While I am frustrated, this is the type of interaction and challenge I was hoping for when we began talking about e-democracy more than a year ago. E-democracy is all about getting more citizen input into government and opening the doors for citizen-official communication. While this recent development may seem to some as having our wings clipped, I hope it is the beginning of e-democracy in Chapel Hill.
I'm not sure how the group is going to respond to this. At least one member has already asked to be unsubscribed from the list. Personally, I see this as an opportunity. Before changes occur there is often a setback such as this. I hope the outcome of last nights meeting is that we clarify the intent of the law (I've emailed the Attorney General's office) and develop sound policies on what constitutes 'access,' and 'substantive discussion,' in such a way as to move forward the town's adoption of e-democracy.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Friday, June 17, 2005
First step
"The future can't be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. Systems can't be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned. We can't surge forward with certainty into a world of no surprises, but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them. We can't impose our will upon a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone." Donella Meadows, Dancing With Systems, http://www.sustainer.org/pubs/Dancing.html
What do the terms "community" and "neighbor" and "boundaries" mean in action? Where is the boundary to my community? How do artificial geopolitical boundaries relate to natural boundaries? What do we as members of this county/town owe to residents of other counties and towns downstream from us? Webster's defines ecology as "the totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment." Systems and ecologies, neighborhoods and communities. These are the issues I plan to explore through this blog.
What do the terms "community" and "neighbor" and "boundaries" mean in action? Where is the boundary to my community? How do artificial geopolitical boundaries relate to natural boundaries? What do we as members of this county/town owe to residents of other counties and towns downstream from us? Webster's defines ecology as "the totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment." Systems and ecologies, neighborhoods and communities. These are the issues I plan to explore through this blog.
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