Dog drops

As I walked our lovely trail today up toward Culbreth, I passed mound after plastic mound of dog dumps that some owner or owners had collected in plastic bags and left at the markers intended to tell people not to leave their dog drops behind them. That's about as disrespectful as anything I can imagine; if I encounter anyone dropping off a bag, I'll follow them home and deposit their dog's doo at their home in the manner earned by their disregard for others. That's a promise.

Weaver Street and Farmers' Market

It sure was nice to see as many people in Weaver Street Market as I found last evening about 5:30! I hope the Market is doing as well as all those people would suggest.

It was not so nice to see so many fewer farmers and customers at the last Farmers' Market out on the Green. We need to all work a lot harder to make that more of a success next summer!

"Citrus is bright spot in neighborhood" - newsobserver.com

Pazzo! "Corks for Kids" - 11 Sep

From an e-mail from Pazzo!:

"Corks for Kids Fundraising Dinner
Join Pazzo! for Corks for Kids
Corks for Kids is a two-day dinner and wine-tasting event featuring nineteen Australian winemakers to raise money for the North Carolina Children’s Hospital in Chapel Hill. Last year, the event raised over $50,000. We hope you will join us this year to help raise even more.
Pazzo's dinner will take place on Thursday, September 11 at 7pm. The cost is $100per person not including tax and gratuity with the proceeds going to theNorth Carolina Children's Hospital. Each table will have its own winemaker to discuss the wines with guests. You can peek at the menu by clicking here. And you can find more information at www.corksforkidsnc.com. (You will notice that our date is different from the one shown on the Corks for Kids website, and that we are charging less than the listed price.)
Seating is limited, so please call the restaurant and reserve your place now!"

Parking lot plans - 9 September event

D.R. BRYAN and others are supposed to share with us their current plans for the parking lot in front of Weaver Street Market. This provides a little background, but it is poorly written and does not make clear that the filing with the Town will include both options - an hotel and condos. Rosemary WALDORF, the former Chapel Hill mayor who now does public relations for D.R. and company, told me this in response to an e-mail question. They seem to be preserving most all of their options.

Although I doubt I will be there, here are a few things I would like to see discussed and posted afterwards for those who cannot attend:

+ What is the current economic health of the businesses in Southern Village? How does their current situation compare with the past, and what are the projections for the future? What have "we" learned from those businesses that have closed? What are "we" learning from those who continue?

+ Why is the building out on the other side of 15-501 at the south entrance to Southern Village still vacant? Does that tell "us" something that we need to know in reaction to the BRYAN et al proposal?

+ What specific businesses have said they will consider locating in the new structure - hotels and other businesses? If unable to do that with specificity, then what are the data that would convince businesses - by type of business - that they ought to consider locating in Southern Village.

Unless we know this, our uninformed advice on hot topic issues like security and convenience -- as was the case at the last meeting on this subject - is of limited value to us or to the developers.

I urge BRYAN & company to share answers to these questions in advance of the meeting. If for some unimaginable reason, that cannot be done - even superficially - then do it at the 9 September meeting and post it on the SouthernVillage.org site.

"Kamikatsu, Japan’s zero-waste village' - guardian.co.uk

Why not Southern Village too?

"Funny Thing Happened at the Dog Run" - NYTimes.com

What a great opportunity for Southern Village now that the new dog romping area is about to open in the Southern Community Park. Imagine the meetups that will occur there!

"The scale of 'me'" - chapelhillnews.com

Nice to see Pazzo! mentioned.....

Welcome to TownHallGrill.com

This - the Village Voice program - appears to be mostly a joke. My efforts to clarify the program plan have been unsuccessful, both to the Grill and their agency. Although the Independent continues to make this an "IndyPick", it just does not seem to be happening. It's a real shame, because with some creative effort, it could be very successful for all.

Village Center

Here is the Design Commission to which this link refers.

"Southern Park" - Town of Chapel Hill Official Website

The town uses this page to collect most of the documents and links related to the development of the Park.

"Southern Community Park" - YouTube

This makes for a good historical record.

"Proposal to Install Wells at the Southern Community Park"

Further research is needed - at least for me! - to know if this was adopted. The answer, surprisingly, does not seem to appear here.

"Get Your Walk Score - A Walkability Score For Any Address"

Type in your address and see the results..... This is really very interesting. From my home in Southern Village, I got a 51 out of 100 walkability rating. I still need to study more about how they do the rankings.

"A night to remember" - Chapel Hill News

Wouldn't it be a good idea to think creatively about some joint Southern Village and Northside projects? Maybe it is just arranging transportation for thoese in Northside who might want to come to one of our free concerts on the Green? What other ideas? We live in the same town separated by a huge distance. It reminds me of a classic book about US-Mexico relations; it is titled "Distant Neighbors". So, too, we are when it comes to Northside.

Walking routes....

Google has just added a new functionality in its Google Maps application. Once on that page, use the drop down menu that is higlighted to the left in blue with the word "walking". Once you've done that, simply type in where you want to start walking and where you want to go. The results that I have tested are not perfect - they leave out our long trail in Southern Village, for example - but they are not bad.

In an effort to get everyone walking as much as possible, this is a nice addition.

Now they need to do one for the bus as well, although the Triangle Transit site does a pretty good job of this already for Chapel Hill and the rest of the Triangle. Here's what that query looks like on their site:

In response to the good comment added here by someone calling himself "Jack", I am adding a little picture of how you get to that Google Maps function for all of the Chapel Hill Transit routes. Go to this page and when you get there, simply enter the route that's of interest and then click on the right where there is the little icon for "Google Map". In this case, I have entered the NS route that also serves Southern Village:

"Park prep continues" - Carrboro Citizen

Full service bus schedules in Southern Village

"Full service schedule", which affects some of the buses serving Southern Village, goes into effect 18 August and continues until some point in December, I was just told on the phone. I suggested that Chapel Hill Transit add those dates to their website.

"Eco-towns: a design for life" - Times Online

Southern Community Park

I took a walk around the Park this morning. It struck me that it would be very interesting to get a tour organized soon for all of us in the area. I bet there are lots of construction stories to tell plus some explanation of how the various segments of the Park are going to function. Anyone interested?

Path/trail around Scroggs

For anyone interested, the path/trail that now runs from Aberdeen around the back of the playing fields at Scroggs to the new Southern Community Park will be reopened in Sep or Oct whenever the Park itself opens. I checked with Bill WEBSTER at the Town of Chapel Hill, who oversees this project, and he explained that the path will remain closed for contractor liability reasons until the entire project is turned over to the Town.