You know it's a slow news month when the Raleigh Public Affairs Department issues a four-page news release about the city's Sir Walter Raleigh statue being moved--three months ago--to the front of the convention center. Apparently, Sir Walter is "starting some buzz" among conventioneers and has become a good [...]
UPDATE: Meeker says the press conference has been delayed until next Tuesday (Dec. 16) so the city can have a better list of projects that it will request help on.
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With it looking more and more likely that President-elect Barack Obama will propose a massive federal spending bill when he [...]
As the only Republican on the Raleigh City Council since the 2007 elections, Philip Isley has gotten used to hearing Democrats gripe about the state of the country under President Bush.
Now, with the election of Barack Obama, Isley is learning what life will be like with a Democrat in the [...]
On Tuesday night, a crowd will gather at City Hall to protect one of Southeast Raleigh's oldest treasures: the Chavis Park carousel.
Built circa 1920 and placed in the Southeast park in 1937, the carousel's hand-carved animals are rivaled only by the older merry-go-round in Pullen Park 2 miles to the [...]
TriangleMom2Mom features Barack Obama supporter Felicia Willems as part of an October series featuring politically active moms in the Triangle. Willems is a member of the Triangle chapter of the national group MomsRising and writes about personal reasons why she supports Obama's health care proposals.
Read more about Willems by [...]
Every Monday in October, TriangleMom2Mom.com, The N&O's Web site for moms, is featuring local politically active moms who are supporting either McCain or Obama for president. The first mom, Katy Benningfield, is featured today. Benningfield, the mom of a three-year-old boy, is an active blogger and conservative.
Read more about [...]
The two-day party known as Raleigh Wide Open 3 has begun, so we figured now is a perfect time to share a few of the taglines we wish the city had used in marketing the event. Feel free to submit your own.
Raleigh Wide Open 3: This Time It's Personal
Raleigh [...]
The Wake affiliate of the N.C. Association of Educators has endorsed Stan Norwalk for county commissioner.
Norwalk, a Democrat, is challenging Republican incumbent Kenn Gardner for a seat on the county board from District 4, which is in southwestern Wake. Gardner has held the seat since 2000.
Wake commissioners run for election [...]
A story I wrote last week about odd street names in subdivisions around the Triangle prompted some funny responses I thought I'd share.
A Wake County woman reported the following:
" We just moved from the Landover subdivision off of Forestville Rd. To get there, you had to go down Landover [...]
When City Councilman Thomas Crowder took his colleagues on a 5 p.m. bus tour earlier this month, he could have easily still been at work.
At each stop on the 90-minute tour Crowder, founder of the Raleigh architecture firm Architekturpa, explained why the property in question represented [...]
Wake Manager David Cooke needs more time to send documents related to excessive spending and travel by county solid waste employees to District Attorney Colon Willoughby for possible criminal prosecution.
Cooke had pledged to get the materials to Willoughby’s office by Friday, but county spokeswoman Marshall Parrish said the effort has [...]
The Wake Forest Board of Commissioners unanimously (5 to 0) approved a 55 acre annexation that , according to Raleigh City Manager J. Russell Allen, would create a "huge issue" for the completion of the Little River watershed, Allen wrote in a strongly worded letter to [...]
Mayor Charles Meeker opened yesterday's City Council meeting by discussing the Wake County Board of Commissioner's recent rejection of stricter development rules in the Little River Watershed. "It's not a situation where all is lost," Meeker told the council.
But he also said that it is not at all clear [...]
Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker said today he's worried about the Wake County Board of Commissioners decision to not adopt stricter development restrictions along the Little River. The commissioners unanimously voted down those restrictions during their meeting Monday.
"That’s a matter of real concern in terms of the permitting of the [...]
As some of you may have noticed, the Shimmer Wall in downtown Raleigh now appears fully functional. The N&O is working on a story about the wall for later this week so feel free to post your opinions of it here. ("Neat" and "cool" appear to be the most [...]
As my colleague Jack Hagel reported today, the City Council gave Greg Hatem and Empire Properties until Nov. 1 to file new site plans for The Lafayette, the project proposed for a city-owned piece of property across from the new convention center. Although most council members went out of [...]
As mentioned earlier, the City Council voted 6-1 Tuesday to allow a condemnation lawsuit to be filed against The Simpson Organization, owner of the Bank of America building and the underground parking garage under Fayetteville Street. (The vote took place with little comment from council members. Philip Isley was the [...]
Sort of. At Tuesday's City Council meeting, Dean Penny with the consultant Kimley Horn, provided an update on The City Plaza, Raleigh's much ballyhooed high-tech gathering place planned for the south end of Fayetteville Street. The update culminated with the council voting to pursue condemnation action against The Simpson [...]
That appears to be the question being asked of developer Greg Hatem by the City Council. During today's meeting, the council will vote on whether to void an existing agreement that Hatem's company, Empire Properties, has with the city do develop a city-owned piece of property across from the new [...]
The budget approved by the City Council last night includes an increase in the cost of on-street parking downtown. Beginning July 1, the cost of parking at an on-street meter will increase from 50 cents to $1 an hour. The hourly rate in the parking decks will remain the same, [...]
Prior to laying out a budget proposal that was quickly approved by the City Council last night, Mayor Charles Meeker handed out copies of an MSNBC feature that merged all the "best places" rankings together to come up with the best places list to end all best places list. [...]
The Raleigh City Council is likely to pass a budget next week, perhaps as early as Monday. The council continues its budget deliberations Monday at 5 p.m. If they don't pass a budget on Monday night, the council must meet each day after that until they do.
The biggest question remaining [...]
Those esteemed judges of city life over at Kiplinger have announced their 2008 top 10 cities in the U.S. to live, work and play. At first glance, the list appears to be a validation for Raleigh, which ranks second behind the no-zoning utopia of Houston. On closer [...]
The State Soda Shop has been serving the likes of lawyers, judges, police officers, sheriff deputies, probation officers, recently-released jail inmates as well as the other downtown Raleigh denizens for decades.
But it's time on Salisbury Street could be drawing to a close as the county moves to tear down the [...]
The City Council delayed taking a vote Tuesday on a plan to speed up the process for creating neighborhood conservation overlay districts (NCOD), which are seen as a way to regulate teardowns, or the practice of replacing older homes with larger ones.
Changes to the NCOD process have been under discussion [...]
[UPDATE: The Council did not take up an agreement between the city and Simpson on Tuesday, as City Manager Russell Allen said a deal still hasn't been reached.]
Good question. The city has been in negotiations for months with the Simpson Organization, which owns the Bank of America Plaza building and [...]
Greetings WakePol readers, however few there may be. First, an apology: WakePol has been dormant for several months and we apologize to anybody who missed us during our sabbatical. We are back, tan and rested, and we promise to post regularly going forward for those willing to give us a [...]
On Tuesday afternoon, the News & Observer blogs will be moving to a new system and a new server. This change will make getting to our blogs quicker and easier. Most of the blogs will change their appearance, while blogs like Taking Stock and Under the Dome will remain the [...]
For the better part of a year, some Wake commissioners and members of the school board have sparred over just whose fault it was that an agreement aimed at avoiding sales tax payments on new schools was delayed.
The two sides can't even agree on how much money was wasted before [...]
Tomorrow, Raleigh's Public Works Committee will discuss the city's plan to spend $86 million to pump treated wastewater around the city. The plan, which was approved by the previous City Council in March 2007, is now being questioned by two council members, including Russ Stephenson. Stephenson doesn't support having [...]
Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker has announced that he is supporting Illinois Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. In a phone interview yesterday, Meeker said he had the highest respect for New York Senator Hillary Clinton, but he described Obama as "something special" and an "inspirational leader." Meeker is [...]
Councilman Thomas Crowder has been lobbying the Raleigh City Council to come up with a mission statement for the Capital City. At today's meeting, the council is expected to discuss a proposed mission statement put forward by Crowder. Municipal mission statements aren't out of the ordinary. Durham has one. There [...]
On page 5A of today's N&O is a Washington Post story about a salesman filing suit against his employer for waterboarding him during a team-building exercise. The article is a must-read for any person who has ever either worked in sales or participated in "team-building" exercise. Among the many choice [...]
Couple of interesting stories that ran in the Wall Street Journal in recent days. (You may need to be a subscriber to access these links.) Here's a story about the plethora of teardowns occurring in Greenwich, Conn. Granted, the comparison between inside the Beltline Raleigh and Greenwich is a [...]
We recently received an invitation to a "Garner Economic Development Showcase Event" taking place May 7. The event is designed to show people "firsthand Garner's economic growth prospects and quality of life."
What really caught our eye was not the possibility of taking a bus tour of Garner. Rather, it was [...]
In today's Life, etc. section we announced the winners of our mascot contest. The mascots are meant to represent municipal challenges. They include Sprawleigh, Cramsies the Sardine, Arby the Lonely Sports Arena and Mini-Meeker. We couldn't help but notice that Tim Lee, the N&O's illustrator of the mascots, decided [...]
Anointed by Wake Board of Commissioners chairman Joe Bryan as "Mr. Greenjeans," Sig Hutchinson opened his presentation on the acquisition of land for the Little River Reservoir with an truly epically bad joke.
Hutchinson, an all around thumbs-up environment guy and architect behind some of [...]
Last night the city Planning Department held a meeting where attendees were asked to comment on pictures of teardowns. The point, according to city planners, was to gather up information about what type of teardowns people feel are problematic. The "Visual Preference Survey" was the planning department's latest attempt [...]
As we mentioned earlier, last week's Newsweek included an item about Raleigh's new garbage disposal ban. It led off with an anecdote about how a corvette had been swallowed by a geyser caused by a sanitary sewer overflow. We were naturally skeptical that such an event had recently occurred in [...]
In Saturday's TriPol (read below) we raised the issue of downtown hotel rooms, and whether there are going to be enough near the convention center when it opens this September. The city has a lot riding on the new convention center being a success. Should city officials be concerned about [...]
Councilwoman Mary-Ann Baldwin is holding a series of meetings with residents. The first one happens Saturday, April 5 at 217 Hawthorne Road and is for the Cameron Park/Cameron Village community. The announcement says the purpose of the meetings is "to listen to citizens' thoughts on issues and concerns facing [...]
The latest issue of Newsweek includes a blurb about the Raleigh City Council's decision to ban garbage disposals. Headlined "Garbage In, Garbage Out," the piece explains the reason for the band and some of the backlash against it. Public Utilities Director Dale Crisp and Councilman Rodger Koopman are both [...]
In recent weeks the City Council has agreed to review both its car wash certification program and its new ban on new garbage disposals. The car wash issue was sent to the council's Public Works Committee, while the disposal issue went to the Budget and Economic Development Committee. Neither issue [...]
An internal Wake County video of Board of Commissioners Chairman Joe Bryan and Wake County Manager David Cooke's annual weight-loss contest.
Stick around until the last frame.
On Tuesday, the Raleigh City Council stood by its decision to ban the installation of new garbage disposals during a wacky debate that included gift giving and talk of Iraq and supporting the troops.
In the end, a majority of the council seemed to agree that banning disposals is the [...]
Impact fees, teardowns and garbage disposals are on the docket for the City Council meetings tomorrow. Expect representatives from the garbage disposal industry to speak to the council about its recent decision to ban new installations of the devices. Their efforts appear unlikely to succeed, as a majority of the [...]
Wake County Commissioners Paul Coble and Kenn Gardner we're critical of the Raleigh's water management related to the smaller partner towns, in today's board meeting.
Coble singled out Raleigh's garbage disposal ban as an example where the city didn't consult with the partner towns.
"Garbage disposals don't have [...]
That's essentially what Raleigh told its water customers on Tuesday when the City Council unanimously agreed to ban the installation of garbage disposals in new homes. The move comes 9 years after a previous council decided against adopting such an ordinance. People with existing disposals can continue to use [...]
What's the difference between extending Raleigh's planning jurisdiction and annexing property into the city? Quite a lot, actually. The City Council recently voted not to extend its control to 6,000 acres in rural Wake County. The move was hailed as a vote against haphazard sprawl by Councilman Russ Stephenson, among [...]
With the Oscars airing Sunday, what better time to speculate about what actors would play the Raleigh City Council in a taut thriller about that body's attempt to deal with the worst drought in history. Think lots of special effects, a chatty David Mamet-esque script and the kind [...]
During a discussion of plans for the Clarence E. Lightner Public Safety Center on Tuesday, Councilman Rodger Koopman raised the issue of security. "Is there any plan for an underground shelter?" Koopman asked. Alas, the proposed $226 million building includes many things but not an underground shelter. Koopman went on [...]
County Manager David Cooke had some harsh words today for the Garland H. Jones building at the corner of Martin and Salisbury streets and its defenders.
The 1961 teal throwback to the era of Thunderbirds and Elvis is slated to fall in the construction of the [...]
Lost in all the drought talk yesterday was a short debate about the City Council's decision to temporarily halt plans to annex 6,000 new acres into the city over the next 5 to 7 years. After the council voted unanimously not to proceed with expansion into the ETJ, it took [...]
The design team behind the proposed Clarence E. Lightner Public Safety Center will update the Raleigh City Council tomorrow on the project's budget, size and reach. The latest proposal envisions the building being 17 stories tall, with 305,000 square feet. The cost? An estimated $226 million. The Lightner building will [...]
One of the emerging characteristics of the new City Council is its tendency to report out of committee rather large and far-reaching proposals. (Think Thomas Crowder dropping by the Public Works Committee the other week.) The latest comes from Councilman Russ Stephenson, who put forward this whopper during last week's [...]
Again last week, Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker was asked on a local TV program whether he supported a temporary moratorium on new development as part of the city's overall response to the drought. Again, Meeker said he did not support such a move, even after hearing fellow City Council member [...]
Following up on last week's story on Wake County Emergency Medical Services missing laptop, the county has prepared a timeline on actions the county took once the computer went missing.
The computer had the names and Social Security numbers of almost every firefighter, paramedic and emergency medical technician that [...]
While flying into RDU yesterday, the majority of the passengers on my plane seemed stunned by the appearance of Falls Lake. I admit that viewing the lake from above is shocking even for somebody who has written countless drought stories over the last several months. As N&O reporter Matthew Eisley [...]
At the end of Tuesday's City Council meeting, Councilman Thomas Crowder complained that city inspectors were spending an inordinate amount of time looking at the hot dog vendors along Fayetteville Street. (Last year, the city adopted new standards for businesses operating on downtown public places and opened up a downtown [...]
At Tuesday's City Council meeting the council voted 6-2 to not pursue Councilman Thomas Crowder's proposal to impose a temporary surcharge on new water connections. In explaining his opposition to the idea, Mayor Charles Meeker said such a thing should be looked at during the annual budget review, not now. [...]
It's back to the business of building on 5,000 acres in North Raleigh.
The City Council on Tuesday rejected proposed environmental rules that would have limited the development in neighborhoods such as Wakefield Plantation, Falls River and Bedford at Falls River. The state is requiring the city to limit [...]
The City Council this afternoon moved up the date of a public hearing to consider speeding up the process to create neighborhood conservation overlay districts.
It's one fix council members are considering to resolve the whole debate over tear downs.
The new public hearing is scheduled for March 18.
[...]The fate of the county this year will be founded on markers that smell like fruit.
As of this post, Wake County Commissioners are discussing their goals for the coming year they jotted down their thoughts with the elementary school favorite Mr. Sketch markers.
According to Wake [...]
Today we had a story about Councilman Thomas Crowder's flurry of water conservation proposals that were presented Wednesday at the Public Works Committee. That list included the idea of charging impact fees for new water capacity. The ensuing debate is likely to be the same one that played out [...]
Wake County Board of Commissioners have pulled the department heads out of their cozy offices to the Wendell H. Murphy Football Center for their annual retreat.
After a catered breakfast, the commissioners will be briefed on the state of Wake by county staff.
Last time we wrote about Renew Raleigh, the new group that opposes any efforts to restrict new construction and additions in established neighborhoods, some readers wondered who their supporters were.
Well, read for yourself.
The group has updated its Web site with a list of supporters.
Philip Miller, the [...]
Homeowners in Wakefield Plantation, Bedford at Falls River, Falls River and a host of other neighborhoods across 5,000 acres in North Raleigh can breathe a little bit easier maybe.
The Planning Commission this morning rejected new environmental rules for the land that would make it more difficult to add a [...]
The Home Builder Association of Raleigh-Wake County has submitted a list of water conservation recommendations to Raleigh City Manager Russell Allen. The list was created by a committee of 15 builders and developers. The measures are designed to so that development can continue even if the city goes to Stage [...]
Rarely has the Raleigh City Council ever met a task force it didn't like. So it came as a bit of a surprise to see Mayor Charles Meeker on Tuesday reject the idea of reconstituting the city's Water Conservation Task Force, something that Councilman Thomas Crowder had wanted. Meeker wasn't [...]
Lots of Triangle residents have pointed to the region's growth as the reason why our water systems are being stretched by the current drought. So far, most public officials have not taken steps to slow or halt new development because of the drought. Raleigh Councilman Russ Stephenson raised the issue [...]
Community Scale formed more than a year ago to oppose all the homes getting torn down in older neighborhoods and the new, larger ones that are built in their place. They got a Web site together and pepper City Council members with e-mails.
On the agenda for Tuesday's City Council meeting is a proposal to move forward with plans for the Buffaloe Road Athletic Park in northeast Raleigh, which will include a 50 meter indoor pool and indoor recreational facilities. In its 2007 Parks and Rec bond referendum, the city set aside $8 [...]
N&O reporter Sarah Lindenfeld Hall reports today on the Comprehensive Planning Committee's recommendation regarding teardowns.
"The committee today recommended that the full council organize a study group to look at the trend of tearing down homes in older neighborhoods and replacing them with new ones. It also wants the [...]
In today's Wake County Board of Commissioners and Wake County School Board joint meeting discussion over the Lacy Elementary, Kenn Gardner complained about the slowness of getting public records from the school system.
In late December, Gardner asked for architectural schematics of the proposed renovation of Lacy.
Mike [...]
The city's Budget and Economic Development Committee discussed several different impact fee proposals put forward by City Council members during its meeting today. A majority of City Council members support roughly doubling Raleigh's impact fees, which are imposed on new housing and used to pay for roads and parks, from [...]
Raleigh Police Chief Harry Dolan told the city's Budget and Economic Development Committee today that he supports compressing the department's pay scale so that officers can earn higher salaries more quickly. Doing so would help the department retain more officers who have five years or less of service on the [...]
Wake County's new Justice Center, a combination of court rooms and citizen services slated for the intersection McDowell and Martin streets will be just as tough to get into as the current court house.
The ten story building that will serve as a new court house and replace the old [...]
Rodger Koopman is new to the Raleigh City Council.
But he got a pretty quick lesson Tuesday about how passionate the crowd in the council chambers can sometimes be as council members debated regulating new construction in established neighborhoods.
Options include creating special neighborhood conservation overlay districts that would set [...]
Wake Pol was tickled to death when the county sent us note with the headline, "WAKE ASKS YOUR OPINION ON EATING OUT."
Rad, we said.
We're big fans of Chinese food and any thing covered in melted cheese.
Only later the let down, "Citizen Input Needed to Help Shape Food [...]
A quick note on Raleigh water bills. The city counts water in units, not gallons. One unit equals 748.1 gallons and costs $1.70 based on the current rate. So if you used six units on your last water bill, that would be 4,488.6 gallons of water. To get the amount [...]
At Tuesday's City Council meeting, Mayor Charles Meeker said he incorrectly called NC State professor Michael Walden a consultant for the John Locke Foundation at an earlier meeting. Walden had objected to the mayor's description of his relationship with the JLF. In a Dec. 18 letter to the editor [...]
This week a lot of residents have expressed interest in seeing Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker's water bills over the last 6 months. Meeker announced Monday that he wants to temporarily raise water rates 50 percent and call on customers to try and limit their water use to 25 gallons per [...]
The new City Council will meet for the second time on Tuesday, and a range of issues are on the agenda. Look for further discussion of impact fees, as Mayor Charles Meeker and Councilman Rodger Koopman have said they'd like to adopt higher fees sooner rather than later. The goal [...]
A New Year requires resolutions. We here at WakePol have no problem promoting highly self-serving resolutions, which is why we feel it necessary to encourage everyone to read more, a lot more, in 2008. It's not news that fewer and fewer Americans are reading, but it is true that we've [...]
International Association of Assessing Officers has produced a short public service announcement for their members on their web site.
Assessment Time, features a wit-less tax assessor visiting the home of a family more than willing to disclose the improvements to their home.
The tagline: "If assessing was this easy, [...]
N&O reporter Sarah Lindenfeld Hall reports today about the Raleigh Planning Commission's recommendation against installing temporary rules to prevent tear-downs. That recommendation will be discussed at the Jan. 8 City Council meeting. There seems to be some wariness about adopting a rule--even a temporary one--when it's unclear what it [...]
N&O reporter Jack Hagel has passed along comments from Mayor Meeker that didn't make it into his story today. Enjoy:
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Other cities have used incentives to lure retailers downtown, and it's possible it'll come up in discussions for downtown. That might be a political firestorm. The city would probably have [...]
