Raleigh

Community-focused posts

There are 773 posts filed in Raleigh (this is page 15 of 78).

Love wins

Deputy Biggs asks the crowd of supporters to move upstairs

Deputy Biggs asks the crowd of supporters to move upstairs

As I get older, but especially once I became a father, I started to really wonder why our world is so full of death and destruction, of war and greed. Though I am a veteran of the Navy I no longer take lightly willingly doing something that might make another suffer or die, “enemy” or not. I’m fortunate to have never seen that kind of action; I’ve seen enough of others’, though, to know how pointless it all is. The world could use a little less hate and a little more love.

This thought is always on my mind when the topic of what was once called “gay marriage” comes up. I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy. If two adults want to commit to each other in marriage, what the hell does my opinion matter? Isn’t America about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Is there nothing that better embodies those ideals than the right to wed the person you love?
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A room with a 115,000 volt view

Update 14 Oct: Duke Energy Progress tells me this line is 115,000 volts, not 140,000. Post updated to show the true voltage.

401 Oberlin residents never have to charge their cellphones

401 Oberlin residents never have to charge their cellphones

As I’ve occasionally driven by the new 401 Oberlin apartments at the corner of Oberlin Road and Clark Avenue, I’ve begun to notice just how frighteningly close the building is to a high-voltage transmission line paralleling it on Clark Avenue. High voltage lines pulsing with electricity in the neighborhood of 115,000 volts are less than two dozen feet away from the top floor of this building. Scary thought. It’s something that is conspicuously absent from their fancy building renderings, I’ve noticed.

Twenty years ago I rented an apartment with my brother and friend on Thea Lane in southwest Raleigh that was located about 50 feet under the 115Kv transmission lines that run alongside the Beltline. I never thought much about it until the day I was adjusting my tape deck (remember those?), getting ready to record a CD. When I bumped up the gain slightly on my tape recorder, I was surprised to hear an unexpectedly loud hum coming through the tape heads! Yikes! I wasn’t going to wait around for science’s definitive answer on the possible dangers of electrical field exposure, I was ready to get out of there!

Now look at 401 Oberlin, which is twice as close to power lines as I used to be. Electrical field strengths become twice as strong at half the distance, so 401 Oberlin residents are almost certainly swamped in a very strong electrical field.

Bottom line? No way in hell I would ever live there!

I’ve got an inquiry in with Duke Energy Progress to determine how much juice is actually flowing through that transmission line. I’ll update this post if/when I hear back from them.

Neighborhood kudos

Got this from a neighbor yesterday, thanking me for keeping my neighborhood informed about a rare but troubling string of recent larcenies from cars:

I surely do appreciate all the informative messages lately about the cars getting broken in to. It has made me check mine every night to be sure it’s locked and I keep my porch light turned on now too. Also, I called several neighbors who do not use email and let them know what has been going on. Many many thanks to you.

This makes it all worthwhile.

RALEIGH: New Raleigh neighborhoods won’t get individual mailboxes | Raleigh | MidtownRaleighNews.com

As I left the home this morning, I drove through the new Oakwood North neighborhood and something caught my eye. Workers have installed a concrete pedestal near the front of the subdivision to house the community mailboxes that the neighborhood is now required to have.

I beat up on Colin yesterday about his targeting of certain councilmembers (and I will have more to say about this soon) but he is capable of writing stories that deserve kudos. This one about the Postal Service discontinuing home delivery for new subdivisions was interesting and newsworthy. It’s something that apparently even caught giant homebuilder KB Home by surprise. Suddenly their ultimate home for retirees is much less attractive if living there requires daily trips to the mailbox. Or perhaps homeowners will be the fittest in Raleigh?

RALEIGH — At the model home for the newest neighborhood inside the Beltline, an ornate black mailbox sits atop a post at the curb.

But homebuyers in the Oakwood North subdivision won’t be getting one of their own. After developers started work on the community, the U.S. Postal Service pulled the plug on what’s been a standard amenity: curbside mail delivery.

via RALEIGH: New Raleigh neighborhoods won’t get individual mailboxes | Raleigh | MidtownRaleighNews.com.

N&O’s Colin Campbell writes hit piece on Crowder

Well, that was predictable.

Days after Raleigh City Councilman Thomas Crowder defended against the recent attack on planning documents our city and citizenry spent millions of dollars and many years crafting, News and Observer reporter Colin Campbell writes a hit piece on Crowder’s pursuit of parking lawbreakers.

Objectivity does not appear to be Campbell’s strong suit. He needs a new beat, pronto. And shame on the News and Observer editors for condoning this tripe.

On a related note, I have been doing some research on Campbell’s reporting that is providing some interesting insights. Stay tuned.

RALEIGH — Two years ago, Raleigh City Councilman Thomas Crowder spearheaded an effort to ban front-yard parking in his district. These days, he’s filing dozens of complaints to make sure parking scofflaws are held accountable.Crowder has asked city zoning staffers via email to investigate 26 possible front-yard parking violations – many within blocks of his house – in his Southwest Raleigh district during the past year. Crowder’s complaints represent nearly 30 percent of the parking ordinance reports received in Raleigh since July 2013, according to city records.

“I have complaints regarding the above referenced property,” Crowder says in many of the emails, sometimes including a photo of the offense. “Please investigate and notify me of your findings and action taken.”

via RALEIGH: Raleigh councilman turns in neighbors under controversial parking ban | Wake County | NewsObserver.com.

Downtown summit? First things first

The News and Observer wrote an editorial about the need for a downtown summit. I’ve been pondering it for a while and have a few comments.

Revitalization has been a success, to be sure. But with that success comes challenges the city now must address. Yes, the City Council is doing so in working on a “downtown plan,” but a broader effort is needed, because the boom has brought up some issues.

Therefore, council members can lead the way in calling for a downtown summit of sorts, bringing in not just the dedicated advocates from places like the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, but residents from North, South, East and West Raleigh, people who perhaps, even now, don’t come downtown all that much. Even with all the hoopla, it’s still not uncommon to meet North Raleighites who have never been downtown, period.

Actually, some people will never visit downtown and it doesn’t matter what you try to do to change this. There are suburbanites who don’t “get” downtown and likely won’t ever. And you know what? That’s okay. Raleigh is a big city now and offers something for everyone – for downtown fans and others. You can get by just fine if you never go downtown.
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One Parks board meeting left

Raleigh's Parks board at the Fred Fletcher awards, May 2014.

Raleigh’s Parks board at the Fred Fletcher awards, May 2014.


At last week’s Parks board meeting, I did some calculations and realized I have exactly one meeting left: July 17th. Has it been six years already? Where does the time go?

So much has been accomplished during my time with the board. I recall how contentious my early board meetings were, with lots of strong opinions and little sense of compromise. I contrast that to the last few years, where my fellow boardmembers have voted unanimously on nearly every issue. I don’t think that all votes should necessarily be unanimous but I’m so glad to have been on a board where the members try to work together.

I’m working up a speech to give for my two minutes of member comments at the end of every meeting. There’s a lot to cover for these six years so I’ll have to choose my words carefully.

While July 17th will be my last meeting, my term doesn’t officially end until September 5th. Thus I have one more dedication left to attend: the Mount Hope Cemetery dedication on September 4th. After that, who knows where life will lead me?
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Ring Around Raleigh bike ride!

Ring Around Raleigh

Ring Around Raleigh


Tomorrow morning I’ll be leading a number of my friends and neighbors on a Ring Around Raleigh bike ride using bike-friendly streets and greenways. It’s the same route my family has been riding over the past few weekends. I was inspired by a friend who posted about his ride around Raleigh and thought I’d try to do it, too.

My experiment proved easier than I expected. The streets taken are quiet neighborhood streets with little traffic and the vast majority of riding is along Raleigh’s beautiful greenways. It seems so easy and fun I thought I would help get the word out to my cyclist friends so they could begin riding it, too.

If you’d like to join us, be at Lions Park (1600-ish Bennett Street) at 8 AM Sunday morning. We’ll leave the park promptly at 8:15 AM and spend the next three hours or so working our way clockwise around the city. The weather’s shaping up to be great, too: with a sunny, breezy day and a high of only 84 degrees.

Hope to see you tomorrow at Lions Park!

Our Route:
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Having it both ways on Jones Street

By BigBuzzMedia

By BigBuzzMedia


I learned yesterday that there is some consternation in the North Carolina General Assembly over the City of Raleigh’s decision to allow two-way traffic on Jones Street. The street is one of four that the city is converting from one-way to two-way traffic.

One-way streets have been the bane of downtowns everywhere, turning streets which should be serving the businesses and homes around them into miniature highways. One-way streets prioritize commuter traffic over local traffic and that’s not how our modern-day downtown works. My only complaint with this decision is that the city didn’t fix the rest of the one-way streets along with these four.

Why is the General Assembly so up in arms? Who knows? Could it be that two-way streets threaten their cushy, legislators-only on-street parking on Jones? Could it be their worry about the schoolchildren who cross Jones at the front of the Legislative Building? Could it be that our right-wing state leaders don’t want Jones Street ever moving to the left? Or could this simply be our legislators’ desire to micromanage every goddamn municipality in the state?

Here’s an idea, legislators: why not let the experts be the experts and not try to butt in on every decision anyone in the state makes? Let professional educators decide how education should be run and let the traffic engineers decide how traffic should work. While we’re at it, how about letting Charlotte leaders run Charlotte and Raleigh leaders run Raleigh? You can focus on important stuff like legalizing opossum abuse and denying climate change.

Trust me. You’ll feel better. And we’ll be much happier when we drive past the Legislative Building. Both ways.

Paul O’Connor: Big government from Raleigh | Salisbury Post

Well said.

RALEIGH – The true conservatives were all in a lather about federal intrusion into states’ rights during Tuesday’s House Education Committee.

First they complained about the federal courts and their attacks on God, then about federal intrusion into education and then about the lack of judicial and congressional attention to the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The true conservatives, you see, believe that local folks know best how to govern locally and that this big, bad government in Washington should just stop interfering in the affairs of North Carolina.

What was most amazing about the prolonged committee meeting, or you might call it a rant, was that no audience member stood up and shouted: “Pot, kettle. Pot, kettle. Pot, kettle.”

via Paul O’Connor: Big government from Raleigh | Salisbury Post.