Raleigh

Community-focused posts

There are 773 posts filed in Raleigh (this is page 30 of 78).

Little Raleigh Radio planning downtown broadcasts

Little Raleigh Radio grew up a little bit more today when the News and Observer covered its successful Kickstarter campaign. I hope we see many new volunteers at tomorrow’s open house at Kings!

Downtown is on its way to having its own radio station – and the community is invited to be part of the broadcast.

Volunteers are starting an internet broadcast called Little Raleigh Radio, and they hope to launch in October with an eclectic mix of music and talk, all produced by locals. Starting a radio station from scratch in 2012 might seem like a long shot, but the group has plenty of support. Within weeks, they raised more than $10,000 on the Kickstarter grassroots funding website.

via Little Raleigh Radio planning downtown broadcasts – Local/State – NewsObserver.com.

Bringing a rooftop garden to East Raleigh

I read this interesting tidbit in yesterday’s N&O about a company that builds rooftop gardens for grocery stores and thought my neighborhood would be perfect for this.

  • There are relatively few choices for good, healthy food in my area (a.k.a, a food desert).
  • An often-heard complaint about my local grocery store is the quality of its produce.
  • Said grocery store has lots of rooftop space and a large, southern-facing, sunlit, vacant outparcel nearby.
  • The Brooklyn-based owner of my local shopping center has rooftop gardens on the Brooklyn warehouses she owns.
  • This should be a slam dunk, shouldn’t it? We’ll see!

A New York company has developed a hyper local way to get fresh produce to grocery stores: grow it on the store’s own rooftop – or at least one very close by.

BrightFarms builds hydroponic greenhouses on top of buildings and then sells the lettuce, tomatoes and herbs to local supermarkets. So far, the company’s partners include A&P in Brooklyn, Whole Foods in New Jersey, and Homeland Stores in Oklahoma. Now BrightFarms wants to come to the Triangle.

P.S. The link in the N&O blog entry is broken. The contest URL is http://brightfarms.com/projects/north-carolina-envision-us-here-contest

via .biz – Company seeks roof garden sites | newsobserver.com blogs.

A lesson in democracy, CAC style

With my vacation out of the way (though not the blogging of the vacation, yet), I’m now realizing the things that I’ve been meaning to blog but haven’t gotten to yet. One is a very exciting opportunity in mid-November to provide a lesson in democracy to some visiting students from Charlotte.

A few weeks ago, Charlene Willard with the city’s Community Services department put me in touch with teacher Katy Field, Ninth Grade Class Dean of Providence Day School in Charlotte. Katy told me she was considering bringing her 9th grade class to Raleigh for a few days so that they could see how our democratic process works. Charlene told Katy about all the ways citizens can get involved through Raleigh’s unique Citizens Advisory Councils and Katy became determined to make CACs a big part of her program.
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Little Raleigh Radio blows past Kickstarter goal!

Little Raleigh Radio exceeds fundraising goal


I was thrilled to check the Kickstarter page for Little Raleigh Radio this evening and see that we’ve blown past our goal of raising $10,000 to fund our studio! What an amazing milestone! LRR aims to bring a community radio station to downtown Raleigh and Kickstarter funding really does make it a community-owned station. It’s definitely community-built!

A Kickstarter project doesn’t get funded unless donations reach a certain level. Should LRR not reached its fundraising goal by the end of the month, we would have gotten no money at all.

The community’s support for LRR is inspiring and humbling at the same time. Our neighbors have entrusted us with their money and have bought into our vision. Now its up to us to provide the goods.

The money and the interest is there. This is really going to happen!

Chief Dolan to Retire

I was surprised to read of the imminent retirement of Raleigh Police Chief Harry Dolan. As the former chair of the East CAC, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Chief Dolan and will miss his innovative leadership. I look forward to learning what he plans to do next!

City Manager J. Russell Allen today announced the retirement of Chief of Police Harry P. Dolan, effective Oct. 1. Chief Dolan’s retirement after five years as police chief caps a law enforcement career spanning 32 years and a tenure that brought progress to the department.

“Harry Dolan has been an excellent police chief for Raleigh, but more importantly, he has been an exceptional leader,” Mr. Allen said. “His high level of technical and strategic law enforcement skills are matched by his unwavering ethical standards, commitment to the community, pride in the department’s employees, and enthusiasm for police work.”

via Raleigh’s Chief of Police to Retire – The Official City of Raleigh Portal.

WineDiningFun.com

My multi-talented former boss Rowland Archer and his lovely wife Lana have just launched a resource for wine events around the Triangle. Give it a look!

We are Rowland and Lana from Raleigh, NC. We love wine events and hope you do too. We have found it very hard to find wine dinners, tastings and festivals in time to get reservations or tickets and have missed a lot of them that sounded great — after the fact. There are hundreds of web sites, Facebook pages and mailing lists that seem to get updated inconsistently if at all — and who has time to look at all of them hoping to find that one piece of gold buried in all the out-of-date information?

via About.

Raleigh will soon have its own business startup ‘Hub’

HUB Raleigh


It looks like Raleigh may have a place for startups to get started after all, about a year after I mentioned it here. I’m looking forward to learning more about HUB Raleigh!

Frustrated by lack of respectable, low-cost office space and support of other new and emerging business owners, a team of entrepreneurs in Raleigh is launching an equivalent of Durham’s “American Underground.”

Led by Brooks Bell, owner of her own rapidly growing high-tech integration business, and Christopher Gergen, who launched the Bull City Forward business program in Durham, “HUB Raleigh” is set to open on Sept. 15 at 711 Hillsborough Street.

via Raleigh will soon have its own business startup 'Hub' :: WRAL Tech Wire.

Two year vs. four year council terms

A friend asked me recently what I thought about the Raleigh City Council’s consideration of moving to four year terms rather than its current two.

Upon hearing District B councilor John Odom bring it up a few months ago, I thought it makes sense. I can see how it makes sense to stay focused on the public’s work, rather than focused on what it takes to win the next election. Some say a longer-term outlook also lends it self to smarter longer-term growth. Four year terms make sense to me.
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Neighborhood email lists get some love in local paper

The neighborhood list serves I run for East Raleigh neighborhoods got a mention by Matt Garfield in today’s Midtown Raleigh News.

The Belvidere Park & Woodcrest email list has over 300 subscribers and the East Citizens Advisory Council Discussion list has 266 subscribers. The Lockwood neighborhood list has 45 subscribers. I hope these numbers go up as more people discover the power of these communications tools!

Hours after the encounter, an officer called Brooks to thank her for contacting police. He called the arrest “a good catch.”

Contacting police isn’t the only thing Brooks did. After the woman left, Brooks sent an email to the neighborhood list-serv in the East Citizens Advisory Council, alerting dozens of residents to beware of a suspicious person in the area.

The email chain has become a go-to source for many residents. East CAC members discuss everything from dogs running loose on the street to recommendations for plumbers and repairmen.

“It’s a grassroots social network that really does provide a lot of benefit,” said Emrys Treasure, co-chairman of the East CAC. “It’s hard to imagine how the CAC would go without it.”

via Door-to-door act in East Raleigh highlights need for caution – Raleigh – MidtownRaleighNews.com.

After acrimony, Wade CAC chairs seek smoother relations

I like the N&O’s Matt Garfield. He works hard and has sat through marathon meetings when even I wanted to jump out of my chair and disapppear. When my friend wrote about this past week’s Wade CAC election, though, he didn’t tell even half of the story.

I suppose someday soon I will fill in the blanks here on MT.Net, and there’s also value in simply moving on. For now I’m happy that Citizens Advisory Councils (CACs) are getting the attention they deserve.

Mike Rieder and Mary Jane Clark have a lot of work to do.

The newly elected Wade CAC chairman and vice-chairwoman take office following a contentious election to succeed longtime predecessors Bill Padgett and Louise Griffith.

Rieder defeated Seth Hollar and Craig Ralph in a vote that attracted an overflow crowd of 170 people to the Jaycee Community Center. Clark was unopposed.

The pair will try to restore a sense of cooperation to the Wade CAC, a community advisory council that encompasses some of the city’s most historic and politically active neighborhoods.Created in the 1970s, CACs weigh in on issues ranging from zoning to mass transit.

“This process was damaging to the community,” Clark said. “We have a lot of healing that needs to take place.”

via After acrimony, Wade CAC chairs seek smoother relations – Raleigh – MidtownRaleighNews.com.