Raleigh

Community-focused posts

There are 773 posts filed in Raleigh (this is page 31 of 78).

Little Raleigh Radio kicks off its donation campaign!

Little Raleigh Radio


Little Raleigh Radio, the LPFM station I’m helping launch, has gone live with its Kickstarter donation campaign! After just one day it’s already reached 1/3rd of its goal of $10,000!

Help bring really local radio to Raleigh! Donate today!

We are building a community radio station and we need equipment so we can start broadcasting.

We are doing this. We are starting a community radio station in downtown Raleigh and we are doing it legit.

This studio will launch our internet broadcast stream and it will also prepare us to be on the air with a low-power FM signal in 2013. We need to populate the studio with more hardware than a couple of laptops and microphones borrowed from our volunteers. We are using Kickstarter to raise $10,000 to purchase gear including soundboards, CD players, turntables, microphones, speakers, cables and supportive equipment. We need your help. We believe in the value of community and we want our volunteers to be able to create community through radio.

via Little Raleigh Radio // We'll do it live! by Little Raleigh Radio — Kickstarter.

Mr. Grump

I had a grumpy day today, start to finish. And it sucks. I should have felt better about things but I did not.

My work day started off with a bang as I discovered my laptop had a virus or two on it. I spent the majority of my workday carefully getting rid of those viruses and trying to determine how they got me. It made me curse the Windows laptop I have to use instead of the far more secure Linux one I’d prefer.

Though I finally got that problem solved, I spent the rest of the day stressing about all the other things I’ve got going on. This upcoming week has meeting after meeting and it’s got me looking ahead to next month’s vacation. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a big deal but the kids’ being out of school has upended our home’s usual schedule and thrown me completely out of my comfort zone. This is the first summer we’ve had two working parents in the family and it’s taken a while to work things out.

Tomorrow is another day, however. The sun will come up, and I will find reason to sing again. I always do, you know.

Wade CAC heats up again

Things heated up again in the Wade CAC last night. Accusations are flying and fingers pointing. It’s crazy and hard to figure out. I’m not choosing sides, I’m not going to sort out the he-said-she-said, but I’m simply trying to carry out a fair election. While some have asked me to put things off, I will make no decision on my own but will submit to the direction of the CAC. It’s really all about the citizens.

The whole event is stressing the hell out of me, truth be told. I wish there was more harmony but wishing alone ain’t gonna make it happen. Whomever does win the election will have to contend with the big job of patching up the community. I wish them well!

Google Maps captures me capturing it

Who’s that weirdo in the bushes with the camera?


I saw the Google Maps car parked outside the Crabtree Blvd. Bank of America last week. It reminded me to check to see if Google Maps has been updated from the last trip the camera-equipped car drove through.

Remember last year when I spotted the Google Maps car as it drove through the neighborhood and I couldn’t wait to see the bald guy with the camera standing in the driveway? Well, here he is!

Progress CEO is out as Duke, Progress complete merger

Wow, I didn’t see this coming. Progress CEO Bill Johnson takes whatever golden parachute he was offered and bails. Feels like a bait and switch. If I didn’t have reason to suspect this deal wasn’t a good one for the public, now my suspicions are on high alert.

It makes me all the more curious as to why the public wasn’t privy to the backroom deals that were made to ram this merger through. I sure hope the N&O and other news organizations are successful in dragging these private deals into the light. There’s smoke: now go find the fire.

Duke Chairman and CEO Jim Rogers had been scheduled to serve as chairman and [Bill] Johnson as president and CEO when the two utilities merged to create the nation’s largest electric utility.

However, in the announcement early Tuesday of the formal merger closing and the formation of a new board of directors, the new Duke Energy said Rogers was staying and Johnson was out.

Johnson “resigned” through “mutual agreement” Duke said. He had been a strong advocate for the merger.

via Progress CEO is out as Duke, Progress complete merger :: WRAL.com.

Church, neighbors meet to seek fixes on noise

I was mentioned in today’s Midtown Raleigh News regarding the Glorious Church.

Another neighbor of the church, Mark Turner, said he also has heard noise – while in his house with the windows closed.

Turner, chair of the Raleigh Citizens Advisory Council, offered to act as a mediator to help the two parties find common ground.

As I mentioned before, I didn’t offer to mediate so much as I was recruited to mediate! It’s all good, though, if we get this worked out.

I was asked to set up a meeting with all parties within the next two weeks. Right now I’m looking at Monday, July 9th but it all depends on what works for the parties involved. I was first looking at Wednesday, July 11th but most churches have services on Wednesday nights so that’s not convenient.

Incidentally, I cringed each time the church’s services were called “noise” at last week’s Law and Public Safety meeting. Even Bishop Spain did it. Whatever it’s called, though, I think it’s only fair that if one goes inside one’s home, one no longer hears it.

The ideal solution would be for a Raleigh window company to read this article and offer a deal to the church on new windows. It would be a great way for that window company to do a good deed as well as get some free publicity. I wonder who will step up?

via Church, neighbors meet to seek fixes on noise – Raleigh – MidtownRaleighNews.com.

Wade CAC nominations

It was a busy day! Not only did I attend the Glorious Church meeting but this evening I presided over the second special meeting of the Wade CAC. This meeting was the one where the candidate nominations were taken and nominations closed. It was the first meeting of the Wade CAC in its new meeting room, the aptly-titled “Meeting Room” in the newly renovated Jaycees Community Center on Wade Avenue.

The meeting began with city reports from the police and parks department. Following that, the list of existing candidates was presented and nominations taken from the floor. One new candidate was nominated and things went very, very smoothly.

For new business, two upcoming rezoning cases were mentioned but I didn’t have many details to share as I’d just been told about them at noon today. Also, one member expressed concern about the daytime closing of Dan Allen Drive and wanted some CAC members to study that.

It looks like the difficult stuff is behind us now and I expect next month’s meeting to be a smooth transition to the new officers. I will then happily step back and return to my other endeavors. While I think I’ve served an important purpose for the CAC, I’ve enjoyed getting to know the personalities of the Wade CAC. Perhaps I’ll be back as a visitor someday.

Glorious Church noise issue in committee

Raleigh’s Law and Public Safety committee met at 3 PM today with the Glorious Church noise complaints on its agenda. I attended the meeting, not as a community leader but more as an interested party as the church is in my neighborhood. Before I could declare my neutral position, chairperson Mary Ann Baldwin was meeting with me and fellow neighbor John Seitz to “hash out the ground rules.”

Both John and Bishop Spain are neighbors of mine, so I sympathize with both sides. John has a right to enjoy his home in peace and Bishop Spain and his churchgoers have a right to worship any way they’d like. The only way I can see both of these rights being fulfilled is for the church to accept the neighborhood’s offer to raise money to upgrade the church’s windows. With some soundproofing in place everyone can be happy. If the soundproofing includes new windows the church will undoubtedly save money on its heating and cooling bills, too.

The upshot of today’s meeting is that the community and church agree to meet again within two weeks to plot next steps. Though I just expected to sit quietly on the sidelines today I wound up being asked by Councilor Baldwin to help set this up, so now its time for me to pull the resources together. It’s not the role I expected to be playing in this situation but I’m honored that Councilor Baldwin and the various parties involved think enough of me to ask for my help in brokering a solution.

Tough RCAC meeting

When I woke up this morning, I could feel a disturbance in the Force. My chi was simply all wrong. I felt unease most of the day and wondered what big challenge would present itself today. I knew one would, though.

That challenge came in the form of tonight’s RCAC meeting, where I expected the board to read and accept updated bylaws that have been worked on for weeks by the board’s bylaws committee. Instead there was instant suspicion on the part of some members, and I and the other bylaws committee members were put in the defensive early on. When the committee finally was able to explain the proposed changes and pointed out that these were minor edits of the same documents we’ve been staring at for the better part of a year, resistance softened quite a bit. We had a good conversation about it and lots of feedback was collected but ultimately no vote was taken.
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