I was honored again to be invited to speak to the Raleigh Digital Connectors about blogging tonight. Hopefully I inspired some of them to take up writing (and hopefully blogging) on a regular basis. I certainly enjoyed the opportunity to share my experience and look forward to what they create and share with the world.
Raleigh
Community-focused posts
There are 773 posts filed in Raleigh (this is page 8 of 78).
Post-election mop-up
The November 2016 election is now in the books. Hillary Clinton lost. We have President-elect Trump. I’ve been very busy doing what I could to put the Democratic Party over the finish line and had little time to reflect. Last night I did gather some pertinent thoughts and will share some of them in a post or two.
I took the day off from work Tuesday to work the polls (I’m the Democratic precinct chair for my precinct, 01-13). I saw a steady stream of people coming to vote, both Clinton supporters but also a surprising number of Trump supporters. Most were friendly to my greeting but some were obviously angry. One man who took my voter guide returned afterward and – very worked up – told me he wished the incumbents had been listed on the ballot, because he “wanted to vote all these assholes out.” I nodded, not really sure what to make of that.
I love working the polls on Election Day and saying hello to all of my neighbors, though. I shared the responsibility with Dave Malette, Heidi, Tammy, and Julie. Kelly and Travis joined me for the 5-7:30 PM shift. We were joined by a reporter named Ben from a newspaper in Belfast (yes, Belfast, Ireland) who was interviewing voters after they had voted.
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Two Years of Construction on Glascock Street Could End This Week. Did Bad Communication Only Create More Problems? – Raleigh Agenda
Jane Porter’s story on the seemingly never-ending construction on Glascock Street ran in today’s Raleigh Agenda. It’s a fair piece and properly highlights the frustration neighbors have been feeling.
To give a little context to my remarks, I also told Jane that I’m happy that the City is bringing much-needed investment to East Raleigh (after all, there are still two actual, honest-to-God unpaved dirt roads that connect to Glasdock). I only wish the city had done a better job of setting expectations for how long this project (these projects) would take.
Being that I was East CAC chair at the time (or had just been), I certainly knew that the project was gearing. I was not aware, though (and I don’t think any other neighbors were aware), of the time it would all take.
What I would like to see for future projects is the city not only telling us when a project is expected begin but when it is expected to be completed. Put up a sign at the work site with this information. Include a URL (or QR code) that points people to the project webpage. This would do a lot to keep neighbors comfortable with the process.
A good example of why this is needed is the construction that has temporarily closed Old Louisburg Road. A sign appeared over the weekend of October 8th, which tells drivers that the road would close on the 10th. The sign does not tell drivers when the road will reopen! Because Old Louisburg Road is the main way people in my neighborhood get to downtown Raleigh, it being closed is hugely disruptive.
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Speeding point proven at 2 AM
I’d spent many evenings last week going door to door along State Street, methodically collecting signatures on a city petition to reduce the State Street speed limit to 25 MPH from its current 35 MPH. The first two days garnered the lion’s share of signatures; before I knew it I was up to ten. The last four, however, have been a challenge. Some neighbors tell me they agree 100% with reducing the speed and yet they’re very reluctant to put their name on the list. Some of these neighbors are older and some are renters who are perhaps worried any more neighborhood improvements might price them right out of the home they are renting. It’s hard to know what their real reasons are but it’s frustrating that they want it done and yet don’t want to do anything to make it happen.
Sunday afternoon I was particularly bummed when some friends I thought I could count on to sign decided against it, citing the mess that the water main replacement/traffic calming on Glascock has been. Even though I stressed it was only a new set of speed limit signs I could not convince them. I felt like chucking my clipboard into the street and giving up on the whole damn process. It would be just like five years ago, when I spent hours walking up and down State only to collect just enough signatures to barely miss the threshold.
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N&O quoted my letter to City Council in 2013
I was doing a vanity search on the N&O website, looking for a story I linked to once but apparently no longer exists (the N&O has never fixed its linkrot problem), when I found a 2013 story in which Colin Campbell quoted me and I didn’t even know it. In 2013, after musing about two-way streets here, I had written City Council and urged them to consider getting rid of the one-way streets in East Raleigh:
From: Mark Turner
Date: 06/25/2013 07:57 PM
Subject: Please consider making New Bern and Edenton two-wayDear Madame Mayor and City Councilors,
I would like to respectfully request that you consider devoting a portion of transportation funds towards converting New Bern Avenue and Edenton Streets from one-way streets into two-way streets east of the Capitol. I strongly feel nothing would provide an economic boost to the east side of town as much as making these streets friendlier to local traffic and pedestrians and making them less like miniature freeways.
Thank you for all that you do for our city!
Respectfully yours,
Mark Turner
Google to Google routing could be better
Like many Triangle residents, I’ve been eagerly awaiting Google Fiber service, ready to ditch my indentured servitude to Time Warner Cable. I’m a fairly advanced geek, too, hosting this site and others on Amazon Web Services. I want my website to be as speedy as possible to me and my web visitors, so low network latency is very important. For those who aren’t advanced geeks, network latency is how long it takes for a packet to travel between two points on a network, usually measured in milliseconds. Networking often hits upon the limitation of the speed of light (or radio propagation, depending on the medium), meaning a server located far away (like Singapore) will have a noticeable delay for visitors in America.
My Amazon virtual server is physically located in Ashburn, Virginia but due to some favorable network routing it responds very quickly in the Triangle area, almost as if it were right across town. I have found it very hard to find a server that’s any closer, network-wise.
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Boost of civic energy
No sooner had I written my previous post that I got a boost of civic energy, this one from attending Monday night’s East CAC meeting. It had been a long while since I had been to a meeting, with my involvement in the Ligon PTA taking up much of my free time as well as other things like Friends of Dorothea Dix Park.
Monday’s meeting featured information on the purchase of Gateway Plaza, right outside of my neighborhood, so it provided a compelling reason to be there. There wasn’t much information provided but seeing many of my friends and neighbors there after such a long time was really fun. The same boost of energy I always got when conducting East CAC meetings was still there. My neighborhood inspires me! It’s good to know I can always come back.
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Corroded wire led to Rachel Rosoff’s death
Wake County Inspectors released their report on what caused the pool at Heritage Point to become electrically charged, killing lifeguard and Enloe High senior Rachel Rosoff on Saturday, 3 September. I’ve perused the report [PDF] and it appears that the pool pump shorted out for some reason (age? damage? No one knows). This wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem but the grounded conductor which normally protects from such faults had become so corroded over time that it no longer completed the circuit.
There’s no telling how long ago the corroded ground wire had stopped protecting the pool equipment. Once the motor failed there was no other place for the electricity to flow but into the pool.
Was there negligence? It appears not. The pool’s electrical system was up to the 1978 NEC Electrical code it was built under. So what else might be done? Perhaps pool owners (or county inspectors) could test the grounds on other pools on a regular basis to ensure everything is working properly. I’m sure many are already considering this.
Twenty years after Hurricane Fran
Last Monday was the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Fran. I’ve written a lot about Fran here on MT.Net so I won’t geeze and do it again now. I will say, though, how much Raleigh has changed since Fran, and that I’m struck by how many people now living here have no memory of Fran because they weren’t here.
For those of us who were here, though, it will be something we never forget.
Rachel Rosoff
Saturday morning, while my family was enjoying the Labor Day weekend, an Enloe High School student named Rachel Rosoff was reporting to work as a lifeguard at a North Raleigh neighborhood pool. Unbeknownst to her, the pool had somehow become electrified, and she was found floating face-down in the water by an arriving coworker who could not rescue her without becoming a victim himself. She was buried yesterday.
I’ve been thinking of Rachel over the past few days. She had many of the same interests that my kids do. I’ve probably even watched her perform with the Improv group at Enloe’s recent open house.
It’s terrifying to me as a parent how quickly lives can be turned upside-down, how you can work to make things safe and still tragedies happen. One moment Rachel was ready to take on the world and her world ends the next. Terrifying and so sad.
No, I didn’t know Rachel or her family but I feel like she and they are part of my family. I hope the Rosoff family finds some peace.