BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for December 16, 2008

On the ninth day 'fore Christmas, my fishwraps gave to me:

• That big brouhaha over Duke's proposed street closures? Postponed, until late January. Which meant that Monday night's Council meeting's pomp-and-ceremonial to Actual Business ratio ran a staggering 3:1. (H-S) For the record, WRAL didn't have any coverage of the meeting -- except to note, in a stunning case of deja vu, that the DPD is getting more tasers, bro! (WRAL)
• Perhaps the most interesting part of the meeting was Councilman Eugene Brown's comments on the state's broken probation system, with Brown giving a nod to the N&O's excellent investigative reporting and calling for the state to take action on a system that's seen almost one in five homicides in the past eight years committed by persons on probation. (N&O)
• The widening of Fayetteville St. to Woodcroft Pkwy. may be down the road, but the part of the road right around MLK Jr. Pkwy. will be widened with the arrival of a new Lowe's home improvement center on the now-clearcut parcel at the intersection's northwest corner. The store, set to open in 2009, was required to invest in significant road improvements as that stretch of Fayetteville was already at capacity. (H-S)
• Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker will hold a presser today to unveil his plans for Raleigh's wishlist for Federal funds desired out of President-elect Obama's infrastructure spending plan. It's described as "much longer and more expensive" than the typical Raleigh earmarks wishlist -- the city's $226 million public safety center is on the list. We don't know whether to be disturbed or unworried about the fact that "efforts to discuss Durham's ... lobbying efforts with officials there were unsuccessful." (N&O)
• The real estate market is rough throughout the Triangle, a fact confirmed by the November MLS stats -- though one market watcher notes that while sales in Durham Co. were down 40% year-over-year (all Triangle: 45%), the actual inventory of houses on the market is down 1.6% from '07 and up only 6% from '06. By comparison, inventory numbers are up 38% in Wake vs. two years ago, 36% in Orange, and 20% in Johnston. Durham's average selling price is down 5.6%, in line with the region, with the median price up 3.2%. (C-D)
• Brilliant guy decides to rob the downtown SunTrust without any covering of his face, allowing great resolution photos of his face. Tip to DPD: Don't check the Bull City chapter of Mensa for this one. (WRAL)
• Work on the western end of Pickett Rd. is scheduled to be completed by the end of December if the weather holds; the project to replace a bridge over Mud Creek has hindered western Durham Co. residents, the N&O reports. (N&O)
• H-S county reporter Matt "Snapper" Milliken looks at the automation improvements in the Register of Deeds' office, which now allows online property searches back to 1962, and who is now working on having all Durham land records back to 1881 available for searching on the department's web site. Vital records going back to the start of the 20th century are in line for preservation, too. (H-S)

And, quite apart from the news section, check out Barry Saunders N&O column today. He becomes the first person to put in print what some downtown scenesters have speculated, sotto voce, since the mugging of Self-Help chief Martin Eakes: was the attack random, or was it retaliation from one of the groups his organization has displaced or fought over the years -- a gallery that includes everyone from the payday lending industry to drug dealers to Klansmen.

Most folks we've spoken to here at BCR have scoffed at the notion that the Eakes mugging was anything but a random act of violence, but Saunders makes an intriguing argument that it might have been something more.

Comments

[Oliver Stone]

Regarding the article on the Eakes assault:

Saunders is his usual provocative self but his "argument" consists simply of unfounded speculation and some quotes used to imply what no credible person has actually stated--that a conspiracy was behind the attack. This is Saunders doing his worst and laziest journalist impersonation, throwing out opinions and making unfounded statements. In the absence of other evidence, it seems at least as likely that the assault was some sort of gang initiation or just good ol' fashioned violence. Unless he has some inside information he is not sharing, I think Saunders does a disservice to his readers by making groundless allegations.

[KeepDurhamDifferent!]

more importantly, when is Saunders going to explain his being on both sides of the robber/victim dynamic? I'm guessing he once beat up a classmate for his lunch money, but that he "deserved it" for copying Barry's homework.

Either that, or he took some organic tomatoes without leaving a dollar in the roadside basket.