BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for April 2, 2009

• Panelists at last night's League of Women Voters event were unanimous in their disdain for a plurality system for municipal elections proposed by Durham elections officials, fretting that it could lead to the seating of candidates dis-liked by a majority of voters. But they reportedly split on whether instant run-off voting is a better method than the status quo. City Councilman Howard Clement noted at last night's meeting that he's getting heavily lobbied by the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People; a number of their key members vocally opposed any such change in an earlier City Council discussion. (H-S)
• The Joint City-County Planning Commission unanimously backed a proposal to realign the South Durham urban growth area to Scott King Rd., just south of Fairfield and neighboring subdivisions; the proposal has to be approved by local government before it happens, but this would prevent further development in a broad swath of Army Corps of Engineers and county natural history inventory land. (N&O)
• The good job news: the Durham-CH MSA is still the best in the state for unemployment, and Durham County's the second-best county for the jobless rate in the state, next to neighboring Orange. The bad news: Durham's up to 8.0% in Feb., up from 7.3% in Jan. and almost twice last year's 4.3% mark. (H-S)
• Durham's yard waste dump is comin' back online, a couple of years after a stinky, smoldering yard waste fire revealed the city's lapsed permit, the citizens' and state's chagrin, the expensive trucking of such waste to a Virginia landfill in the interim -- an episode that, as the H-S notes, contributed to the reshuffling of decks in City Hall that brought outsider Tom Bonfield to the city manager post. (H-S)
• U.S. Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts will pay a visit to NCCU's law school on April 14, to preside over their moot court competition. Roberts, the first chief justice to visit the law school, will also preside over the swearing in of new members of the U.S. Supreme Court bar. NCCU Law dean Raymond Pierce schmoozed with the big-rober back in '07 at the Greenbrier and invited him to visit Central. (H-S)
• A bill proposed by state Sen. Floyd McKissick, Jr. would allow juvenile records for serious matters (Class A-1 misdemeanor or felony if committed by adults) to be accessed by magistrates and judges when setting bail or sentences, while keeping records off-limits in less serious cases. The move is a step towards giving courts better visibility into the history and proclivities of defendants. (H-S)
• M&F Bank continued its profitable ways, overcoming what would have been a loss from operations with one-time gains under accounting rules thanks to its bank regulator-enforced shotgun marriage with troubled Mutual Community Savings Bank. (N&O)

Comments

[KeepDurhamDifferent!]

Hooray for the Durham Committee! Minority groups and special interests will be disenfranchised under the proposal.

[georg]

What are the odds? One of the speakers at Neighborhood College tonight is from Solid Waste and I'd wanted to find out what the heck was going on with the yard waste/mulch program and would it ever start up again.

[HisThirdReceptionistThisYear]

Could we get some of Floyd McKissick's records unsealed while we're at it?

[KeepDurhamDifferent!]

Oh, snap! I wasn't going to go there (since I ran against Sen. McKissick last year), but you know that whole wife-beating thing didn't stick. I believe any charges were dropped.

[Todd Twigg]

This is the third year hearing that the city's composting facility will soon be back online, but this time I am hopeful that it's really going to happen. What a relief.

I'll buy a couple locopops for whomever can dig up a price tag on the extra fuel and tipping fees that we've paid over the past three years for this environmentally and economically misguided decision. And, how much money and trust could have been saved had the public been actively educated about the situation and encouraged to compost on their own property?