BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for November 17, 2009

The Fishwrap's coming off the line a little late this morning, as your correspondent's travels continue in the mid-South on a family engagement. Central Standard Time's a pain. We'll still be here through the rest of the week, with BCR updates at perhaps slightly different times than usual.

In today's news:

Duke Sees Layoff Possibility: While a number of campus employees have or are expected to soon accept voluntary buyouts, Duke HR director Kyle Cavanaugh tells the Herald-Sun that "layoffs on a smaller, more localized" (department by department) basis are still a strong likelihood as the university tries to shrink its budget by $125 million. (Herald-Sun)

Violent Crime Down, Property Crime Up Slightly: Violent crime has dropped year-over-year by almost 13% through the third quarter, DPD Chief Jose Lopez reported to the City Council last night, and the 2.3% bump in property crimes still leaves the Bull City with less activity in that category than it saw two years ago. On the downside, clearance rates for homicides -- the percentage of crimes that are solved with a suspect charged by the police -- are well below national, Durham violent crime and past year local performance levels, drawing unsettled interrogation from the mayor and City Council. (Herald-Sun)

Quiet Start to Rolling Hills Charrette: Only a handful of residents showed up for Monday night's kickoff of the Rolling Hills/Southside redevelopment charrette, a weeklong process funded by the City as Durham tries to hustle plans together in time for federal stimulus bucks. Mixed-income housing is on the table, with some talk of gentrification risks, the Herald-Sun says -- but mostly just a few residents outnumbered by project stakeholders and planners. (Herald-Sun)

Addrenex Bought: Durham pharma firm Addrenex, which focuses on treatments involving the body's production of adrenaline, has sold out to Atlanta-based partner Sciele Pharma for $29m. (N&O)

Comments

[durhamwalkingdog]

Duke has already been laying off staff - and anyone who has been given an RIF (reduction in force) or Early Retirement package (the package details both in one booklet) will see that it's dated March 09 - so this has been in the works for some time.

It gets under my skin that Duke (with the media skipping along in stride) are still trying to say they haven't laid anyone off. They have and there will be more.

[bb]

Are you traveling in time too?

[Jeremy T]

Uh oh, layoffs! Maybe now is a good time to stop reading BCR and to start enhancing my productivity...

[Phil]

Dude -- you've got an OCTOBER 17 headline :-)

[Bull City Rising]

@bb, Phil: Good Lord, how did I screw *that* up?? I guess the time zone really is having more of an effect than I thought!

Believe me, it will be so good to get back to Durham. I'm stuck in a small town in south-central Tennessee.

How backwater is it? Well, a local radio station had a commercial extolling a local Mexican restaurant, but the station stressed that the eatery had "English-speaking servers." Also: gas stations that have signs out front bragging that their gas has no ethanol. Yeah, that's right -- none of that tharr' funny American biofuel fer us.