Bull City Rising

APS volunteer brings light to dogs in need of new homes

The national economic slowdown has had reverberations across wide number of domains, and pets are no exceptions. The horror stories in the press of late have ranged from tales of horses abandoned in the wake of rising feed prices, to food pantries striving to add pet foods to the mix for owners who can't afford it.

Durham's own Animal Protection Society of Durham, does a yeoman's job of trying to find homes for as many animals that make their way to its front door as possible. (Unlike Orange County's APS -- which maintains a bucolic facility in Mebane stocked with pets hand-picked from shelters in Orange and neighboring counties -- APS of Durham is co-located with the County's animal shelter on E. Club Blvd.) A job that's not easy in the best of times, and which gets even harder in the worst of times.

The hard-working volunteer staff at Durham's APS does their best to find homes for the companions in their facility. Now, one volunteer, Eunice Chang, is taking the effort to the blogosphere with her new web site, Bull City Dogs.

Chang's providing some great photos of dogs in need of new homes and will also cover general pooch-related topics from time to time.

Keep in mind that if you're looking for a cat or dog, you can see all the pets available through APS and many through Independent Animal Rescue as well at the APS web site.

Drought forum: Good facts, good questions -- good God, enough pols?

Though I went in with a small bit of skepticism about the forum, I was really pleased to see a positive, thoughtful debate at Wednesday night's Wise Women for Growth discussion on this year's drought situation. Kudos to the folks in this self-described "very ad hoc" group of women looking at infill, downtown and greenfield development for bringing three interesting perspectives together.

They didn't attract a huge crowd -- about 35 folks by my count -- but dear Lord, they attracted more politicians to one room than you'd see in a North Carolina Optometrist convention back in the Jim Black days. Heck, if you wanted to really make this year's County Commission race a competition-free experience, you'd have wished an asteroid would have struck the Durham County Library last night: incumbents Becky "Keep Her-On" Heron and Ellen Reckhow were there, along with challengers Brenda Howerton, Don Moffitt and Josh Parker.

Add to that State Sen. Floyd McKissick Jr., Durham City-County Planning honcho Steve Medlin, and indefatigable City Councilman Mike Woodard, and it was a scene of real political interest last night.

Our takeaway from the forum confirmed much of what we've learned in other recent discussions of the state's water crisis:

• Jordan Lake is a multiple-decade solution to water needs, even with growth. That said, it's a normative choice whether we want to take advantage of it as a community to leverage everyday growth, or simply for emergencies.
• Some (like Carrboro's Mayor Chilton) would argue that Jordan Lake should only be open to development if communities cut back on detached single family homes and move in support of density.
• Drought is not a rare occurence in North Carolina -- it's inescapable in our geological history. Change on the demand as well as supply side is needed to minimize the future impact of such events.
• Government retains a big role to play, from education to incentivizing low-flow fixtures and appliances, to regional planning efforts, to rules on development.

Syd Miller from the Triangle J Council of Government shared some interesting data, notably a graph showing, by date, the total amount of rainfall in the previous 12 months measured as a percentage of the typical 43" annual Triangle precipitation. On Sept. 3, 2000, the Triangle sat at 140% of normal one-year rainfall; that figure plunged to 66% on June 25, 2002; then, back up to 140% after tropical storms. "We went from the driest year on record in North Carolina to the wettest year on record here," Miller said.

Durham lowers drought restrictions, just in time for Wed. water forum

Not surprisingly, the City today announced a loosening of the mandatory water restrictions that have been in place since fall in response to drought conditions -- conditions that have lessened given the last month's rains, a series of downpours that have brought Durham's reservoir levels from a low of 11% capacity in December to full-capacity again now.

To the credit of City leaders, the announcement from Patrick Baker did not return the Bull City to a restriction-free environment, something you could sense being requested in many recent Herald-Sun op-eds. After all, the theory goes, if the reservoirs are full and we can't store any more water, why not just go back to a no-restriction world?

More realistically, though, Baker notes that "there's a new normal for the City," given the fact that stream flows have still been uneven and the higher-usage months are pending with the onset of summer. And, after all, there's still an excellent chance the dry weather will persist this summer, too.

The solution? Durham's moved back to Stage III restrictions, which again allow outdoor watering from the public supply, from 5-8 am or 5-8 pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Restaurant water is still supposed to be by-request-only, while home car washing is still restricted. Local bloggers should also note that "athletic turf is eligible for special consideration" given the special watering needed "to ensure player safety." (We'll call this the, er, East Campus LAX field rule, no?)

Drought watch

I've got a more complete discussion of what this might mean over at my place, but I wanted to point out that Lake Michie is now just about full, at a level of 340.7 feet out of 341 feet max. There's more rain in the forecast for Friday. Let's hope that we're using the pipeline to move some of that water over to the Little River reservoir, where there's still excess capacity, so that we can capture as much of Friday's rains as possible.

- Barry

Pretty precious Porsches in the parched Piedmont?

Update: ABC 11 (WTVD) picked up this story for their Tuesday Jan. 29 newscast. See their web site for streaming video and a transcript.

A BCR reader sent in the following photos and complaint last week for your consideration:

"There's a facility at 111 N Duke St... that was taking advantage of Wednesday's warmer water to wash at least three Porsches. No water recycling to speak of--one of the photos attached shows the extreme amount of runoff.

I don't like being a nag, but it seems that given the current climate, washing your cars in a totally wasteful manner is just ridiculous."

And just what are a bunch of Porsches doing getting washed in Brightleaf Square?

We're not 100% sure, but the most likely explanation seems to be that they live there. The dear, departed Blazer Manpurse noted at Bullsh@t last year that 111 N. Duke is the home of the Ingram Collection, a private auto collection belonging to one Bob Ingram, vice chairman for pharmaceuticals with GlaxoSmithKline, which of course has a large RTP-area presence.

From the Porsche Club of America - Hurricane Region website:

"Bob has understandably let us know that no pictures are to be taken while visiting the collection. It is also very important, because the cars in the Ingram Collection are not roped off, that people do not touch or open any of the cars. Additionally, the Collection management asks that people be cognizant of buttons, belt buckles and purses around the cars.

The Collection is located behind Fish Mongers and Toreros on Main St in down town Durham. The building is coffee colored and has a black awning with 111 N. Duke St on it that faces Gregson Street."

Holiday lights, parade to sweep through downtown Durham this weekend

Is the holiday season getting you more bah-humbug than happy? Or are you the kind of person who loves the bright lights and evergreens and waits for it all year round? Either way, this weekend marks the time pageantry comes to downtown Durham with a wide range of events to officially kick of the holidays in the Bull City.

First up: Friday night's ceremonial lighting of the Lucky Strike water tower at American Tobacco. The white light bulbs going up the tower have been replaced with more seasonal colors to add a bit of flair to the centerpiece of the complex. Creekside Elementary, Carrington Middle, and Northern High students will provide some holiday entertainment, while WRAL's Ken Smith will stop by to host the evening's events. (What, we don't rate David Crabtree or Pam Saulsby this year?) The first five hundred folks in attendance, we're told, get a "souvenir light wand," too. Things kick off at 7pm tonight.

Then, from 9am to 1pm, Light Up Durham is sponsoring Talent All Over Town, a musical showcase of performances from DPS students in four venues (the ATC, the Carolina Theatre, 108 Morris St., and the Hayti Heritage Center.) There will be three blocks of performances in each space; check out the Light Up Durham web site for more details.

Finally, the highlight for many of the weekend festivities: the city's annual holiday parade, culminating in the first-ever "holiday tree lighting ceremony" on the CCB Plaza, with Bill Bell and Santa Claus present to bring the fun to a close. The parade this year starts later than before -- at 4 p.m., at the corner of Blackwell and Jackie Robinson Sts. by the DBAP.

The parade route will wend up Blackwell/Corcoran/Foster to E. Chapel Hill St., then will head past Rue Cler and the wreck-a-deck up to Mangum St. The parade then heads up Mangum St. to Morgan, down to Foster, and ending at Foster & Geer. Charlie Nelms, NCCU's new chancellor, will serve as the grand marshall for this year's event.

At parade's end, we'll have the aforementioned tree lighting at the CCB Plaza at 6:30. Durham Parks & Rec and the day's sponsors are also planning musical entertainment in the hours before the parade in both the CCB Plaza and the pavilion at Durham Central Park. Find out more details at the City's web site.

Hope to see you out for the fun downtown over the next couple of days.

Other voices, other rooms

First, a note of thanks to all you folks out there reading Bull City Rising. It's been about a year since the site went live, and we're up to a readership of about 6,000 unique readers and 35,000 pageviews per month, with around 500 readers on any given day. Thanks for making BCR part of your Durham news and blogging habits.

Secondly, I wanted to take a moment as we occasionally do to highlight some of the other new voices and bloggers out there in the Bull City. What's powerful and interesting about blogs is the diversity of bringing many opinions and perspectives into the scene, and a local 'blogosphere' grows more powerful with every new blog that joins in.

First up: We talk a lot about downtown residential options here at BCR, but who's living them? Ryan Ananat, for one, who talks about what it's like living in one of the two first-occupied condos over at Trinity Lofts in his new blog Gritty Cute: Adventures of a Downtown Durham Homeowner. Ryan's hoping to highlight both residential life in Durham's city center as well as to give a perspective on the local arts scene, a topic for which more coverage is badly needed.

Next, you may know Rev. Carl Kenney from his pieces in the Independent Weekly; he's started up a new blog called Rev-Elution, bringing a unique view on issues of race, class and spirituality in the Bull City. His posts and insights on the Bell/Stith race are, in retrospect, among the more insightful ones out there.

Finally, local real estate agent Tamara Heyward with Maverick Properties -- a person involved in the sales of many downtown and near-downtown properties -- has a new blog, R.E. Market Durham. She's touched so far on national and regional housing trends but also brings some good insights for what's happening on-the-ground with Durham's downtown renovations and renewal.

Check these three blogs out if you get a chance; all now join the blogroll at left with Durham's other locally-focused bloggers.

Development moratorium: Do we need one?

We talked here yesterday briefly about the New Hope for Durham citizen's group and its interest in trying to persuade Durham leaders to slow or stop growth in the Bull City until local leaders can "organize plans for the schools, traffic and water" demanded by growth.

(Their concerns are coming to a head around a planned multi-unit development near Mark Jacobson Toyota on Garrett Rd. (map) A correction from yesterday: today's Council meeting is a work session, not the public hearing on the necessary re-zoning, so New Hope for Durham won't be presenting at today's meeting, though they may be in attendance.)

The New Hope folks point out that other communities in the area have implemented growth-slowing or growth-halting provisions in some cases. Notably, Chatham County recently took some steps in this direction. Does the same approach make sense for Durham?

I'm not sure it does. First, let's start with some of the circumstances that led Chatham Co. to its decision, as summed up in this excellent Daily Tar Heel article:

• Chatham's population has grown by 55% since 1990, far outpacing Durham Co.'s roughly 35% growth in the same period.
• Chatham lacks a sewage/wastewater system, relying on septic tanks and, in turn, creating possible environmental problems for Jordan Lake, which of course serves as a major source of drinking water for the region.
• The county's schools are bursting at the seams and aren't ready for the influx of as many as 15,000 new houses that could be pending construction, according to one estimate.

Still, Chatham's development pause only applies to subdivisions over 25 houses, and is just a one-year pause.

Royal Ice Cream sit-in site gets another shot at historical marker

This year has marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Royal Ice Cream sit-in -- one of the first such events in the South, part of the struggle against legalized segregation that dominated this region for decades. (See previous BCR coverage of the anniversary here, and here.)

R. Kelly Bryant, a fixture in Durham's black community and a historian of Durham's civil rights movement (among many other topics), first tried to get the state to erect a roadside historic marker to the event back in 1999, but the application was rejected by the state commission that decides on whether such markers are worthy or not.

Bob Ashley nailed this issue head-on in his October 19 column in the Herald-Sun:

I don't envy the committee's task. Over the years, 1,513 markers have been erected, with 10 or 12 a year added recently. I'm sure an equal number of possibilities are out there.

But it would be reasonable to correct an apparent imbalance.   

If you search the database for the marker program, you'll find 238 markers refer to Civil War events, some arguably marginal, such as this one in Manteo:

"Confederate channel obstructions: Wood pilings placed to stop Federal fleet in Croatan Sound, still visible at low tide."   

Search for Civil Rights, and you'll find exactly two markers ([NC Office of Archives and History research supervisor Michael] Hill says a relatively new one commemorating a Martin Luther King appearance hasn't been coded with the "civil rights" keyword yet).

The good news -- as forwarded on by Eddie Davis, and as Ashley notes in his column -- is that the state committee will hear an appeal in December from Davis, Bryant and others in the Durham community over the rejection of an historic marker for the Royal Ice Cream sit-in.

Hill notes in Ashley's column that the recent attention paid to the event (by the N&O and Herald-Sun, WUNC, and other sources) serves as a "broader recommendation" to the historic relevance of the event.

Here's wishing Davis and Bryant all the best luck on the appeal. At this point in North Carolina history, it should well be the case that luck is no longer needed to begin commemorating a critical moment in our state and national history.

Greenfire pressing on with downtown renewal; will the City, County follow?

I had a great opportunity (through my involvement in one of my non-blog community activities) to get a tour of some of Greenfire Development's downtown Durham properties on Thursday. A big thank you to the folks over at Greenfire for putting on this tour, most especially Evelyn Contre with Greenfire with being a great tour leader. Thanks, too, to the Kress residents who, upon encountering our tour group in the elevator, welcomed us literally into their home on the spot to see their finished condo unit.

Getting a look at some of the properties Greenfire is currently redeveloping -- including the Kress and Baldwin, which I've seen before, and the Hill and Rogers Alley buildings, which I hadn't -- it's clear that Greenfire is working on transforming these buildings into effective mixed-use that could add vibrancy and life to the downtown district. American Tobacco has that now, and West Village should come alive when its renovations finish over the next year.

The city center is an employment and services destination in the daylight, but has until recently been fairly quiet at night. Restaurants are starting to open, and residents behind them, following the trend seen in many urban area re-developments.

I'd earlier posted some photos that a BCR reader was kind enough to share of Durham's skyline from the top of the Hill Building (former CCB tower, now with SunTrust's name at the top, in case you're wondering.) Breathtaking as the photos are, there's nothing like seeing it for yourself. The conversion of Hill to a boutique hotel/spa with a few condos really is a perfect re-use for a building that is well past any effective use as an office tower.

And seeing the development at Rogers Alley, where Greenfire continues to demonstrate a keen interest in really keeping its development "green" (including a geothermal climate control system for the building that will see Greenfire reach down into the ground a distance of five Hill Buildings), and which will bring Dos Perros together with office space and other uses.

What's it going to take to bring together the redevelopment of downtown Durham's city center? If last week's Herald-Sun article on Greenfire's plans is any indication, the big debate in the coming years will be about "public-private partnerships" to support the renewal of the city center district. Which is, of course, the area where Greenfire has concentrated most of its properties.