Wait, didn’t we just finish an election? I haven’t even removed my “I Voted Today” sticker from the bathroom mirror. (It’s my daily reminder that I still live in a democracy, supposedly.)

In the last legislative session, Republican state lawmakers bumped up the 2016 primary to March 15 from early May. This 11th-hour electoral maneuver had little to do with the local races, but more to influence the legislative and presidential contests.

So while new Durham City Council members were sworn in on Dec. 7, and we’re now less than three months from the March primary, in which we’ll elect the first round of state, judicial, presidential and local offices—Durham County Commissioners and school board.

First, the nitty gritty—we'll go more in-depth as the election nears. Early voting starts March 3.

Ten candidates are running for five commission seats. All of the incumbents are running for re-election: 

• Fred Foster Jr., seeking a second term
• Wendy Jacobs, running for her second term
• Brenda Howerton, seeking her third term
• Michael Page, running for his fourth term
• And Ellen Reckhow, seeking her eighth term

Plus there are five challengers:

• Heidi Carter
• Tara Fikes
• Elaine Hyman
• Glyndola Massenburg-Beasley
• James Hill Jr.

In the last election, the hubbub centered on—Michael Page and Brenda Howerton— who were the favored candidates of developers of the controversial 751 South project. This time, funding for Durham Public Schools is the focus. The DPS budget, the local portion of which the commissioners must approve as part of the larger county financial plan, has been eroded by cuts on the state level and the funneling of students and their state allocation to charter schools. However, DPS did not get all of the local funding it requested this year, prompting Wendy Jacobs and Ellen Reckhow to oppose the overall county budget.

It’s no wonder then why current school board chairwoman Heidi Carter is running for a seat. 

Another challenger also has educational ties: Tara Fikes, who sits the board of trustees for Durham Tech, and is on the Durham Social Services board. Fikes served as the Orange County director of the Department of Housing, Human Rights and Community Development before retiring and turning her attention back to her native Durham.

Here is a bit more background on other challengers:

Elaine Hyman retired as the Durham County's Human Resources Director in 2012, the same year she first ran for county commissioner. In the primary, Hyman placed ninth of 14 candidates.

Glyndola Massenburg-Beasley has banking experience. She is a housing counselor and former vice president for the City of Durham’s Workforce Development Board. She was the former Durham Regional Financial Center president, a credit counseling service that declared bankruptcy in 2003. 

James Hill Jr. has yet to post an election website.

Photo courtesy Creative Commons

If you’re headed up to Washington, D.C. for holidays—or to Washington State, Oregon, Alaska or Colorado, all places where recreational use of marijuana is legal—you might feel like a kid in a candy store.

But decriminalization has greater benefits than simply giving you the right to light a joint with impunity. Back home in Durham, where pot is very much illegal, the consequences for African-Americans arrested with even small amounts are much more dire: Those arrests can disqualify them for public housing and federal financial aid for college. They may sit in jail, unable to post bond, and lose their jobs and homes. Without income, they may not be able to support their families. 

To make matters worse, defendants faced with these low-level charges don’t qualify for a public defender. So they either represent themselves—not a good idea—or have to pay for a lawyer, which many if not most, could not afford.

Even though whites and African-Americans smoke pot at roughly the same rate, blacks are the primary victims of these laws. This is not anecdotal. Self-Help Credit Union analyzed data on marijuana arrests by Durham Police, which shows enormous racial disparity in the rates of arrest.  Download Self-Help mj analysis

Eighty percent of people arrested on misdemeanor marijuana charges are black, according to Self-Help’s analysis. African-American men under age 25 are particularly penalized; they represent 46 percent of misdemeanor charges.

From January 2013 to June 2014, DPD analysis of 739 misdemeanor marijuana charges, 86 percent of them were issued to African Americans men. More than half of the charges were assessed to people younger than 25.

I searched the Durham County jail’s inmate database and found what appears to be Exhibit A:

Andre David Bond, 24, has been in jail most of December on five misdemeanor charges: failure to appear on possession of up to a half-ounce of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, failure to appear on Schedule VI controlled substance (this is often the same as pot, and a redundant charge), misdemeanor probation violation and failure to appear on misdemeanor driving with a license revoked—although not he was not impaired. His bond is $1,000, a small amount, as bonds go.

Yet, there Andre David Bond has sat for 10 days, essentially erased from society. Now Bond does have a record—a 2014 charge for felony identity theft, felony marijuana possession with intent to sell, although it’s unclear what the amount was, and misdemeanor resisting arrest, also a dubious charge. Nonetheless, nonviolent pot arrests are what got Bond in trouble.

The majority of these charges stem from vehicle stops and searches in predominantly African-American neighborhoods, including Census tract 10.01, the most impoverished area of the city. “A resident of this community is over three times more likely than someone elsewhere in Durham to be charged with a low-level marijuana misdemeanor.” This “overpolicing” is what social justice advocates such as Nia Wilson of SpiritHouse meant at last week’s community forum on the police chief search. 

Law enforcement’s attention seems misplaced. While black men (and some women) are going to jail for less than an ounce of pot, the murder rate continues to escalate—two more in the last week. This doesn’t indicate causation or correlation, only that there must be better things for police to do.

One option is to issue a citation rather than an arrest. That still entails a fine but it does not saddle someone with an arrest record. Most recently, according to Governing magazine, Delaware passed legislation that decriminalizes the private use of up to an ounce of marijuana, replacing penalties with a civil fine. 

In North Carolina, “many officers prefer to issue citations for these offenses rather than making arrests,” writes Jeff Welty of the University of North Carolina School of Government. “These offenses are incredibly common, with over 35,000 charges last year for possession half an ounce of marijuana or less and over 2,000 for possession of more than half an ounce but not more than 1.5 ounces.”

However, North Carolina lawmakers, in their infinite wisdom, rewrote legislation this year that muddies the waters. A new law requires fingerprinting and arrests for certain misdemeanor drug offenders. Whether that also applies to people holding a small amount of pot is open to interpretation. In one reading, officers would have to arrest and fingerprint, rather than cite or summon every person charged with misdemeanor possession. Another reading, according to the School of Government, would require an officer to fingerprint a suspect, but not to arrest him or her.

Self-Help recommends that DPD treat misdemeanor charges with a citation, like a speeding ticket. DPD already has this discretion—Chief Jose Lopez has stated that marijuana arrests are not a priority—but we don’t know who gets a citation and who is arrested. 

Self-Help also suggests that DPD realign its annual budget away from “enforcement activities that have the effect of increasing misdemeanor marijuana charges and instead to community policing activities and more serious infractions.” 

Under the direction of Senior District Court Judge Marcia Morey, there is now a diversion program for 16- and 17-year olds charged with non-traffic misdemeanors including possession of small amounts of pot. In October, that program was expanded to adults.

In 2016, Self-Help is asking for detailed data on that program and, under new DPD leadership, the same level of transparency on misdemeanor pot arrests.

The Durham Police Department published its draft policy for officer body cameras this week, and while it addresses several issues regarding police and citizen interactions, questions remain about access, transparency and effectiveness. Download Durham Police Department - General Order 4083 - Body Ca

Body cameras are the method du jour of trying to keep police honest and accountable in their interactions with citizens, particularly people of color. But technology alone cannot accomplish this—these are not panopticons with a 360-degree view of a situation. Only with a change in the culture of policing can reform happen. (File under: Durham’s to-be-named new police chief.)

But body cameras at least provide additional documentation as to what happened: It may have been useful, for example, in the case of 21-year-old Lavonte Biggs, whom Durham police shot and killed after a half-hour standoff in September. Officers said Biggs was suicidal and refused to drop his weapon, a gun. 

It may have clarified matters in the 2013 police shooting death of Jose Ocampo, who was allegedly wielding a knife.

Eventually, all DPD officers would be equipped with the cameras, but initially, they will be outfitted on  Uniform Patrol and High Enforcement Abatement Team (H.E.A.T.) officers. These are the officers that most commonly engage with citizens.

Other points in the draft policy include:

• Officers will wear the body cameras for their entire work shift and during secondary employment/off-duty jobs.
• Officers will be required to begin recording immediately upon being dispatched to a call for service.
• Once placed in record mode policy requires that cameras will remain on until the initial incident that required activation has stabilized or concluded and the primary officer has left the scene. (Parameters for deactivation of cameras and guidelines for prohibited use are outlined in the policy.)
• Camera footage will be stored for at least 180 days unless it involves DWIs, misdemeanor or felony cases, accidents involving City of Durham vehicles or administrative investigations. In felony cases, the footage will be stored for 20 years.
• Video footage captured by the cameras are records of a criminal investigation, just like the current in-car camera footage. As such, they are not public records per North Carolina General Statute §132-1.4.

Now for some questions:

It is state law that documentation related to an ongoing criminal investigation is not public record. That applies to body camera footage as well. But after that investigation is closed, the footage, like other documents, should be publicly available. At minimum, a victim’s next-of-kin should be allowed to see the footage even before it becomes public. And it should become public.

While Durham’s draft policy allows the prosecution to view the footage, it does not specifically say that defense attorneys and defendants would be permitted to. That seems obvious.

Another important piece of housekeeping is requiring the police department to issue quarterly reports on any internal investigations or disciplinary actions regarding officers’ use of the cameras. The public needs to know if the police are obeying departmental policy. 

And now we know that doesn’t always happen. The online site Fusion analyzed police documents from five cities and found officers in Albuquerque, for example, did not turn on their cameras as required 60 times in 2013. 

In New Orleans, The Nation reported, officers failed to turn on their cameras in 59 percent of use-of-force incidents between April and June 2014.

So let’s say an officer follows procedure and does turn on his or her camera. When should an officer be allowed to view his or her own footage? Durham’s draft policy states that officers can do so “for law enforcement purposes only.” (Would they do it for fun? Let’s hope not.) 

However, the policy does not address when the officers can view that footage and who else should be in the room when it happens. If officers under investigation see the footage before being interviewed, then they can change their story based on what’s shown.

In Baltimore, officers involved in use-of-force incidents, in-custody deaths, or who are the subject of criminal investigations can view their own footage even before being interviewed “if they have been told by prosecutors that they will not face charges, or if they are administratively compelled by the department to provide a statement,” according to The Baltimore Sun.

The policy also permits officers who are being investigated administratively to view footage before submitting reports or being interviewed by department investigators.

The Leadership Conference, a coalition of civil rights groups, has rolled out basic principles of body cameras, including restrictions on when an officer could view his or her own footage: never before filing a report.

DPD is accepting public comment on the policy through Thursday, Jan. 14.

Online

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 919-560-4322, Ext. 29198

Like people, some houses wear their age well. Although they require regular maintenance, the homes are nonetheless declared by those who have poked and prodded them and shone flashlights in their nether parts, to “have good bones.”

But the bones of the century-old home at 204 E. Trinity Ave., are bad, bowed, broken. 

Photo courtesy Durham County Tax Assessor

This how we got here: The 1,100-square-foot house at the corner of Roxboro Street, once graced with gables, slender columns and gingerbread detailing, embodies the classic tension between the idealism that nearly every historic home can be saved and the reality that some simply cannot.

Built in 1915, the Trinity Avenue house was neglected for at nearly 20 years of its life. As a result its front porch sags. Its back end must be propped up to remain upright. The foundation teeters. A fire burned through the roof, as if its head had been trepanned.

Despite these drawbacks, developer Stuart Cullinan had planned to renovate the home, which one of his companies purchased for $75,000 from Durham-based Community Reinvestment Partners in September.

Then the structural engineers investigated. They pronounced the house D.O.A. The front wall, perhaps, they told him, could be saved. In late November, Cullinan applied for, and received from the city, a demolition permit.

“The house is shot,” says Cullinan, president of Five Horizons Development in Raleigh. He also is the head of Tephra, LLC, the company that bought the house. “There is so little to be saved here.”

It is appropriate that the company is named Tephra, defined as “rock fragments and particles ejected by a volcanic eruption,” because that’s what Old North Durham residents did with their words when they heard that a demolition crew had arrived earlier this week.

Cullinan, as well as several Durham City Council members, were bombarded by emails and phone calls from citizens who wanted to forestall the demolition. Perhaps its condition is not as dire as it seems, they said. Perhaps the house could be moved to where it could be tended to.

“I’ve moved houses, but this one would pancake on itself,” Cullinan says. “I’m unsure if it would survive a move.”

Peter Skillern, executive director of Community Reinvestment Partners, says his nonprofit had also wanted to renovate the house. Among its many social justice projects, CRP works to increase the number and quality of affordable homes in the neighborhood of Geer and Roxboro streets. In 2011, CRP purchased three homes—202 E. Trinity, 204 E. Trinity and 1224 N. Roxboro— from BB&T Bank that had been in foreclosure.

“They were blighted,” Skillern says. “They had been used as the neighborhood bathroom.”

In addition because the three houses sat on the same lot, they did not conform to current zoning regulations. The homes couldn’t be renovated, financed or even rebuilt. CRP received a variance from the city that gave it more flexibility in rehabbing the houses.

With variance in hand, CRP demolish the abandoned, ramshackle home at 202 E. Trinity, which, Skillern says, “sat on the sidewalk.” It was so close to the road a driver had once plowed a car through the living room.

CRP sold both 204 E. Trinity and 1224 N. Roxboro St. to the Latino Community Credit Union, which turned the latter into affordable housing.

Then CRP eventually bought 204 E. Trinity back from the credit union, with hopes of renovating the house. But because of CRP’s numerous projects, that plan was delayed. Meanwhile, Cullinan offered to buy 204 and renovate it.

And then reality set in.

“I know I look like the bad guy,” he says, adding there was no other option.

Nonetheless, he agreed to delay the demolition to allow the Reuse Warehouse to salvage as much as it can, some wood flooring, part of a wall.

Cullinan says his company will build a new house, which will be for sale, that will “be as close of a match” as possible to the original architectural style that will better blend with the neighborhood.

“This is a natural tension about what’s important,” Skillern says. “What’s the best outcome?”

The Latino Credit Union wants affordable home ownership. Cullinan wants to turn a profit. And the historic preservation community wants to save the home, or at least the siding. Skillern wants to ensure the house is not substandard.

“It’s a classic tension in historic preservation,” he says. “Divestment happens as a result of poverty. Then when reinvestment happens neighborhoods can lose their character. It represents the shifting dynamics of the city.”

Enjoy that new sunroom. It may have added value to your home, and thus raised your property taxes, especially if your neighborhood is in demand—Cleveland-Holloway, Old North Durham, almost anywhere in the central city. The county tax office mailed the 2016  reappraisals on Dec. 8, so you probably know by now whether you're planning to appeal the valuation.

However, the county is still owed at least $355,000 in overdue taxes on nearly 850 properties. According to tax records more than 10 percent of all delinquencies each owe at least $1,000, some as long as seven years overdue.

Now several of these overdue payments belong to homeowners who’ve fallen behind. There’s no joy in outing people who may have racked up medical bills, lost their job or have befallen other unfortunate circumstances. When it comes to paying for medicine or taxes, I vote medicine.

Other properties are ensnared in estate/heir proceedings, which can take years to untangle.

But if a company or individual hasn’t paid taxes for five years on a vacant lot, well, then there’s a problem.

But if a out-of-town company or individual hasn’t paid taxes on a house or land, that’s also a problem. Those interests don’t have to live with the consequences of their delinquency: less money in county coffers, for example. And if the house or apartment building is a rental, then it’s unlikely that a tax loafer is investing in the upkeep of the property.

You can download the document we created from the tax records database showing the properties that have racked up the biggest bills, the address, the number of years behind and the property owner's city. (Cary, can't you be a tax delinquent in your own county?)

The top 5 delinquents are

• Chin Page Associates, $4,400+
• RCP Investments (company is dissolved; good luck collecting): $4,300+
• Jerome Ramsey: $4,100 on three properties in the same block of East Cornwallis Road
• Covenant of Holy Grace Divine Church, $3,478+ (Churches don't have to pay property taxes on a place of worship, but they do if they own a building that is used for another purpose.)
• Roberts Construction, $3,476 on a slew of vacant lots, some of which are six years' in arrears

Download Tax delinquencies

Here are some internal rules, admittedly subjective, to whom we listed:

1) No individual homeowners if the only overdue tax was on their primary place of residence, for the reasons stated above.

2) If an individual homeowner or estate/heirs/trust is listed, it's because that person/entity owns several properties.

3) The total amount owed had to exceed $1,000.

We used BatchGeo to import an Excel document of the addresses to indicate areas that could be the most affected. That cluster in northeast Durham off I-85 represents some of the unfinished subdivisions that presumably went bust in the Great Recession.

View Durham property tax delinquencies in a full screen map

Note: I wrote a news story, rather than commentary such as this, that will appear Wednesday in The Durham News. It's online today.

On Thursday night, as a white person in a sea of white people, I thought a lot about the Klan.

I attended the launch of the Triangle chapter of SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) at the Vault, on Broad Street. Before I get into the dim state of race relations in the U.S., it's important to note that this was a positive, proactive, energetic group of 300 people prepared to examine their own white privilege, gently educate others about theirs (what SURJ terms "calling in" rather than "calling out") and work with people of color for a just society. I left feeling inspired.

I grew up in Indiana, for decades, a Klan stronghold—its members ran state government in the 1920s. As a child in the 1970s and 1980s, it was not uncommon for me to hear the "N word," not at home, where it was forbidden, but in public and at school. Today, if you go to the right bars in the right small towns, you'll still hear it. And when I do, I'm always unsure of how to act.

Even though I feel livid and outraged— and I want to (try to) calmly explain why not just the word but the attitudes that inform it, are yes, injust and immoral — I don't. Because a lot of the same people who use the N word carry guns. Or, after a few drinks, would not be afraid to punch me in the face. This dilemma would fall under another of SURJ's values: taking risks.

This, for me, is the importance of SURJ: As a well-intentioned white liberal, how do I acknowledge my own privilege and use it for good? How do I confront the biases of others without coming off as sanctimonious or shrill? When should I put myself in harm's way for the greater good, and when is it more prudent to back away? More important, how do I confront my own biases, and overcome them? How do I work for a more racially and economically just society? When should I lead? When should I step back an let others do so? 

SURJ  is a national organization with more than 100 chapters and affiliate groups, including the new one in the Triangle. The goal is not only for whites to unite with African-Americans for social justice, but, as organizer Jenn Frye explained, “to educate ourselves about our role in white supremacy, to challenge our white supremacy internally.”

City of Durham staff updated downtown residents and business stakeholders last night on the ongoing replacement of water mains in the city center and nearby downtown areas.

It's been a necessary but controversial project, one that's brought a new wave to business owners inside the loop -- many of whom opened shop after memories of the downtown streetscape rebuild had faded. As Virginia Bridges noted in The Durham News a few weeks ago, several businesses complained to City Council about the level of noise from jackhammers and equipment, blocked streets, impact on peak hours, and the occasional instance of roads closed without work going on.

City water management staffer Bryant Green updated downtown's Partners Against Crime - District 5 (PAC5) group last night on a project he noted was now 80% complete, but which would continue to impact downtown off and on until summer 2016.

Greene sympathized with the concerns businesses and residents had raised, and shared both some of the rationale for project decisions along with steps the City was taking to minimize impact where possible. Still, in replacing infrastructure that was more than a century old, surprises abound and some disruption is inevitable, according to Greene.

"Unfortunately, with a lot of these [closure] decisions we can't pick... something that adversely impacts only a small number of people," Greene said.

At tomorrow's City Council work session, Karen Lado from Enterprise Community Partners will share a housing profile report developed as part of her company's contracted work to help Durham with its strategy on affordable housing.

This first step in Enterprise's work gives intriguing details and data about the state of Durham's demographics -- and demographic change -- along with the nature of Durham's affordable housing stock.

We'll summarize some of its key findings here, though I'd very much encourage readers to dive through themselves, as it's a fascinating read. (The document is available on the City of Durham's web site.)

A note of caution: this is my first-pass interpretation based on what's in the report, and doesn't benefit from the consultant's presentation, which will take place at work session tomorrow. (The errors of the interpretation lie with me, et cetera.) With that said, the report raises some intriguing findings about the need for and supply of affordable housing.

Population Change in Durham

Between 2000 and 2013, the study period in the report, the City's population grew by 26%, outpacing both the overall County growth rate (19%) and the state's (20%). This jives both with recent findings that Durham is one of the fastest-growing US cities, and that most of the community's growth is happening in the urbanized, incorporated city limits.

Of the nearly 75,000 households in the City in 2000, the data suggest 52.2% of them had incomes greater than 80% of the area median income (AMI), the threshold for determining whether a household is low-income or not. By 2013, that number rises to 57.7%, with households in this group seeing the greatest 2000-2013 change (46%).

Durham also saw a rise in households with very low incomes (30-50% of AMI), at 39% growth. The number of extremely low income households shrunk by 2%, while low income households (50-80% of AMI) grew 18%.

I spent last night researching all of the people murdered in Durham this year: rivals killing rivals, robbers killing store clerks, boyfriends killing girlfriends, boyfriends killing boyfriends, wives killing husbands, daughters killing mothers, mothers killing daughters, grandsons killing grandfathers, and others whose relationships with their perpetrators are unclear.

There are 34 of them, plus three people killed in acts determined to be self-defense, and a suicidal man who died in an officer-involved shooting.

This is the situation that the next police chief will have to grapple with. When Police Chief Jose Lopez, whose retirement was forced, leaves his post on Dec. 31, this will still be a city where violent crime is up and trust in the police is down, way down, and in many communities of color, non-existent. It will be tough to find the right person willing and able to mend these relationships not only with minorities, but also within the department and the entire city. 

About 25 people, most of them African-American, attended community feedback session last week sponsored by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The purpose of the session was to gather information in preparation for two more community meetings about the police chief search:                                                                  

• Monday, Dec. 14 at 6 p.m. at the Holton Career and Resource Center, 401 N. Driver St.
• A second one, conducted in Spanish, will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 15, at El Centro Hispano, 600 E. Main St.

You can also comment online, via Developmental Associates, the Durham company leading the candidate search. (Former County Manager Mike Ruffin is on DA's staff; the head is a Duke University graduate.)

At the feedback session, a member of the FADE Coalition, a citizens’ group instrumental in exposing Durham police abuses and misconduct, noted the “systematic and institutional problems” within DPD. “That’s why we didn’t call for Lopez to be fired,” he said. “Because he will be replaced by another Lopez.”

I've been trying to make sense of this odd story emerging about Cocoa Cinnamon's recent, and quickly regretted, partnership with the Durham Police Department to reward folks obeying crosswalk rules.

As part of the operation, bike officers gave a coupon for a free coffee from the popular Durham business for those it spotted obeying the law -- a positive reward, instead of the usual warning or citation.

The response was... swift. On Instagram, for instance, many of the comments to Cocoa Cinnamon's partnership announcement were apoplectic.

"This post is problematic," said one. "Disturbing, insensitive, and harmful," said another. "The police are terrifying," said a third. "Get woke. This is supremacy," said a fourth.

Which led to a Herald-Sun article capturing the backpedaling of Cocoa Cinnamon in the wake of the criticism, and to this post from a Cocoa Cinnamon barista/brand-new Clarion Content editor.

And, most unfortunately, a tweet from an Indy Week writer, which manages to use a popular, problematic porcine pejorative in referring to Durham's police, a line I'm surprised to see crossed.

So let me be direct. It really seems worth stepping back a bit from the rhetorical extreme to put this campaign in context.

The Durham community has been extraordinarily vocal, and effective, in expressing its disdain for the D.P.D.'s leadership and behavior in recent cases -- disdain that's driven the City to turn out its police chief, and which is driving moves towards reform in drug enforcement prioritization and conditions for those incarcerated.

And more voices than ever have been calling for genuine community policing and engagement, criticizing outgoing Chief Jose Lopez for the department's failures on this front.

All of which makes the seeming notion that there can be, should be, no collaboration with police -- when the police are doing exactly what the community seems to be asking for -- naive at best, antisocial at its worst imagined extreme.