Chapel Hill’s Good Neighbor Plan advisory committee increases membership to add transparency

Members of the Good Neighbor Plan Advisory Committee have been told transparency comes with numbers – so they added three new members at a Monday night meeting.

The group, which previously had 19 members and a facilitator, was formed by the Inter-Faith Council to address resident concerns about the new homeless shelter to be built on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

It has been criticized by town residents, led by Mark Peters, spokesman of abettersite.org, for not representing all community interests.

The Chapel Hill Town Council recommended the committee increase it size to ensure transparency, so new members were chosen from a pool of five applicants.

Jason Kirk, a Northwood resident, and Kathy Murray and Tina Coyne Smith from Parkside were added to the committee.

The committee resolved to offer a fourth seat to Peters.

Peters had already declined the position in July because the IFC would not allow electronic recordings of its meetings.

“We are very sensitive to our participation and our intentions being co-opted and misrepresented,” Peters wrote in a July email to Chris Moran, executive director of the IFC.

Moran said the IFC would select another applicant to add to the committee if Peters declines the seat again.

“It’s better to be a part of something and contribute to it, than to be outside of the process,” Moran said. “You never know how people are going to weigh in on a particular issue until it’s in front of them.”

The committee also talked about the importance of representing all affected neighborhoods.

The committee has tried to select applicants from communities near the new site, though it has been limited by a lack of applicants from some areas.

Allan Rosen, project manager for IFC, said he was pleased with the group’s progress.

“I think it will add voices of more people who live in the neighborhoods,” Rosen said. “It’s the expectation of some on the committee that it will be a broader representation.”

Moran said he hoped to eventually form a permanent committee of stakeholders to encourage communication between the IFC and nearby neighborhoods.

Patrice Powell, a resident of Chapel Hill, criticized the board for not discussing the actual plan at the meeting.

But some committee members, including Steve Kirschner, defended the committee’s long debates, citing the need for specific proceedings in order to ensure the lifespan of the committee after the Good Neighbor Plan is finalized.

“Once we get the process figured out, we can get into the meat of the plan,” Kirschner said.

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