Smoking, Rogers Road and trash were the topics of discussion in a joint meeting between the Chapel Hill Town Council and the Orange County Board of Commissioners Thursday night.
The joint meeting did not result in any votes and consisted mainly of updates on ongoing projects in the town and county.
Colleen Bridger, Orange County health director, gave an update on the implementation of the Smoke Free Public Places Rule. The rule is in the soft implementation stage, in which enforcement is limited. Full implementation will begin July 1.
Bridger said the rule will be enforced mostly through education and community involvement — by residents holding each other accountable.
“We don’t anticipate this to be heavily burdensome for law enforcement,” Bridger said.
Chapel Hill Town Council member Lee Storrow agreed.
“I think broadly this is about education and setting cultural norms,” Storrow said.
Local officials also discussed the results of the first meeting of the renewed Rogers Road Task Force on Wednesday.
County Commissioner Penny Rich, a member of the task force, said the small area plan for providing sewage and water service to the neighborhood has grown to encompass a much larger area than she expected.
“Before we were looking at just the historic area. Now the conversation has gone to providing water and sewer for an entire district,” Rich said.
Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said members of the task force and local officials need to consider strategies for annexing Rogers Road in the future and think about whether the efforts to urbanize the area are wise.
“We shouldn’t create urbanized areas outside our city limits. We shouldn’t plan for that,” Kleinschmidt said.
Commissioners and council members also discussed the possibility of privatizing curbside solid waste and recycling services in the unincorporated areas of Orange County, a plan that was proposed at the Board of Commissioners meeting on March 7.
The Orange County Solid Waste Management Department is recognized as the best in the state for waste reduction.
Ward said he thinks quality of service and rate of recycling will suffer if recycling is privatized.
On April 9, the Board of Commissioners will discuss options for recycling and further efforts to reach the county’s 61 percent waste reduction goal.
Quotable:
“If you pass a law with the assumption that the police will ignore enforcement of it, what kind of legal structure is that?” said Council member Matt Czajkowski in regard to the Smoke Free Public Places Rule.
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