Feedback sessions wrap up

Chapel Hill Town Manager Roger Stancil has taken an unusual oath.

As he examines what the town is doing well and what it can do better, Stancil said he has taken the doctors' Hippocratic Oath of "Do no harm."

"We've worked really hard to respect the past and to build on that past to make an even better Chapel Hill," he said.

Stancil addressed residents and town staff Tuesday to summarize community input he gathered from eight "listening sessions" he held beginning in February.

Stancil said the listening sessions gave him a chance to better get to know the town and what issues concern residents.

Stancil just began his second year as town manager after replacing longtime Town Manager Cal Horton in September 2006.

On Tuesday, he reassured residents that the listening sessions would not be the last time they could come to him with concerns.

Listening sessions were held with various community groups, including clergy, the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership, the NAACP, small-business owners, developers, neighborhood activists and affordable-housing organizations.

The variety of perspectives Stancil sought out is reflective of how he tries to get the town departments to work together, police Capt. Chris Blue said.

"The manager very much believes in a team approach to problem solving," he said. Blue said solutions to public safety problems identified in the report will come from outside groups, as well as the police department.

Stancil summarized the input he received from each of those sessions and identified both areas where the town is doing well and opportunities for improvement. He also summarized the advice he was given as a new manager.

Based on the response from the listening sessions, Stancil said that the basic services provided by the town were excellent and that town staff were accessible and responsive to resident requests.

But the town's development process received negative feedback from residents who felt the approval process could be dealt with more efficiently.

"Our development process is extremely slow and costly," Stancil said, adding that although the end result is usually well-received, the process could stand to be streamlined. He's assigned that task to Dwight Bassett, the town's new economic development officer, whom Stancil hired to coordinate growth projects.

Creating Bassett's position was one of the ways Stancil said he and the Chapel Hill Town Council have responded to the concerns raised in the listening sessions.

Diana Steele, a resident who lives on Mason Farm Road, attended Stancil's summary Tuesday and the listening session specifically related to neighborhood activists. She is a member of Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth and said Stancil seemed to understand the concerns the activists raised. She also said she thought their goals were similar.

"We've been trying to act as a nexus for disseminating information about the political process to as many people as possible, and I think he's doing the same thing," she said.

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