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(10/12/07 4:00am)
Board of Aldermen candidate Katrina Ryan said her position as a Carrboro business owner makes her a good choice for the board charged with guiding the town's economic development.
This campaign is the second for the owner of the future Franklin Street pastry shop Sugarland. She was the first runner-up in the 2005 alderman elections.
"I'm a distinctly different voice," Ryan said. "If you're talking about attracting businesses, having somebody who knows business is something you need to have."
She said she would help make ordinances to encourage businesses to locate in Carrboro.
"While we don't need endless strip malls, we need to get real, actual commercial zoning on the ground," said Ryan, the pastry chef at the La Residence restaurant.
She said she would not push for grocery stores, but for banks and dry cleaners, which she said Carrboro lacks.
But she also said she would pay attention to residential growth.
She said developers should be required to build houses affordable for a broad range of incomes.
Ryan wants to make the board more efficient by moving agenda items along more quickly and making motions to end discussions earlier.
Terri Buckner is helping Ryan with her campaign. Buckner said she did not support Ryan in 2005 but likes how Ryan has changed since then.
"Katrina has a different view of the world," Buckner said. "She has invested a lot of time challenging the status quo."
Buckner, who supported 2005 incumbent candidate Alex Zaffron, said she disagreed with Ryan's negative view of the town and with Ryan's anger about the annexation of six neighborhoods north of Homestead Road that year.
"She has learned a lot," Buckner said.
This year, Ryan said she would also help unify the town.
"The election is about all rowing in the same direction," she said.
But Ryan went in many different directions on her way to Carrboro.
She was born in western Texas and lived in Chicago, New Orleans, France, Australia and Hong Kong working for a software company before moving here in 2001.
Her penchant for baking came while she was in France. She entered a cooking school in Bourgogne to kill time while her friends native to the country were studying for college entrance exams.
She started baking professionally in 2005 with a catering company and has spent one year at La Residence.
Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(10/11/07 4:00am)
A campaign finance filing deadline with the Orange County Board of Elections has highlighted a difference of opinion about what role money should play in Carrboro elections.
Board of Aldermen candidate Lydia Lavelle joined eight Chapel Hill candidates in filing campaign contribution and expense reports with the election board last week.
Lavelle was the only Carrboro candidate required by law to file because she was the only one to raise more than $3,000. She received $3,899.64 since July 14, with a maximum donation of $100.
"When you begin, you don't know how much you will raise," Lavelle said. "I made an announcement that I was going to file no matter what."
The other candidates signed pledges when declaring candidacy not to raise more than the $3,000 threshold, Board of Elections Director Barry Garner said.
He said that historically most Carrboro candidates pledge.
Of the contributions for which Lavelle reported donor names, $900 came from residents of Chapel Hill or Carrboro. Much of the rest came from family in Ohio. Lavelle only reported names with about half her funds; the rest were listed by date.
"You initially solicit from family, friends and people you've known for a long time," Lavelle said.
She said that since filing, almost all she's received has been local.
Her expenditure reports and list of contributors is available at www.co.orange.nc.us/elect/documents/LavelleCampaign.pdf.
Incumbent candidate Dan Coleman published his list of contributors on his Web site, alderdan.wordpress.com, though he did not file with the election board.
Coleman raised about $2,500 from 46 individuals, with contributions from 25 cents to $100.
"It's just part of my political philosophy that I believe in transparency," Coleman said. "What contributions they accept says a lot about the candidate."
But other candidates said such measures were unnecessary.
Mayoral candidate Chuck Morton said he has only spent $95.30.
"I made a decision at the beginning to do my damndest to take the money out of it," he said. "I keep a pocket full of cards and a pocket full of stickers, and that's the bulk of my campaign."
Alderman candidates Sharon Cook and Katrina Ryan said they each pledged to spend only $2,000, and were thus exempt from filing.
Others exempt were Mark Chilton and Brian Voyce in the mayoral election and Frank Abernethy and Joal Hall Broun in the alderman race.
"There's never been a problem with somebody riding into Carrboro and buying an election," Ryan said.
Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(10/10/07 4:00am)
Sharon Cook said she would use her roots in the town to best serve on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen.
"As a resident of this area for more than a decade, I've been active in the community in so many different ways," she said. "I'm in touch."
Cook, the mother of a college freshman, a high school junior and an eighth-grader, said her biggest accomplishment was in improving pedestrian safety by getting a sidewalk constructed near Chapel Hill High School.
She has been most vocal in decrying the plans for a waste-transfer site off Rogers Road and in supporting preservation in the Bolin Creek Watershed area.
And if elected, she said she will work on tweaking the town's development plan.
"I'm not against development, but it needs to be consistent," Cook said. "We have a window of opportunity now to do it right."
She said the town needs to focus more on commercial development than on residential, which she said would crowd schools and place more of the tax burden on homeowners.
"We need to get it back in balance," she said. "We tax people out of Carrboro."
Cook, who lives in the annexed region in northern Carrboro, also said she would bring an added concern for those who live there. That includes commercial development.
"I could not send my kids to get milk and bread until my daughter could drive," Cook said.
She also hopes to set up a convenient voting site in the area. Currently, she said, it is a 12-mile trip to vote.
"Just because - out of sight, out of mind," she said.
Carrboro resident Terri Buckner is helping with Cook's campaign. The two met while exercising around Bolin Creek.
"I find her to be very intellectual, very ethical and very honest," Buckner said of Cook. "Those are the qualities I'm looking for in a candidate."
Before moving to Carrboro, Cook worked in public relations for a U.S. Navy public works center, putting together a newsletter regarding municipal services for the people who lived there.
"I'm used to covering a broad range of issues," she said. "I'm used to asking hard questions, and I'm used to researching."
Since living here, Cook said she has served on several planning boards and committees regarding development and local schools.
And she said her work rivals or exceeds that of her opponents.
"It's not about sitting on committees," she said. "It's about what you have accomplished."
Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(09/26/07 4:00am)
A proposed Harris Teeter shopping center received conditional approval from the Carrboro Board of Aldermen on Tuesday, leaving angered residents still unsatisfied and the future of the project uncertain.
About a dozen emotional residents who live in an adjacent neighborhood expressed their unhappiness with the potential impact of shopper traffic, filling Town Hall at the second public hearing on the topic.
"This is not the project that people want here," resident Robert Dow said. "We want something that's better, something that's more Carrboro."
But after more than two hours of comment and debate, the board decided to allow the project under revised guidelines.
The main revision is that the entrance to the shopping center from Barnes Street - a residential road - be for emergency access only instead of the original unblocked public drive.
Switching that designation was sufficient for the board to approve the measure. Both Aldermen Dan Coleman and Jacquie Gist, who had said they would vote against the development as it was, ended up voting for it.
The application passed 6-to-1, with Alderman Joal Hall Broun submitting the dissenting vote.
"We have four grocery stores," she said. "I'm looking for something different for that piece of property."
But the amended conditions still might be unacceptable to the developer.
"Two full-service intersections are desirable. Anything less than that is less desirable," said Bruce Ballantine, who represented developer Northwest Property Group. "Whether the main tenant would change their opinion . we don't know that tonight."
The developer has until Monday to make a decision according to his contract with Harris Teeter.
The shopping center would be located at 405 Jones Ferry Road, adjoining the entrance to the Lincoln Park neighborhood and also bordered by the University Lake apartments to the south and the Abbey Court Condominiums to the west.
It would contain a Harris Teeter along with 11 smaller shops.
The main concerns were that shopper traffic would make the area unsafe for children and pedestrians unless a traffic light were installed at Jones Ferry Road and Barnes Street and sidewalks along Barnes.
"Please save us from the traffic and the impact that traffic will have on Barnes Street," Chapel Hill-Carrboro City school board member Elizabeth Carter said. "The intersection is unsafe."
But many in attendance said that their concerns were larger than this individual project, some implying that the town's perceived lack of attention to the majority-black area has racial undertones.
"We really need to be considered more," resident Lindsay Griffin said. "We're sort of a forgotten area of town."
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(09/25/07 4:00am)
The former Chapel Hill attorney who spent 14 months on the run made his first appearance in Orange County District Court on Monday after being extradited to North Carolina from Arizona.
John Gregory McCormick, 59, was presented with the five embezzlement felony charges he faces, all stemming from alleged misuse of his clients' funds, Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said.
McCormick is accused of embezzling more than $800,000 from national home builder D.R. Horton.
Following an international search, McCormick was arrested Aug. 31 after being found in a Phoenix city park, gaunt, sunken-eyed and with 6 cents on his person. He was booked on the charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
At the brief appearance in court, the 20-year counsel for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district also waived his right to a court-appointed lawyer, naming Bill Cotter of Durham and Bill Massengale and Marilyn Ozer of Chapel Hill as his attorneys.
"He's had a rough last few months," Massengale said. "He's got family and friends that care for him."
McCormick's next court appearance will be Oct. 30.
He is being held on a $803,168 cash bond to represent the amount of money he is accused of stealing, Woodall said.
The search began after McCormick fled through a back door from a representative of the home builder, who had come to speak about the $800,000 in closing fees the company said McCormick owed.
McCormick's contract with the school district was canceled, and the Orange County district attorney's office became involved. He did not have access to school funds.
Woodall requested the help of the State Bureau of Investigation in July 2006 and later the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The state bar association took McCormick's law license in March after ruling that he had "fraudulently, willfully and knowingly" used clients' funds for his own benefit without permission.
Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(09/24/07 4:00am)
BENSON - If hundreds of mules walking through the middle of town is nothing new, you might be from Benson.
The Johnston County town's Main Street was blocked off once again this weekend for Mule Days, the 58th annual celebration of the donkey-horse hybrid.
About 60,000 people from across the state descended on the small town in Johnston County, located about 55 miles southeast of Chapel Hill.
"We're all about the mules," said Lloyd Graves, a Kernersville hay farmer whose mule, Beil, has been the festival's grand champion four times.
The main event was Saturday's Mule Parade, a three-hour spectacle featuring cheerleader-toting pickup trucks, old-timey tractors and, of course, mules galore.
Strollers lined the street for more than a mile along the parade route, and trucks stood nose-to-tail on each cross street. Tailgates popped for an elevated view.
The parade also contained a horde of lawn tractor riders doing doughnuts and The One-Armed Bandit, a whip-cracking horseman atop a trailer who had to duck to avoid a stoplight as he rolled through town.
"We figured it would be something cool for our kids to check out," Wake Forest resident Sam Powers said. "I came because I thought I'd enjoy it, too."
After the parade, the mule competitions - in pulling, speed and show - are the marquee events.
And don't tell the owners that their mules are stubborn.
Mules, the 1,300-pound sterile offspring of horse mothers and donkey fathers, are much smarter than either of their parents, Graves said.
While a horse might run into dangerous terrain and fall, Graves said, a mule is much smoother and sure-footed. Mules also can carry 20 percent of their weight, compared to a horse's 10 percent capacity.
Mule Days, always held on the fourth weekend in September, began in 1950 as a way for farmers to spend their money after they had finished harvesting their crops, said Danny Mack Holland, a Mule Days volunteer of more than 40 years.
"You just came and stayed all day long," said Holland, one of about 75 volunteer workers, who receive a free barbecue dinner as compensation for their work.
The first Mule Days featured a few hundred competitors in mule pulling, tobacco spitting and largest family contests.
It now includes several rodeos, an arts and crafts exhibition, street dance and live bluegrass.
And the four-day celebration is still the talk of the county during the week leading to the event.
Benson Elementary School hosts a week's worth of activities, including "farm animal day" and "hat day," and Johnston County schools of all levels were closed on Friday.
But not all of Mule Days is family friendly.
Officers from the Benson Police Department join forces with those from the Johnston and Harnett counties sheriffs' offices to keep the revelry in check.
While most police action is to keep pedestrians and mules from colliding, a few hundred festival-goers are cited each year for offenses such as indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, public urination and drinking in public.
Taylor Moser came with his young son from Greenville to Mule Days this year, but recalled some hard partying 30 years ago.
"I was in the Army, getting drunk and raising hell," he said. "I think we were successful."
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(09/21/07 4:00am)
CLAYTON - A small airplane crashed through the front of a popular local barbecue restaurant shortly before its 11 a.m. opening time today, leaving the pilot dead.
No employees working at McCall's BBQ and Seafood Restaurant - about 45 miles southeast of Chapel Hill - were seriously injured, although one female employee was treated and released from the hospital for back pain resulting from the impact of the explosion.
"All of a sudden it was just a big explosion," said Terry Tyner, the restaurant's general manager. "The ceiling fell in and when I looked at the ceiling, there was fire. For five minutes you couldn't see inside the building for all the black smoke."
He and the 10 other employees evacuated the building immediately.
Clayton firemen and police officers responded at the scene, followed by officials from nearby cities. They put out the fire, which burned through the insulation in the mostly-metal building, Tyner said.
Officials are waiting on the arrival of the National Transportation Safety Board before going into the restaurant to remove the pilot and the plane.
"Because of the wreckage, you just can't go in there and extradite the body," said Pat LaCarter, Johnston County public relations officer. "There is structural damage all the way through."
The National Transportation Safety Board will be responsible for investigating the cause of the crash. NTSB spokesman Harry Williams said that officials will be investigating in Clayton during the next few days and that a conclusion probably will not be reached for another five months to a year.
The plane - a single-engine Navion - is registered to Garry S. Reid of Chantilly, Va., Federal Aviation Association spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said, but the pilot has yet to be identified.
Officials believe the pilot was alone but couldn't confirm it as of Friday afternoon.
No flight plan was filed, but Charles Handy, a Johnston County airport technician, said the plane took off from the Triple W Airport in Fuquay-Varina, 11 miles south of Raleigh.
The Triple W Airport handles about 60 flights per day, the majority of them regional travel.
The crash is only the second on record to be reported in Clayton, which has a population of 12,860. The other was a single fatality incident in March 1969, when an agricultural aircraft crashed and burned in an open field.
Worth Westbrook, owner of McCall's, was on his way to Raleigh at the time of the collision. He said that if the plane had crashed a few minutes later, a full staff would have been at the front of the restaurant.
"Fifteen minutes was the difference between people living and dying," he said.
Friday lunches at McCall's typically bring 250 to 300 customers into the restaurant, which has a capacity of 275.
"It's very popular," said Margaret Dinubila, a Clayton resident.
(09/20/07 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Carrboro police will have an easier time confiscating fake IDs with grant money from the Orange County Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.
The $5,845 grant was formally accepted at Tuesday's Board of Aldermen meeting and will mostly be used to purchase a wireless system allowing officers to verify a suspect's documentation instantly.
"It appears very functional, and it will be a very valuable tool," Lt. J.G. Booker said.
A handheld computer with wireless Internet will allow officers to discover fake IDs by verifying immediately whether drivers' licenses match with government files.
The department also will purchase portable sensors to measure blood alcohol content of suspected underage drinkers on the scene.
Alcohol Law Enforcement officers have said that people who refuse that test are automatically charged with possession.
The aldermen passed the resolution to accept the money formally with only a few comments.
"Kudos to the police department for getting the grant," Alderman Joal Hall Broun said. "It's just another example of how we try to leverage the money we have with other money we get."
Though the technology will be new to Carrboro, the Chapel Hill Police Department has had it for several months, Public Information Officer Lt. Kevin Gunter said.
Chapel Hill police received a similar grant, for $3,250, in June 2005.
But some residents and students who have experience with those methods said the technology has the potential of being abused.
Sophomore Stephen Floyd, who was cited for underage possession Saturday, said a friend was given the breath test three times before his level moved from 0.0 to 0.01.
"They were going to test him until he blew something," Floyd said. "It's basically a ridiculous system if you ask me."
The money funding the system is just a small part of the funds required by state law. The statute states that all ABC boards spend at least 5 percent of its profits on alcohol law enforcement, according to ABC board contracts.
The Orange County board has allocated about $130,000 this fiscal year to Chapel Hill, Carrboro and county agencies, general manager Dan Sykes stated in an e-mail.
The system will help the department enforce a recent state law criminalizing both internal possession and consumption of alcohol by a person younger than 21, which went into effect Dec. 1.
Previously, suspects could only be cited if they were caught with the alcohol on hand.
Last year Chapel Hill officers issued 193 citations for underage possession of alcohol and 40 for false identification.
Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
Grant purchases
The Carrboro Police Department plans to purchase four items with the ABC board's money. The department's estimate per item follows. Training and overtime hours will cost about $2,000 more.
(09/19/07 4:00am)
Almost every morning, dozens of men gather at the corner of Jones Ferry Road and Davie Road in western Carrboro.
(09/14/07 4:00am)
Hundreds are expected to attend the third annual Fiesta de la Familia to be held at the Carrboro Town Commons on Sunday.
The event - which will feature live Latin American music, dancing and food - is free and open to the public and sponsored by the Carrboro advocacy group El Centro Latino.
Performers at the event will include Mexican guitarist Guadalupe Olea, mariachi music from Los Galleros and Peruvian dance from La Asociacion Peruana, said Laura Wenzel, an employee at El Centro Latino.
"The idea is that this could grow," said Ben Balderas, executive director of El Centro Latino.
(09/12/07 4:00am)
The four-story Alberta complex planned for downtown Carrboro passed its first major test Tuesday when the town's Board of Aldermen unanimously agreed to approve its land-use permit.
The four-story complex, slated to hold both homes and businesses, is proposed for 300 Roberson St. The plot is currently a parking lot across from Weaver Street Market.
The plans for the project have been in the works for more than two years, said lead architect Jack Haggerty and Nathan Milian, whose firm, N.R. Milian and Associates, is in charge of the project's development.
The bottom floor of the proposed complex will feature retail stores, offices or restaurants, Milian said.
The other three will contain condominiums.
Haggerty now will draw up construction plans, which likely will take five months.
"We're ready to go," Milian said.
Construction plans must then be approved by town staff but not the board.
Milian said he hopes to begin construction in about six months.
The permit approval came after the town reached a 21-point agreement with the developer on the conditions the building must meet.
That document was added to and finalized after a public hearing at last week's board meeting.
Most contentious were directives that the sidewalks to be constructed around the building remain public.
The landowner, Paul Greenberg, said at the meeting that he wanted the area to remain private to better police it.
The board decided not to allow private sidewalks after several aldermen voiced concerns that future homeowners could have pedestrians arrested for trespassing.
But with those conditions met, the aldermen said they were excited to approve the project Tuesday.
"I thought the board has been very satisfied in the way the project has conformed to our vision for downtown Carrboro," Alderman Dan Coleman said.
Most condominiums will be two-bedroom, but several with one bedroom and three bedrooms also will be constructed, Haggerty said.
Milian's firm previously had proposed a three-story building for the land but decided to scrap it in favor of the Alberta complex.
Haggerty has designed several other projects in the area, including Fleet Feet Carrboro, Acme Food and Beverage Co. and several office buildings on
Lloyd Street.
Each future condominium in the Alberta complex likely will cost $350,000, Fran Richmond, a real-estate agent with Franklin Street Realty, said last week.
The town will help pay for three of the 23 condominiums. According to town policy, those residences will be sold in the price range of a family making 80 percent of Carrboro's median family income, or $37,864.
Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(09/11/07 4:00am)
What you see is a blank Web page. They see a red square and hear an insistent beep.
(09/10/07 4:00am)
The only address listed for senior Eli Rayfield is a post-office box.
It would be difficult to deliver mail to a tree.
Rayfield, a bearded anthropology major from Charlotte, has forsaken housing in his last semester before graduation for a tent hammock in nearby woods.
"It was never that I couldn't find a place to live; it's that I didn't want to," he said. "I don't feel homeless. The whole town is my home."
Each morning, Rayfield packs up his hammock into a small black bag and rides a blue mountain bike onto campus to shower at Fetzer Gym.
"I'm usually up by the time the sun is," he said.
He'll then attend one of his classes, play Four Square in front of Davis Library, read a book - he reads about a book per day - or climb trees.
"The whole area becomes your playground," said Rayfield, who often sports brown hiking shoes.
In the evening, he drives to his camping spot and gets ready for bed with the help of a flashlight clipped to his ball cap.
"It's the quietest and best sleeping place in Chapel Hill," he said.
In his spare time, he'll make expeditions such as a barefoot climb of Grandfather Mountain or a 33-mile bike ride to the Exploris museum in Raleigh.
He also is learning how to vault himself over 12-foot walls.
"My main thing is becoming as adaptable as possible," he said.
And his decision to adapt to life in the forest was fairly spontaneous.
In previous years, Rayfield said he had lived in a town house.
But his involvement in Poverty Awareness Week last April got him interested in simple living.
"I realized I had so much junk that I didn't really need," Rayfield said.
Over the summer, he conducted a 30-day experiment to see if he could successfully live out of his car.
He could, and he liked it.
"I got to know Carrboro much better when I wasn't cooped up in a house," Rayfield said, adding that he has been more social than ever since he began living outside.
And his life now carries minimal expenses.
Though he doesn't have a job, instead using student loans and grants, he said he would be able to support himself by working just 20 hours per week on minimum wage.
Lose the car, and it would be only 12 hours of work
But Rayfield doesn't truly shun civilization. He pointed out that it is only because of the amenities in the area - free wireless Internet at Weaver Street Market and several nearby laundromats - that allow him to live like he does.
Rayfield's parents do not know exactly how their son is living, but a close friend said his penchant for outdoor living is just the latest development in his love for experimentation.
The friend, Michael Dunbar, who attends meditation sessions with Rayfield, said Rayfield began martial arts at age 7, yoga at age 8 and bodybuilding at age 9.
"He was kind of an early grower," Dunbar said. "I can't beat him in arm-wrestling."
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at features@unc.edu.
(09/10/07 4:00am)
The gourd crop hasn't been spared the effects of the drought that has gripped the Southeast this year.
The hot and dry weather during this growing season has been hard both on the farmers and the gourds, attendees of the North Carolina Gourd Arts and Crafts Festival said.
"We're hoping everything turns out," Apex farmer Sandy Jockisch said.
Her husband, Virgil Jockisch, has grown corn, tomatoes and gourds for years and said the drought has been especially hard for him, both because he plows by hand and because he is getting older.
A huge swath of western and central North Carolina is classified as in extreme drought, including Wake, Chatham and Orange counties.
Extreme drought means an area has received between 3 and 4 inches less rain per month than expected.
Raleigh averages 4.29 inches of rain in July.
"Those who didn't irrigate won't have a crop to bring in," said N.C. Gourd Association President Judi Fleming, adding that many small farmers don't use the watering practice.
The association has between 200 and 300 active members, most of whom run small operations and would be hurt.
Farmers who raise gourds as their primary source of income will have used irrigation and will be fine, Fleming said.
Dickie Martin, principal farmer for 13-acre Ghost Creek Farms in Laurens, S.C., said his gourd vines died about a month ago.
The gourd farmers who are most affected by the drought, Fleming said, are those with livestock such as horses.
The hay crop in North Carolina was particularly hard-hit, making the price of the animal feed rise.
Fleming said she paid $3.25 per bale of hay in years past and pays $6.70 now.
During the winter, as the hay supply dwindles, Fleming said she expects the price to be between $9 and $12 per bale.
Drought will not hurt gourds once they are full-grown, usually in the fall.
But dry weather will keep gourds from growing as big as they could during the long summer.
Jack Liles, a gourd farmer from Bailey, said his gourds are priced based on their weight and thickness - both factors influenced by the amount of water each gets.
And the fully formed gourds will sell quickly. Gourds available next year will be of lesser quality or a lot more expensive, Fleming said.
She said that crafters will have to shell out the higher price or be satisfied with an inferior product.
"Once the crop is gone, you're done," she said.
Senior writer Alexandria Shealy contributed reporting.
Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.
(08/30/07 4:00am)
Micah Armstrong came to UNC to instill the fear of God.
With a water pouch strapped to his back and a gallon jug by his side, the roving open-air preacher from Miami has taken on students for the past few days in the Pit and in front of Davis Library.
"I don't expect you to just sit there and swallow everything I say," Armstrong said as he scanned the crowd for the next question. "Just take heed of what I'm saying."
He's no Gary Birdsong, who has spoken at UNC for years as the Pit Preacher.
And Armstrong will only be the "New Pit Preacher" for one more day. He leaves tonight to continue his trek up the East Coast.
Armstrong - decked out in khaki slacks, a blue-striped button-up shirt and a newsboy hat - jumps up and down when he quotes Jesus and doesn't hesitate to act out his statements or call bystanders hypocrites.
And many of those statements are quite controversial, such as these from Wednesday:
If you've masturbated, you aren't a virgin.
Women who wear revealing clothing are adulterers at heart.
Faith is based on evidence.
Evolution is ridiculous.
"He's wild," said freshman Chris Burris of Durham. "I think he's a moron."
Even his loudest critics can't say his Bible citations are inaccurate, only out of context.
"He's covered every logical fallacy there is," said freshman Daniel Fincannon of Taylorsville.
Throughout the day, Armstrong drew crowds of students with cameras and cell phones, eager for a show.
"Some of my friends told me about him," said freshman Hannah Rich. "I've got nowhere to be for an hour, so I thought I'd watch."
Birdsong, a calmer but just as controversial man, was given a trespassing citation last year for refusing to cede space in the Pit to a group with a reservation. He cannot return to the sunken area until March 2009.
Armstrong has received no formal complaints, according to the Department of Public Safety.
"That is a free speech area," said Don Luse, director of the Carolina Union, which takes reservations of Pit space. "We try to watch, monitor and ask for cooperation."
Armstrong said he is in the midst of a large college tour and will next visit N.C. State University and East Carolina University.
After working for years as a schoolteacher in Miami, Armstrong said God called him to be an open-air street preacher.
One night, he had a dream telling him to sell his house and preach at colleges.
So he did, in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi before hitting North Carolina.
Birdsong, who met Armstrong on Tuesday, is one reason Armstrong chose Chapel Hill.
"I don't really know him, but he seemed like he agreed with me," Birdsong said. "I'm glad somebody's out there."
Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.
(08/23/07 4:00am)
Students in professor Cathy Packer's media law class today will be taught by a big name: Dean Smith.
On his first day as a teaching assistant Tuesday, Smith's introduction caused quite a stir.
Packer nonchalantly said at the beginning of class that Dean Smith was sitting at the back of the room.
"She got me kind of excited," sophomore Matt Bruer said. "That name obviously carries a lot of weight."
Heads swiveled, and the disbelief began.
"Some thought it was a joke," Packer said. "It made for an interesting first day of class. They were much more interested in Dean Smith than they were in me."
But before you rush to add the class, a warning. The legendary UNC basketball coach did not suddenly become an expert in law.
Instead the TA is Dean C. Smith, a doctoral candidate in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a teaching assistant in Packer's class.
"I've been hearing comments about it since I was a kid," said Smith, who bears little physical resemblance to the leader of the men's basketball team from 1961 to 1997. "It's old hat to me."
But rarely has a famous name had so much in common with the actual celebrity.
Both Smiths were born in Kansas; albeit, the 43-year-old TA is a bit younger.
And the younger Smith graduated high school in 1982, the year the older Smith won his first NCAA championship.
But Dean C. Smith insists all that is strictly coincidence.
"It was like two ships passing in the night," he said. "My parents had no idea who Dean Smith the basketball coach was."
But that's not to say his profession hasn't played a role in his popularity, like the esteemed Dean E. Smith.
"I've worked my whole professional life in journalism, not in basketball," the 5-foot-7-inch Smith said.
Smith worked in newspapers for 18 years, where his bylines occasionally caused a stir among readers.
And last year he became one of about 10 new doctoral students who are admitted each year to the three- to four-year program, causing excitement again.
Packer, who claims to the be the biggest basketball fan on the journalism school's faculty, said the graduate program secretary ran through the halls yelling "Dean Smith is coming to visit!" the first time she heard his name.
But Smith was assigned to Packer not because of basketball, but research interest - media law.
"Though I may favor him because of that name," Packer said.
Dean E. Smith was unable to be reached for comment.
Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.
(08/21/07 4:00am)
Students receive a lot more than acceptance letters and tuition bills from UNC during the summer.
The University inundates both incoming freshman and returning students with packets and postcards of offers.
Carpets, refrigerators, linens, shelves, cell phones - all are items marketed through UNC.
But taking the University's advice might not always be the best idea.
Thrifty shopping can yield a better price, but the UNC deals offer convenience and bulk discounts.
(08/20/07 4:00am)
The summer yielded dozens of questions for Winston Crisp.
How should administrators manage student crises? How can personal privacy be balanced with campus safety? When should the university notify a student's parents of abnormal behavior?
"These issues affect a lot of people," the assistant vice chancellor for student affairs said. "How do you deal with a professor who says, 'Joe is disrupting class?' You can't just roll up every student who acts a little strange. This is a university."
Crisp spent two months at Virginia Tech identifying the main concerns in campus safety after the nation-shaking April shootings.
His report for Zenobia Hikes, vice president for student affairs at Va. Tech, will help revise policies for campus safety and the interaction between counselors and other university officials, Hikes said.
Crisp then will delete the items specific to Va. Tech, including internal reviews, and submit his findings to UNC.
"I'm not the answer person, but these are the issues that have arisen and the ones we are working on," he said.
Though he said it is too soon to say whether there will be substantial changes, he said that UNC's policies will face close scrutiny.
"We're going to find that we're ahead of the curve," he said. "But that doesn't mean that we're not going to examine everything critically."
Directly after the shootings, aid from Atlantic Coast Conference schools flooded the Blacksburg, Va., campus. Many universities volunteered counselors.
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Margaret Jablonski asked Hikes what UNC could do to help.
The two decided that a senior-level student affairs employee who could work autonomously was needed. Crisp fit the bill.
"When he spoke, he had everyone's attention," Hikes said.
"We will be forever indebted to the UNC community for that kind of help."
But that was not the first time UNC has stepped in to help universities in need.
After Hurricane Katrina temporarily closed Gulf Coast universities in August 2005, UNC granted visiting-scholar status to professors who were displaced, and 22 Tulane University students were enrolled in the School of Public Health.
Several other ACC officials visited Blacksburg, Va., over the summer for several-day conferences on individual issues.
"We might look at, 'Are we interpreting the federal Right to Privacy Act correctly?' Crisp said. "The answer might be 'Yes, but we need to do the following,' or 'No, we need to change this.'"
Crisp said that though universities nationwide do such evaluations regularly, the emphasis on change rarely comes until a tragedy.
"We work on these things all the time," he said. "But it's also true that when something catastrophic happens, you get the attention of the nation, you get movement."
Regardless of what evaluations uncover, it's not possible to completely avoid risk, Crisp said, adding that it's important for students not to be perpetually afraid.
"I don't think it's necessary for people to walk around worrying," he said.
Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.
(04/27/07 4:00am)
Two public health issues arose in the UNC community this year - dangerous lead levels in water pipes and an outbreak of E. coli bacteria.
Though the bacteria incident has faded from the public eye, questions persist on the University's reaction to the lead problem and what will be done to ensure the safety of water in other campus buildings.
An unhealthy amount of lead was found in the water of three new buildings - Caudill Labs, Chapman Hall and the Information Technology Services Manning building.
All drinking water was turned off to ITS Manning on Monday after water samples came back with elevated lead levels.
The same day, officials tried to allay concerns about lead contamination found in earlier water samples at the other two buildings.
All 14 samples taken from the main water service line into Chapman and Caudill had six times the amount considered dangerous for drinking water.
It is dangerous to drink half a liter of water with lead levels of 100 parts per billion, said Luanne Williams, a toxicologist with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
The average levels found in the water fountains were seven parts per billion - below the Environmental Protection Agency's safety standard of 15 parts per billion.
"The levels at this time do not pose a concern for those who drank it in the past," said Ray Hackney, director of UNC's Department of Environment, Health and Safety.
Though no illnesses have been reported, eight students and a Chapel Hill resident fell ill in from an E. coli outbreak in late October. The outbreak later was traced to a popular Franklin Street restaurant.
Investigations revealed that the majority of the infected people had eaten at McAlister's Deli in October before developing symptoms.
Health department officials did not conclude that McAlister's was the cause of the outbreak - just that it was a link among those ill. But a statistical analysis showed that the restaurant was more than likely the source.
Infections occurred during a brief window of time, indicating a single-event exposure, said David Weber, UNC medical director of hospital epidemiology.
Health department officials stressed that there was no further danger in eating at McAlister's.
No further problems were reported, and students say they do not weigh the incident heavily.
"I think people joke about it, but they're still going to eat there," senior Mark Ihnat said.
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(04/26/07 4:00am)
A recently retired University employee of 30 years was discovered to have provided the Social Security number of a dead person, a state auditor's report revealed.
The report, released Tuesday, presents the results of an audit of all UNC-CH employees. That person's Social Security number was the only one to turn up invalid, said Chris Mears, director of public relations at the Office of the State Auditor.
University and state auditor's office officials said they cannot identify the employee because of privacy issues.
But the person in question was revealed to be male, to have retired effective April 1 and to not be a faculty member.
Employees are required by federal law to submit their Social Security numbers to their employers for wage and tax-reporting purposes.
The auditor's report recommends that UNC-Chapel Hill take appropriate corrective action.
Mears said this action differs from institution to institution depending on its policy. "Each agency has their own procedures in place," he said. "We can't really prescribe a broad brush remedy."
A published response from University officials states that members of the payroll department at UNC-CH requested "on multiple occasions that the individual discuss the name/SSN mismatch with the Social Security Administration . to resolve the discrepancy."
Because the UNC-CH employee has retired, there are no actions the University must take. If he had been an active employee, the University would have had to ask the employee to resolve the discrepancy.
According to the Social Security Number Verification Service Handbook, an initially invalid Social Security number "is not a basis, in and of itself, for . adverse action against an employee, such as laying off, suspending, firing or discriminating."
The investigation is the latest in a series of audits spearheaded by State Auditor Leslie Merritt.
In January an audit of UNC-CH Hospitals revealed that 17 of its employees had provided false Social Security numbers. Eight were fired, and nine others resigned.
But targeted employees can rectify the situation before action is taken, Mears said.
The auditor's office also has investigated the Department of Motor Vehicles, N.C. Central University and the Department of Justice.
At the DMV, it was found that about 27,000 fraudulent Social Security numbers had been provided to obtain driver's licenses, Mears said.
The office takes Social Security numbers from the payroll office of the agency being audited and cross references them with valid numbers in the Social Security Administration's database.
The auditor's office does not have the legal authority to impose fines or make arrests, Mears said, though it can pass information on to law enforcement.
But Mears said the audits have deterred employing illegal workers and caused agencies to conduct internal reviews.
"It's been very effective in that we've been able, with our limited resources, to get others to do our work for us."
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.