Congratulations to Susan Romaine for winning a seat on the Carrboro Town Council. Susan is well known for her community good works, and we are thrilled she will bring her organizational and personal skills to becoming an effective member of the Council.
Additional congratulations to incumbents Damon Seils and Sammy Slade, who won second and third place, respectively. Damon has served two terms and holds an important position as Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) that will help develop regional transit solutions. Sammy has served on Carrboro’s Board of Alderman for a decade, and is known for his enthusiasm and commitment to addressing climate change.
Carrboro is still a small community and incumbents have a huge advantage with name recognition among its residents. Even so, “Carrboro Steve” ran an impressive campaign, maybe the best ever for a challenger in Carrboro.
Upcoming Challenges
On Tuesday, the Board of Aldermen voted to approve a new Bike Plan. We congratulate the Board for conducting an inclusive and comprehensive process to make this new plan. It is remarkable when a public process goes so well.
It must be noted that the highly controversial plan to put a 12 foot paved path next to the creek did not achieve priority status in the Bike Plan. But the issue is not dead. Previously the Board had indicated an interest in revisiting the issue. Alderman Sammy Slade felt impelled to remind the Board of a 10 year old resolution to reopen debate. The Board agreed to attach a reference to the 2009 Consultant’s Plan which contains a number of options.
The good news is that the Town has completed a successful process to determine bicycle priorities. The bad news is that the Town has committed to spending more time to discussing a controversial issue that did not even make the list!
The reason the issue is not dead is because the underlying issues it seeks to address are not resolved – so many continue to push for it. As a community we need to do everything we can to encourage walking and biking and connectivity of the full creek trail would provide a new route for recreation and transit. The current trail isn’t viable for this and certainly isn’t inclusive for those with reduced mobility. Perhaps a good middle ground would be to improve whats there while retaining a permeable surface. But the current OWASA corridor is worn to the point that it’s nearly unusable in some areas and unaesthetic and unnatural throughout. Protection of pristine wilderness is important. But sadly the parts of the Bolin Creek Trail under debate are far from pristine and they’re located in a dense and growing city. Improvement is needed – but the question is what and how.