Thank you

This being Thanksgiving week, it seems appropriate to thank the citizens that voted for me -- all 4322 of them. When I spoke to the Council today, I carried a piece a paper with that number on it to remind me of the people that trusted me enough to vote for me. It's a great confidence builder.

Also in tomorrow's Independent back page, there will be a Thank You ad to all of the Indy readers. As best I can figure, about 7 to 8% of my 9.65% of the votes came from Independent readers. Of course that doesn't make the rest of my voters any less valuable.

I thank you all.

I hope you will join me as I continue to support citizen involvement, neighborhoods, natural systems and equality in this wonderful city and region.

Raleigh City Council Citizen Requests

I'm on the Raleigh City Council agenda tomorrow under Citizen Requests.

I actually had 2 requests but they lumped them together in one on the agenda.

First, I'm just asking that the next Council meeting (the new Council's 1st meeting) include an update of a few specific election issues: Impact fees, The North Hills TIF, teardowns, and Dix Park.

Second, I'm expressing concern about the process and the difficulty in finding out and applying to city volunteer Boards and Commissions. I'm suggesting they at least have instructions on how to find out about and apply for openings. Or even better do something like Wake County does for their boards:

Wake County's Boards and Commissions page
http://www.wakegov.com/commissions/default.htm

Vacancy page:
http://www.wakegov.com/commissions/vacancies.htm

Online application:
http://lnweb01.co.wake.nc.us/boards/code/application.htm

Seems like Wake County really wants people to know when their boards have openings.

Tonight! Contribute to a vision for Raleigh

I hope you'll join me tonight at the last of the three "visioning" workshops for the Comprehensive Plan Update.

It will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.at North Raleigh Church of Christ. 8701 Falls of Neuse Road. ( For directions to the church, see http://www.nrcoc.org/AboutUs/directions.html ) Since the workshops are not intended to be specific to the area in which they are being held, you don't need to live in this area to be able to contribute to the process.

For more info on the entire process, go to: www.planningraleigh2030.com

Last night, I attended the workshop in West Raleigh. After a presentation about the plan process and about current conditions in of Raleigh, the audience was divided into groups to evaluate the description of current conditions, the proposed vision for Raleigh and the "themes" of the plan. Participants can also comment on anonymous forms that address these questions. I found the discussions very useful and enlightening.

If you can't make tonight's workshop, city planners said that the presentation with an online comment form will be at the plan website soon.

North Central CAC meeting

I'm going to have to miss the first of the Comprehensive Plan public workshops.

Ironically, my CAC meeting is focusing on growth and revitalization this month. The Downtown Raleigh Alliance, the Southeast Raleigh Assembly and other community groups will have presentations relating to the subject. City Councilor James West and County Commissioner Harold Webb will be participate as well.

It's a shame that the one Comprehensive Plan workshop located downtown would be on the same night as the North Central CAC meeting. (Another downtown CAC, the Mordecai CAC, meets tonight also).

I guess the North Central CAC people will have to go to one of the other workshops.