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Key Issues & Challenges Facing the Next Town Council
- Carolina North will be one of the biggest issues Chapel Hill has ever faced.
I will work hard to protect neighborhoods, preserve open space, and do everything necessary to ensure it does not
hurt our quality of life.
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- Affordable Housing Priorities include adoption of a new inclusionary zoning
ordinance that will allow us to standardize our affordable housing guidelines. We also need to work with
Orange Community Housing and Land Trust to help with the administration of the numerous new affordable units
that will become available in the near future as well continue our collaborative and supportive relationship with Habitat for Humanity.
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- Neighborhood Protection will continue to be a focus.
We need to ensure the measures we’ve taken for five neighborhood conservation districts are working
while also identifying possible new Neighborhood Conservation Districts and alleviating the potential impact of Carolina North.
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- Public Transportation in Chapel Hill will be improved as we
work on a new Chapel Hill Transit Master Plan. This will allow us to identify ways in which we can
take significant steps to improve our service to make it better for our citizens. The council must
establish an implementation and funding plan.
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- The CRED (Carbon Reduction) Pledge, which we have adopted in cooperation with UNC
to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions 60% by 2050, is one of the most ambitious goals in the country.
We will need to continue to identify strategies that will allow us to meet our targets.
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- Improved Economic Development, with our first full time director on board,
will allow us to take measures that increase the ability of local residents to get needed goods and services
without leaving the community. It will also increase the commercial tax base and by extension lower the burden
on individual taxpayers.
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- Revitalizing Downtown will go from concept to reality with the completion of
projects like Greenbridge and the Downtown Economic Development Initiative. We need to continue working on
plans to make it a livable destination through things like a new permanent home for the Kidzu Children’s Museum.
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- Public Safety is critical to our community. We must invest further in
emergency preparedness and regional collaboration. The new downtown police unit will need evaluation in order
to ensure it is reaching the correct population, and there needs to be a significant investment made to address
conditions for our firefighters.
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- Information Technology Investments must be productive and strategic.
Continued investment in the planning for the 2009 installation of Chapel Hill’s new traffic signal system and
the fiber optic loop it will offer must be made; implementation of our 2007 IT Evaluation should proceed; and
the goal of establishing a not for profit ISP should be confirmed.
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- Investments in Green Infrastructure, such as funding and
building Morgan Creek and Bolin Creek II greenways, and implementing the Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd bike
and pedestrian recommendations are essential projects which the council must pursue.
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Click here for a printable copy of Bill's campaign brochure.
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