Durham County Commissioners spent a good part of their five-hour work session Monday morning debating the details of an agreement with Durham Public Schools that would allow school system to recoup sales taxes it pays on construction projects.
The interlocal agreement had many facets and took some time for county staff and commissioners to dissect. But Lavonia Allison, the controversial and newly re-elected chairwoman of the Durham Committee of the Affairs of Black People, wanted some more time to study the fine points. She asked board Chairman Michael Page to delay the board’s vote a month.
The contract was a serious consideration, Allison said, in part because of the points it raises about requirements of the school system to hire minority- and women-owned businesses for its projects.
“We’re talking about African-American employment opportunities,” Allison said, leaning on the commissioners’ dais.
Durham’s newest ordinance, which bans owners in the city and county from tethering their dogs for prolonged periods, is just three days old. But already, it has spurred roughly 50 reports from citizens to Durham County Animal Control, Director Cindy Bailey said Monday.
Today was the first day of 2010 that Animal Control has been open, Bailey said, so officers were out in force investigating the complaints. Officers will visit any offender in 90 days to see if they have made any progress in finding alternatives to tethers and chains to contain their pets. Right now, officers are issuing warnings with a drop-dead date of June 30. Anyone in violation of the ordinance on July 1 or later could receive a citation and face fines of up to $150. Continue reading »
Four property owners who signed a petition this fall to protest the rezoning of the protective boundary around the portion of Jordan Lake in Durham County filed a lawsuit late Friday against Durham County officials.
Attorney Jim Conner of the Ragsdale Liggett firm in Raleigh filed the complaint just after 4 p.m. Friday on behalf of Milagros Napoli and Jeffrey Napoli, the Kendrick Estates Investment Corporation, as well as Kristen Corbell. All own property in the area around Jordan Lake to be rezoned.
The parties filed a complaint for a declaratory judgment and injunction, asking a judge to look at the evidence surrounding the petition and rule that the 3-2 vote Durham County Commissioners took in October meant that the rezoning didn’t pass, as the petition was valid, Conner said. A valid petition would have required a “supermajority,” or 4-1 vote to pass, instead of the simple majority vote of 3-2.
“We think the protest petition is clearly valid,” Conner said. “The courts have already said in other cases that if there’s a valid petition and there’s a vote that’s not a three-quarters vote, then the rezoning doesn’t pass.”
The county has 30 days to file an answer to the lawsuit, which named Durham County and the Durham County Commissioners as defendants. Although the Southern Environmental Law Center and Haw River Assembly worked to file the initial protest petition, neither is party to the lawsuit.
Though the Durham planning department hasn’t released any new findings on the Jordan Lake watershed rezoning protest petition, which was contested again this week, County Manager Mike Ruffin confirmed this afternoon that the planning department is sorting through signatures on the petition to ensure they are valid.
At this point, Ruffin added, any new findings would have to be decided by a judge. That is the avenue of appeal for the petitions (the Haw River Assembly and Southern Environmental Law Center) and commissioners already voted on the issue, and can’t reopen the issue and vote again, he said.
UPDATE: EMC has bought a 450,000-square-foot distribution center in Durham. Read more >>
Last night, Durham’s City Council voted to give EMC Corp. $1 million in economic-development incentives to build a new data center in Durham and bring 292 jobs to Durham, according to this morning’s reports by The Herald-Sun and The News & Observer.
Earlier this month, Durham County Commissioners agreed to grant the Massachusetts-based company specializing in data storage, security and management, $1.2 million in incentives and money for training if the company locates new jobs and facilities here. And in September, Governor Bev Perdue announced that the state would help lure EMC here, with as much as $7.4 million during the next nine years through a Job Development Investment Grant from the state. Add it all together, and it seems probable that EMC would choose Durham over sites in New York, Virginia, Washington and Canada that the company had announced it was also considering. Continue reading »
A nonprofit group’s attempt to hinder a controversial rezoning case near Jordan Lake fell flat Friday, as Durham officials denied the validity of a petition filed by the organization. The petitioner, the Haw River Assembly, did not include signatures of enough landowners around the area to be rezoned, said Durham City-County Planning Director Steve Medlin.
With its petition, the group was hoping to influence the outcome of a vote by Durham County Commissioners, who on Monday will decide whether to redraw boundaries protecting Jordan Lake and its watershed. Shifting the boundaries would allow Southern Durham Development to build a 164-acre mixed-use development, 751 Assemblage, in an area many say should remain undeveloped. (View Monday’s agenda here.)
On Monday night, Commissioners need just a simple majority – three affirmative votes – to redraw the boundaries. Had the petition been valid, the rezoning would have required a supermajority, or four affirmative votes, to pass.
The petition is a small piece of a circuitous, four-year-old issue surrounding the rezoning of land around Jordan Lake, a drinking water reservoir that spans Durham and Chatham counties. Most of the disagreement among public officials, developers and other stakeholders is where exactly the critical watershed should be, and which methodology is best to evaluate factors that determine those boundaries. (Read more about the history of this issue here.)
Gov. Bev Perdue announced today that a major tech company, EMC Corp., has plans to expand in the Triangle, bringing nearly 400 new, high-paying jobs to Durham and Wake counties - 292 jobs to Durham and 105 to Apex.
The jobs will have an average salary of more than $73,000 per year, not including benefits.
EMC Corp., a Massachusetts-based company specializing in data storage, security and management, could receive as much as $7.4 million during the next nine years through a Job Development Investment Grant from the state Economic Investment Committee. (Read the full details here.) The company already has a presence in Research Triangle Park and 900 employees in our state.
For you Durhamites still on the fence about the proposed county-wide prepared meals tax, Bull City Rising has video of two of the principle figures behind the groups supporting and opposing the tax laying out their arguments at Tuesday night’s Inter-Neighborhood Council Forum.
Our favorite part arrives 35 seconds in, when Dallas Woodhouse of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative, anti-tax lobbying group name checks Dr. Lavonia Allison of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, calling her his “new best friend.”
Click here to watch of Robert Teer Jr. making the “for” case.
The News & Observer reports that Durham city and county officials are asking the state for help in light of news that Durham probation officers have lost track of 861 of the 4,161 probationers assigned to their office.
In a letter sent to earlier this week to the state Department of Correction, Ellen Reckhow, chair of the Durham County Board of Commissioners and Howard Clement of the Durham City Council ask that a significant portion of the $2.5 million recently added to probation system’s budget be allocated for Durham.
“We are the poster child for what is wrong in probation” said Reckhow when reached by phone earlier today. “What we were trying to do is let the state know that if anyone office needs added resources, it’s Durham.”
The letter describes a recent meeting of the crime cabinet where John Lee, interim director of the Durham probation office, revealed that 20 percent of the office’s assigned probationers have “absconded,” or failed to check in for at least one month.
That, says Reckhow, is nearly double the national rate.
Lee also that he is having trouble filling the office’s nine vacancies, citing probation officer’s starting salary and the heavier than recommended workload.
Starting salary for probation officers is $30,000.
Officials won’t learn how the $2.5 million will actually be allocated until after the legislature reviews an ongoing National Instititute of Corrections study of the state system.
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