Odom proposes capital L

After the convention center study committee narrowed its picks

Wednesday for a new center’s location to three downtown Raleigh

sites, a good number of people hung around and studied a large

map of the central city. They mulled the choices. Tossed around

some ideas.

Then City Council member John Odom separated the crowd and

took over.

He wasn’t in favor of the third site choice, a large tract on

the western edge of downtown next to some railroad tracks in a

warehouse district. The other two still in the mix — both just

west of the existing center — were fine.

But Odom wants something creative. Maybe it would be good to

fashion some combination of the two sites to the west into a

third choice, he said. Raleigh does not need a long box of a

convention center. Something L-shaped would work, he told the

gathering.

Ed Jones, a businessman and member of the study committee, was

listening and nodding.

“Yeah, John, you want something big and different,” Jones

said. “Like the Sydney Opera House.”

Odom responded: “I’ve never seen the Sydney Opera House. But

if it’s L-shaped, then I’m for it.”

SPEAKING OF ODOM: Count Bruce Spader as another candidate

running to replace Odom, who has served on the council for a

decade.

Spader ran against Odom for the District B seat in 2001,

winning nearly 23 percent of the vote.

Since then, Spader has been appointed to city committees.

Spader, a leader in the Brentwood neighborhood, said he plans to

run a grass-roots campaign.

“I am going to put the question to the active voters in

District B whether or not they want me sitting down there or

not,” he said.

John Knox, a former interim police chief; Jessie Taliaferro, a

Planning Commission member; and Jeff Perkinson, a member of a

city committee working to create a land-use plan for a section of

Five Points, also have said they are considering a run for the

seat, which represents an area that stretches from neighborhoods

inside Raleigh’s Beltline to Northeast Raleigh.

Voters go to the polls Oct. 7.

POLITICAL TRAIL

– ROY COOPER, North Carolina’s attorney general, is scheduled

to speak to the Wake County Democratic Men at 6 p.m. Monday at

Griffin’s Restaurant, 1604 N. Market Drive in Raleigh.

– DONNIE HARRISON, the new Wake County sheriff, will speak to

Wake County Young Republicans at 7 p.m. Monday at Greenshields

Brewery & Pub, 214 E. Martin St. in downtown Raleigh.

– DAN GERLACH, Gov. Mike Easley’s senior policy adviser for

fiscal affairs, will speak about the budget situation to the Wake

County chapter of Citizens for a Sound Economy at 7 p.m. Thursday

at N.C. State University’s Jane S. McKimmon Center, corner of

Western Boulevard and Gorman Street.