Peeling the Orange
Chapel Hill’s three historic districts will be designated at prominent entry points with signs designed by the Historic District Commission. They’ll be at the boundaries of the East Franklin-Rosemary, Cameron-McCauley and Gimghoul districts. The wording is on a “historic brown” background in an arch template like the state’s sightseeing signs on highways. The idea, according to a commission spokesperson, is to emphasize to residents that they live in historic areas and generally to promote the districts. When the green street signs at corners within these districts need replacing, they’ll also be reinstalled in the same brown hue to denote the historic district locale.
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Orange Commissioners Chairman Barry Jacobs, who’s running for re-election this fall, took a moment during a recent commissioners’ meeting to publicly tear up a “no tax increase” pledge that the Citizens for a Sound Economy has mailed to candidates. Jacobs said one factor in the financial “mess” in Raleigh is that many state legislators have signed similar pledges and passed the problem of raising revenue down to local governments.
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Hometown amateur ornithologists expect the recent spate of chilly weather will quickly bring on the winter migratory birds hereabouts. Watch for the white-throat sparrow, junco, kinglet and the colorful and colorfully named yellow-bellied sapsucker. And don’t worry about attracting hummingbirds to their detriment. Leave the nectar feeders up. A hummingbird savant here admonishes: “These birds are unrequited. They know what they’re doing and will head south when they want to.”
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Retired U.S. Rep. L.H. Fountain, who died quietly at 89 last week, represented Orange County for most of his 30 years in Congress. A son of the soil from down east in Tarboro, he candidly admitted he received more mail from Chapel Hill than the rest of his 10-county district combined. L.H. (his only given name) was an unusual combination: courtly but easygoing; party-line Democrat but a dedicated fiscal conservative; and a Carolina football/basketball fan without peer. His alma mater gave its ’36 law grad an honorary doctorate of laws in 1981.
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New downtown sidewalk installations are to be completed after the traditional Halloween celebrations on East Franklin Street. The project will include a couple of sturdier four-board poster kiosks and planting of new oaks in the brick-sided flowerboxes. The long-awaited custom-built “Chapel Hilly” metal sculpture benches are to be installed on the new streetscape next week. A refinement at the post office will be a new recycling bin that will match the sidewalk trash bins.
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As of last week, the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau has for the first time a true sidewalk location – in the very attractive former Chapel Hill Weekly building at 501 W. Franklin St. Despite its low-key location in the basement of the downtown post office, the Downtown Commission will continue to function as a welcome center.
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More than 100 visitors from Raleigh and Durham had a whirlwind windshield bus tour of Chapel Hill/Carrboro on Thursday during an all-day program sponsored by Leadership Triangle. Former Mayor Rosemary Waldorf, Mayor Pro Tem Pat Evans and Downtown Commission Director Robert Humphreys narrated the gospel of this “Southern Part of Heaven” to the domestic foreigners.
