Three of the five Chatham County commissioners effectively voted one of their colleagues out of office on Monday night. In a hastily executed maneuver, three lame duck leaders–Chairman Bunkey Morgan and his allies Tommy Emerson and Carl Outz–voted in a 3-2 majority to redraw the county’s election districts, effective immediately after the Nov. 7 election. […]
Jennifer Strom
Email: [email protected]
Posted inNews
Pick-up lines
As a condition of entering a drawing to win tickets to a Bob Dylan concert, we recently asked Indy readers to tell us why they read us. We got genuine, heartfelt compliments, ridiculous flattery (“You make our world a better place!”) and even an insult or two. Contributing writer Hal Crowther racked up the most […]
Posted inNews
Bunkey-mandering
If you need any more proof than Bob Geary’s story this week about the vanishing role voters are playing in North Carolina, look no further than Chatham County. In May, voters rebelled against the county’s downward spiral into sprawl by bouncing Commissioner Bunkey Morgan and his allies off the county board. It was a resounding […]
Posted inNews
Love is a many-specied thing
This week, with help from our readers, we celebrate the dogs, cats, birds, monkeys and other companion animals that enrich our lives. Earlier this summer, I lost one of mine, when the Princess Tammy Faye departed. For 19 years, she allowed the mere humans in my family to serve her every feline desire: steak tidbits […]
Posted inGuides
The right to be
Straight people come in all shapes and sizes, from all professions and ideologies, politically active and apolitical. Gays and lesbians come in all shapes and sizes, too, from all professions and ideologies. But up until the NYPD invaded the Stonewall Inn 37 years ago, being gay meant being politically powerless. It meant regular police raids […]
Posted inUncategorized
N.C.’s Chris Daughtry comes home
It’s right early on Saturday morning, and Chris Daughtry is struggling to catch up on his caffeine intake. “What’s up, guys?” American Idol’s fourth-place finisher greets a crowd of reporters in a banquet room at 8 a.m. in downtown Greensboro, where an enormous ice sculpture of a guitar bears his name. “Hope you don’t mind […]
Posted inNews
Foreigners
The hand-lettered sign on the stall door advised “TOTAL DERELICT.” Scrawled in ballpoint on a piece of scrap paper, the words came into my brain through my eyes and then rattled around for a few seconds, seeking some familiar association. Aha. The toilet must be out of order. Here on Bonaire, English is most people’s […]
Posted inNews
‘Chatham residents stand up to money’
Last week, while Chatham County voters streamed to polling places to wrestle control of their county’s future away from real estate profiteers, developer Holland Gaines sold a million dollars’ worth of land. In paperwork filed by real estate attorney Cynthia Sax Perry, Gaines finalized the sale of seven building lots at “The Legacy at Jordan […]
Posted inNews
High noon in Chatham
In the Triangle’s wild western frontier, the men are still men, the married women are still introduced as “the former Miss So-and-So,” and elected leaders open public meetings praising Jesus. Welcome to Chatham County, one of the last undeveloped (for now) corners of the Triangle, home of the Haw River, family farms, adorable antique stores […]
Posted inUncategorized
Durham real estate entrepreneur amasses $600,000-plus fine for illegal dumps
Durham businessman Lynn E. Graham has accumulated nearly six acres of construction and demolition debris, piles of fill dirt, junked cars, junked furniture and just plain junk at two illegal dump sites, one in East Durham and one near Research Triangle Park. Cited numerous times by county regulators for an array of environmental and zoning […]
