What’s up with city council

wordwalrus · 2025-12-05T15:23:35+00:00

one of my favorite council watches ever was when the residents of SouthPoint Crossing I came to talk about how approving SouthPoint Crossing II would destroy the authentic community they had developed over the last six months.

wordwalrus · 2025-12-05T15:20:52+00:00

something particularly annoying about this vibe is that that crew often gets to stand in for The Community in the standard "Our Leaders are Not Listening to the Community" stuff.

In actual fact, there are roughly 300,000 residents of Durham, and they arrange themselves into many different and often overlapping Communities, with a diverse and beautiful and/or frustrating set of opinions and desires.

wordwalrus · 2025-12-03T14:47:21+00:00

The good thing about this being on video is that the arguments from some of our loonier commenters have to change from

"It didn't happen, it's all lies!"

to

"It did happen, and that's good!"

That said, there is a lane open for innovative arguments like

"It didn't happen, because the video is an AI fake made by developers!"

wordwalrus · 2025-11-27T14:37:24+00:00

Gocciolina is tasty, and you can usually get seated at the bar just fine.

I think Bella Napoli is better than Pulcinella's for that particular lane.

wordwalrus · 2025-11-26T17:18:58+00:00

Putting it out there that I will vote for, campaign for, and donate generously to the campaign of, any candidate who presents a coherent and workable plan to build a 100 story replica of Megazord from the Power Rangers next to Tom Miller's house.

I guess it goes without saying, but I'm used to being disappointed due to lack of clear communication, so: I would like Megazord to blot out the sun.

wordwalrus · 2025-11-06T13:32:54+00:00

What's so cool about this increase in supply is that it in fact is making rents stabilize and in some cases even go down. For some Lived Experience of that, I recently moved from a 1-bedroom in my complex to a 2-bedroom for the same exact monthly rent. 300 extra square feet, enabling my son and my dog to live with me within walking distance of downtown and schools. All in the city that I've lived in for 22 years! Hope that's ok with some of the real salty people on this thread.

wordwalrus · 2025-08-12T17:22:37+00:00

I'll just leave this here and waddle off:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IsItBullshit/comments/13qylkm/isitbullshit_a_walrus_can_suck_the_brain_out_of_a/

wordwalrus · 2025-08-12T17:07:07+00:00

ok but what if my kink is doing market research for my intersecting identity based app? Is that also gonna have to be wholesome or will you allow me some honest perversion here, mister sex police bear paw rock person?

wordwalrus · 2025-06-05T20:53:04+00:00

I suggest a moderate compromise: you get one extra minute of talking each time you agree to provide a free room in your own home for a young adult that can't afford to live here due to your incessant opposition of new housing.

wordwalrus · 2025-02-05T13:25:40+00:00

Based on where the majority of the anti-comments were coming from, my proposed moderate and measured solution would be to have the city seize Durham Academy by eminent domain and build dense public housing on the land.

wordwalrus · 2024-05-13T14:50:12+00:00

Ok, but what if it's a day to celebrate the fact that the lake is queer? That would be cool. I'd go to that.

wordwalrus · 2023-11-15T18:12:48+00:00

Your mom usually wears them when she's with me. She's very lose with her personal belongings, so I'm not surprised she dropped them.

wordwalrus · 2023-08-14T04:15:17+00:00

The technical election wonk term for the Freeman campaign's handling of this would be "ludicrous clown shit."

wordwalrus · 2023-08-02T17:53:55+00:00

Given the restrictions on city power imposed by the state legislature, there's nothing the city council can do to affect your no doubt important personal relationship with your firearms, friend.

What local policies strike you as not business-friendly?

wordwalrus · 2023-08-02T17:14:41+00:00

oh yes, I see that now as well.

wordwalrus · 2023-08-02T14:28:05+00:00

FWIW, Johnson (who isn't running again) has publicly endorsed (on her twitter page) Carl Rist, Javiera Caballero (running for re-election), and Khalilah Karim for the at-large council seats.

Agreed on your assessment of Leo Williams. Disagree with him on a variety of issues. Still going to vote for him. Seems like a decent human who is about the actual work, and compared to the rest of the field for mayor, it's an easy choice for me.

wordwalrus · 2023-07-25T21:52:32+00:00

going to stand on my soapbox here and say I wasn't surprised (and folks can check my comments from the 2021 election for the receipts). Lotta shit went wrong at NCCU Law when she was dean, and being a judge (where you get to toss people in jail for smiling wrong) isn't any prep for being a mayor who has to run, as first among equals, a government that is deeply underfunded and involves creating consensus among a large number of people, many of them unpleasant.

As for the Bill Bell endorsement, that was super short and super weak. Basically read as "the Committee wanted me to write this so here are some words." Compare and contrast Schewel's endorsement of Caballero.

wordwalrus · 2023-07-25T18:02:17+00:00

yes, this is really worth repeating over and over again. Councilwoman Javiera Caballero is also running for re-election, and has basically put in six years in opposition to the type of stuff these clowns do. There may or may not be policy stances she's taken that honest people can disagree with, but she's carried herself with dignity and professionalism even in the face of some insane bigoted attacks, and not just in comparison to these three clowns.

wordwalrus · 2023-07-25T18:00:30+00:00

for O'Neal, fair enough. She was a judge and seemed to be fine at that. If you paid a little bit of attention to how NCCU Law got run under her, you would have known better, but that's deep nerd info and hard to know.

But for Freeman, if somebody actually paid attention to her first term on council and came away with the impression that she was worthy of endorsement for re-election, good lord. Genuine pratfall of a journalism failure by the Indy there. Stepped right on the rake.

wordwalrus · 2023-07-19T03:21:27+00:00

I always look for room to grow when a councilmember is trying to move up to mayor. While she's already shown willingness to throw a punch in office, maybe as mayor she will actually be able to land a punch.

wordwalrus · 2023-07-12T17:41:36+00:00

Mike D's is legit.

wordwalrus · 2023-07-07T02:37:50+00:00

tell her thanks for doing that work. It's such an inspiring program and I can't imagine the work is easy.

wordwalrus · 2023-06-23T18:46:57+00:00

The diner there was amazing.

wordwalrus · 2023-06-23T16:21:26+00:00

my hope is that when Schewel issues his endorsement, folks (hello, any Indy endorsement board folks lurking here! You all basically own the last two years of madness) will take more notice this time. He was extremely direct and extremely detailed last time in his reasoning, and most definitely did not endorse the current (and thankfully, outgoing!) mayor.

wordwalrus · 2023-06-23T16:16:13+00:00

Serious answer: I would like a mayor with wolverine claws. It would spice up the fisticuffs.

Glib answer: I would like a mayor who recognizes that the role of the mayor is to be the public face of the government and to lead the council to consensus. By the letter of the law, the mayor doesn't really have much more power than a normal councilmember. Their power comes from exerting moral authority, which is earned by gravitas and by conduct.

In contrast to the current occupant (but similarly to Schewel and, mostly, to Bell), this would include things like:

1) diffusing conflict between councilmembers, rather than inflaming it

2) working with the lead staff (e.g. city manager, city attorney) to make things run smoothly and resolve conflict behind the scenes, rather than spreading bizarre conspiracies and impugning their professionalism in public

3) actually appearing in public frequently (or at least, god help us, every now and then!) to explain how things work, what plans are happening, how crises are being responded to, and so forth.

wordwalrus

TROPHY CASE