The CHCCS Board of Education is considering a proposal to shut down the Spanish English Dual Language program at Scroggs Elementary and transition Frank Porter Graham Elementary school into a dual language magnet school, displacing the traditional track students as well as the dedicated faculty and staff of this elementary school.

Why take these drastic steps?

The committee that generated this proposal suggests the current “School within a School” based dual language programs are too difficult to manage and can’t effectively deliver these programs so we need drastic action.

The committee also suggests we need to provide equitable access to the Spanish Dual Language programs to all students across our district and a magnet school solves both of these issues.

Hold on and read the fine print!

The committee also recommends the Spanish Dual Language program at Carrboro Elementary remain intact, running in parallel to the magnet school, with students admitted to Carrboro’s Dual language program through a system-wide lottery in the same way as they are for the magnet school.

So the committee acknowledges the district can provide dual language education to students across the district using a “School within a School” approach.

The committee and board still, however, suggest that a magnet school is a superior method for delivery of this educational program. How then is this plan equitable?

If a magnet school is superior to community school-based “school within a school” programs, then who decides which students go to the superior program at the new magnet and which students go to the inferior program at Carrboro elementary?

If the magnet school isn’t really superior, then why are we even considering dismantling any school in this district to start one instead of fixing and expanding the programs we already have?

Beth Duncan

Affordable housing stripped from plan

I have always appreciated the Town Council’s persistence in working for all types of affordable housing, including workforce housing suitable for families, including Chapel Hill teachers and emergency service personnel.

I was very encouraged by the positive comments made about Charterwood’s proposal for workforce type housing on Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard.

In particular, Councilperson Bell stated that she “appreciated talking about affordable housing in a meaningful way.”

Mayor Kleinschmidt asserted, on Sepember 26, 2011, that he “did not want payments in lieu, I want units.” He went on to say that “If a payment in lieu was made, I want more than what is necessary, we must set a high bar on payments in lieu.”

Then, a bait and switch was made. Charterwood’s developer kept on selling this project as a place that would be available for purchase for our citizens who are of moderate means.

However, in the latest proposal, the development is a high-end luxury apartment complex, with no affordable units and no payment in lieu at all.

I hope that the entire Council, and especially Ms. Bell and Mr. Kleinschmidt stick to their guns and vote against Charterwood, because the only positive part of the development was eliminated.

Maggie Underberg

Chapel Hill

Fracking risks too great

Dear Speaker Tillis and members of the House:

I understand that many citizens visited Raleigh on Tuesday to discuss hydraulic fracturing with members of the General Assembly and that the General Assembly continues to move forward expeditiously with green lighting hydraulic fracturing in North Carolina.

Why?

It can’t be the huge amount of jobs.

According to the seven-year economic model presented in the state’s report, approximately 387 jobs would be created on average in the Sanford sub-basin with a start of 59 jobs and a peak of 858. (Wal Mart employs over 51,000 people in North Carolina.)

Heck, even Chatham County Schools employs far more people. And according to statistics from the Chatham County Economic Development Corporation the retirement community Carolina Meadows employs over 350 people. Perhaps with the graying of America we should shift our support to these type of facilities – certainly the job potential is there.

However, the jury is still out on the process of “fracking” and we should take our time. Prudence over haste should be our motto.

And North Carolina is not even a player on the “national shale play maps.” Recently, Assistant N.C. State Geologist Kenneth Taylor told The Charlotte Observer that “the state likely has 2 trillion cubic feet of accessible natural gas. That’s a nearly negligible amount compared to boom areas like the Marcellus Shale, which is estimated to have 250 trillion to 500 trillion cubic feet.”

So for far less than the reserves that other areas have, why risk our lovely areas in the Piedmont and potentially harm water in the Cape Fear watershed? What’s the rush?

If we want to be bold then consider supporting more photovoltaic, more use of woody-biomass, tapping into the huge amount of proven wind reserves on the coast and in the mountains and supporting waste to energy technologies such as pyrolysis and plasma gasification.

All of the aforementioned ideas will have less of an environmental impact, offer little risk of damaging water supplies, lower external costs, and no risk to the Jonesboro faultline near Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant.

Prudence over haste – certainly a path worth exploring regarding “fracking.”

Mayor Randy Voller

Randy Voller is Mayor of Pittsboro

Pedestrians in peril

We have pedestrians in town who must cross streets. The crossing of the street by pedestrians will happen regardless of whether or not a crossing facility exists.

What a crossing place does is remind drivers that pedestrians need to cross the street safely. It adds predictability to the system.

Removing a crossing facility is not going to remove the pedestrian. MLK has bus stops on both sides where pedestrians must cross. There are actually not enough of the island type crossing strips. There should be one at every bus stop in town.

Even with a cross-walk, pedestrians are not safe crossing the street because drivers want to go faster than is safe for pedestrians. That is because drivers are going faster than 35 mph.

Unfortunately, we do not have a police department that is enforcing traffic to go below 35 mph as they should. It is true that I have even witnessed police cruisers going 40 mph-plus on Estes Drive near to where we live. This is dangerous.

Drivers also have the mistaken impression that a posted speed of 35 means that they can safely go 40 mph. This is also not true. Because drivers automatically interpret speed limits in this way, the posted speed for in-town roads should be 30 mph or less.

Any speed over 35 mph and drivers will not stop in time for a pedestrian. If Chapel Hill wants to stop being a death trap for pedestrians, who have every right to be crossing roads in town, all traffic in town speed, in actuality, must be strictly enforced to remain under 35 mph.

It is state law that drivers must stop any time a pedestrian is inside a crosswalk near them. Very few drivers are doing this.

We have this problem on all the busy roads in town, including parts of 15-501 between shopping centers and neighborhoods. Because it is unlikely that we want to slow traffic on some of these busy roads, like 15-501, we should be considering strategically placed pedestrian tunnels.

Sarah McIntee

Chapel Hill