After the members of Chapel Hill's new visioning task force looked around the table and saw only white faces looking back, they decided to take a mulligan.

The town established the Sustainable Community Visioning Task Force earlier this year to help decide how Chapel Hill should evolve over the next decade. But before even beginning its real work the 18-member group last week decided to put itself on hiatus while it tries to find a few members from more varied demographic groups.

The delay is another pebble in the road for a project that has gotten off to a bit of a lurching start. But it's the right call.

The initiative does have a deadline; it's supposed to have its recommendations ready for the Town Council in November. But that timetable isn't so pressing that it precludes making a good-faith effort to build a group that better reflects the town whose future it is charged with helping to shape.

It's worth taking the time and making the effort to actively recruit members from more diverse segments of the population -- and not just in terms of race, but also in terms of age, economic status and other factors.

Obviously, you're never going to wind up with a task force that exactly, or even very closely, mirrors the demographic pie chart of Chapel Hill. But certainly we can try to come closer than the existing makeup, which includes no one of color and almost no one under 40.

The task force didn't wind up all white through any nefarious shenanigans, by the way. Thirty-one people applied for spots on the task force. None of them were minorities.

Sometimes that happens. But when it does, on a group whose scope of study covers the whole town, it's appropriate to try again. The task force is seeking up to six more members.

What if nobody else volunteers? You can't keep trying to diversify the membership forever. At that point the task force has to play with the team it has on the floor, making a particular effort to weigh the perspectives of all corners of the community.

Agree or disagree?

We've told you our view on this issue. Now we want to know what you think. Send a comment of 75 words or less with the subject line "Agree or Disagree" to Dave Hart, associate editor, at dhart@nando.com. We'll print your responses here next week.

Last week we said that the work of building a nation that reflects the values embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution continues, and that encouraging progress in that effort is evident in recent developments such as the election of Barack Obama and the crumbling of institutionalized discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans. Here's one reader's response:

Profoundly disagree. Your interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and The Declaration of Independence is obviously completely different then mine, and you are wrong. Obama, and other liberals, are marching the country down a statist path, one the Founding Fathers would abhor. Collectivist policies such as Cap & Trade and government health care are not what I would describe as policies advocating freedom. Government has grown far beyond the legitimate functions allowed in the Consitution.

Jerry O'Donnell

Chapel Hill