What local government did, 9–15 August

Speakers from a Chatham County climate group told Pittsboro's commissioners on Monday the 10th that the town has joined its own developer in asking a judge to force the group to hand over its full membership list, and that they had learned hours earlier the order was granted. The group is suing over the Chatham Park South Village small area plan. They also said the town's court filings and discovery requests have followed the developer's word for word. Three of the five speakers that night came to say it. The board does not respond during public comment as a matter of policy, and did not.

The same meeting approved the Hydrotube rezoning, a former hydraulic fitting plant on US 15-501 that is a brownfield. A commissioner asked whether the town takes on liability by rezoning contaminated land; staff said that turns on public health and welfare and the town attorney, who was not there. The applicant has a redevelopment plan filed with the state that has not yet been accepted.

Apex had the heaviest land use night of the week on Tuesday: five annexations on the consent agenda and two more at public hearing. Fuquay-Varina's Board of Adjustment took a special use permit, Garner's Planning Commission sent two recommendations up to its council, and Hillsborough authorized a water and sewer extension. Two speakers at Pittsboro, both for the home builders, said the town's development ordinance rewrite is moving too fast to comment on — the same objection its planning board heard in July.

It was also a week of governments meeting each other. Durham County's commissioners sat with the city council and the school board on Tuesday, and had held a hearing the day before on the evaluation and assessment report behind its comprehensive plan. Wake County's commissioners met jointly with the school system's board on Wednesday, having spent Monday's work session preparing for it. Those sittings rarely decide anything, which is why they are easy to miss, and they are where three budgets get reconciled before any of them is voted on.

25 boards met across 12 governments, with 197 agenda items on file.

Written when 29 of this week's meetings had posted an agenda; 27 have now. The counts below are current.