Locke linguists demystify plannerspeak

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CORRECTION

An item in the Triangle Politics column Saturday on Page 3B gave an incorrect last name for a UNC-Chapel Hill education professor who presented research on school diversity at a Great Schools in Wake forum. Her name is Kathleen Brown.

****** Raleigh is overhauling its development code, a huge undertaking that will offer a guide for how the city grows in coming years. It includes policies for everything from how private property can be zoned to the width of sidewalks.

Thrilling, right?

Well, the people over at the John Locke Foundation made things slightly more interesting this week when they issued a conservative's glossary to the jargon that city planners are known to throw around.

Affordable housing? Just an "extortion scheme to force homebuilders to sell their houses at below market prices."

Growth? Try "city development that satisfies the whims of planners and special interests."

Subdivisions? Those are really "revealed consumer preferences in neighborhoods, which planners dislike intensely."

Anyone looking for more of the John Locke Foundation's take on things can find the glossary at www.johnlocke.org. And if you want to know more about the development code, go to the city's Web site at www.newraleighcode.com.

We'd recommend grabbing some caffeine before digging in too deep.

UNC-Google Hill?

Chapel Hill Town Councilman Gene Pease had a suggestion Monday night for how the town might win a grant from Google to install super-high-speed fiber-optic Internet service in town.

Chapel Hill is competing with hundreds of other communities across the United States to host Google's pilot program, which could provide Internet speeds 100 times as fast as most commercially available options.

"I wonder how UNC at Google Hill sounds," Pease said. "It's just a thought."

Prof is a school parent

A story in Thursday's paper about a group of education professors urging the Wake County school board to maintain the current diversity strategy prompted several readers to refer to the academics as ivory-tower types who wouldn't know their way around a public school if they ever dropped in on one.

The story neglected to mention that panelist Kathleen Hall, a professor in UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Education, has not only worked as a teacher and school administrator, but also has two sons attending Durham public schools. They ride the busevery morning.

Political trails

The Western Wake Republican Club is meeting from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Monday at Bentley's American Grill, 2007 Walnut St. in Cary.

The public is encouraged to attend the first meeting of the Raleigh Human Relations Commission's "Many Faces, One Community" series at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Chavis Community Center, 505 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Topics will include the increasing racial diversity in the United States as well as other demographic trends, such as growing numbers of elderly and single-person households. The human relations commission, an advisory committee to the Raleigh City Council, is working on a recommendation about how the city can better engage residents.

The Western Wake Democrats meet at 7 p.m. March 30, at the Glenaire Retirement Community, 4000 Glenaire Circle in Cary. Speaking will be Ken Lewis, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.

The Wake Democratic Men's Club will meet from 6 to 8 p.m. April 12 at the Clarion Hotel, 320 Hillsborough St. in Raleigh. A $16 dinner will be served.

Please call828-5656 or send e-mail to wakedemmen@wakedems.org for reservations.

The meeting is open to Democrats of both sexes.

Compiled by staff writers Thomas Goldsmith, Sarah Ovaska and Jesse James DeConto.