TO THE EDITOR:
On Monday night, I observed the embarrassing performance of the Chapel Hill Town Council in addressing the controversial issue of political ads in Chapel Hill Transit buses.
The council adopted a policy in June 2011 that did not allow political and religious ads in buses. My understanding is that several months ago the town, in contravention of this policy, accepted ads from the Church of Reconciliation to ban U.S. military aid to Israel.
It was discovered soon after that the policy required the source of the ads be included on the ads (but not that the ads were prohibited — per the adopted policy). The ads were removed and replaced with ads that identified the church as the source.
About a month ago, seemingly in a preemptive action to prevent the posting of a rumored offensive ad, the staff discovered that the adopted policy did not allow acceptance of political or religious ads.
As an admirer of the professionalism and competence of the town staff for more than 25 years, I find this public explanation for the sequence of events troubling.
On Oct. 24 the mayor brought a petition, adopted 6-1, to kick the can down the road by allowing the church’s ad to remain but to ban all new ads and revisit the issue on Nov. 5.
On Nov. 5, the council met to consider several resolutions presented by the town attorney that included banning all ads, banning political and religious ads and removing the church’s ad and allowing the buses to become public forums by allowing all ads.
After public comments from a couple of dozen citizens, the council, after some discussion, again decided to kick the can down the road to a future meeting.
