Chapel Hill Town Council discussed new fire station, heard petitions from residents in Monday night meeting

Minutes into Monday's Chapel Hill Town Council business meeting, UPS employee Dianne Edwards gave an emotional plea for help after she claimed UPS repeatedly abused her and other UPS employees.

“Our problems are profound. I’m a 28-year employee, and I’ve been terminated 33 times,” she said. “One time was after I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.”

Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger said she was sorry Robinson had experienced troubles and that the council would send along resources that she and other UPS workers could use to get help. Chapel Hill Town Council Member Donna Bell agreed, telling Robinson to let the council know when UPS members rally or unionize, so that council members can show up and support them. 

Following petitions from citizens, the council moved into the first item on its agenda, the construction of a second fire station in Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill Fire Chief Matthew Sullivan took the podium to convince the town to help pay for the station.

“We believe that we can build this fire station with a town contribution of, let me emphasize this, an amount up to $1 million,” he said.

After council members asked how he had managed to get the projected contribution to $1 million, Sullivan said he wanted the station to serve its purpose rather than have a lavish appearance.

“We want this to be a good-looking building, but, at the same time, be a quality building that will serve the people with priority,” he said.

The council also heard a presentation on the allocation of Human Services funding. Priority areas for the current allocation of $400,501 are disadvantaged areas, youth and health and nutrition.

Chapel Hill Town Council Member Michael Parker said going forward, he wants to better organize which organizations receive funds and how much they receive.

“The way we do things right now is there’s, you know, a limit established and then the Advisory Board comes with a list that meets that number,” he said. “Going forward, if they could give us a sort of prioritized list, so that we don’t have to arbitrarily do it, that would be better."

Towards the end of the meeting a representative from Orange County Habitat for Humanity, Executive Director of EmPOWERment Inc. Delores Bailey and Executive Director of Community Home Trust Robert Dowling spoke about the importance of their work.

Bell praised all three nonprofits for their help housing the disadvantaged in the community.

“There are communities that make it normalized that if you have a home, you are able to do certain things, which is not true,” she said. “If we want to do something other than house people, then having this consolidation of both funds and energies to provide a greater circle of care is what that requires.”

Notable: The meeting began with a color guard ceremony that honored veterans present in the audience to celebrate Veterans Day, which is Nov. 11.

Quotable: “I’d just like to ask anyone who is registered to vote and hasn’t already to do so tomorrow. No matter who you’re voting for, just vote, and exercise that right,” Chapel Hill Town Council Member George Cianciolo said.

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