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C. Fray

@cfrayforcarrboro.bsky.social

520 followers 380 following 230 posts

Town of Carrboro councilmember, land use nerd, plant dork, fandom lurker, non-binary (they/them)

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C. Fray @cfrayforcarrboro.bsky.social · Nov 27

This conflict - we love our artists and musicians but don't build enough places for them to live - or teachers, firefighters, restaurant workers, grad students, or anyone else who doesn't have money! - is why I ran for council.

Want to help fix it? Let's talk!

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C. Fray @cfrayforcarrboro.bsky.social · 9h

@triangleblogblog.bsky.social alas, you've been scooped

Ollie Connolly @ollieconnolly.bsky.social · 10h

Per sources: Bill Belichick has discussed buyout options with North Carolina’s hierarchy. Belichick has signaled a willingness to trigger his own $1 million buyout if he can find a soft landing with another team or in media

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C. Fray @cfrayforcarrboro.bsky.social · 15h

Hey Charlie, I don't know any more about that than you do. Carrboro's current ordinance doesn't take the same approach as Chapel Hill's so I'm not up to the latest on state IZ case law.

C. Fray @cfrayforcarrboro.bsky.social · 17h

...to the towns or county. That can be a mess when something like TS Chantal stresses the system because there's no one place for folks to turn.

All the jurisdictions need to do better at their piece and collaborate better to improve this situation.

C. Fray @cfrayforcarrboro.bsky.social · 17h

...(long story) there. But Chapel Hill isn't recently in the business of building new public housing. Instead both towns use carrots to entice private developers to build new affordable homes. And there's a big patchwork of non-profits that provide things like emergency shelter & social services...

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C. Fray @cfrayforcarrboro.bsky.social · 17h

One thing that stands out to me is how fragmented responsibility for low-income affordable housing is under state law.

County handles social services, including housing, but relies on towns for supply. Towns control zoning. Town of Chapel Hill is the public housing authority for the county...

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C. Fray @cfrayforcarrboro.bsky.social · 17h

This explainer is very helpful for other NC municipalities too, including Carrboro.

All of this applies to us except we don't have wards (all council members are at-large), do much less annexation in recent years, and aren't as closely aligned to Orange County gov.

INDY Week @indyweek.bsky.social · 17h

With municipal elections underway in Durham, here’s a primer on city council, what power the council has, and places where council power is limited.

A Durham City Council Explainer

With municipal elections underway in Durham, here’s a primer on city council, what power the council has, and places where council power is limited.

indyweek.com

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Basav @basavsen.bsky.social · 18h

Sticking with car dependence is a failure of imagination, particularly when the wide range of benefits of ending car dependence is so clear.

Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 1d

“In a city once choked with cars and infamous for its traffic snarls, Paris has pulled off a remarkable turnaround…the French capital has officially become Europe’s best city for children to walk, cycle, and move around independently.” Via @momentummag.bsky.social

A victory for FAST leadership.

Paris Pedals to the Top: How the City of Light Became Europe’s Best for Young Cyclists

The French capital has officially become Europe’s best city for children to walk, cycle, and move around independently

momentummag.com

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Evil Orc Heart @evanurquhart.bsky.social · 1d

My most optimistic opinion is that the combination of cheap AI-generated fake news and major legacy news orgs taking a torch to their reputations is going to create huge opportunities for independent journalists who maintain a reputation for honest, ethical reporting.

Nora Reed (they/them ze/hir) @nora.zone · 1d

it's hard to talk about this without sounding braggy but you can get pretty far as a business with sincerity and trust, mostly because so many goddamn businesses burn up that kind of intangible resource as soon as they get it, and everything is so dire right now that people are hungry for trust

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Jason Thorne @jasonthorne.bsky.social · 2d

The Venn diagram of urban density and average household GHG emissions is pretty much a circle. Interesting study on “Mapping household GHG emissions in the Greater Golden Horseshoe” from the University of Toronto School of Cities schoolofcities.utoronto.ca/mapping-hous...

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C. Fray @cfrayforcarrboro.bsky.social · 1d

No meaningful free recycling that I know of, but several places that will take ragged Ts for a small flat fee and turn them into things like insulation. Marine Layer is one example.

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Adam L Tate @altate.bsky.social · 2d

This! Paris is a model for the rest of us to follow. I’ll be writing an article soon about how Anne Hidalgo’s efforts there have been some of the best urban planning policies of the decade.

Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 4d

According to the City of Paris, in the last 10 years 150K trees have been planted & 45ha of parks created in the already hot city, all intended to not only improve quality-of-life today, but also help the city adapt to & manage summer heatwaves of 50℃ (122F) by 2050.

Just the start.

Common sense.

Paris before and after street transformation

New urban forest planted in front of Paris City Hall

A Paris “School Street” where cars are removed and people space/tree planting are added

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love & barley 🐸🌶️🪏🎃 @loveandbarley.bsky.social · 2d

give greta thunberg a gundam

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Assigned Media @assignedmedia.org · 2d

6 Oct 2025 -- 16-person Aussie team publish a killer take-down of The Cass Review in the prestigious Australian Medical Journal titled, Cass Review Does Not Guide Care for Trans Young People ("lacking expertise & compromised by implicit stigma & misinformation..." @rikiwilchins.bsky.social

Cass Review does not guide care for trans young people

Good medicine is guided by the values of the patient, not those of a clinician, politician or commentator. The Cass Review, lacking expertise and compromised by implicit stigma and misinformation, doe...

www.mja.com.au

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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 4d

After a "suspension" of just a few days, UNC Professor Dwayne Dixon is re-instated, revealing the weakness of the fabricated issues used for the suspension. Here is his response. Stand up to the fascists--when we work together we can triumph.

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Dr Farbod @emergencybod.medsky.social · 4d

The Battle of Cable Street.

A thread 🧵 with pictures and ALT text.

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On this day in 1936, the East End of London rose up against fascism. The Battle of Cable Street.

#TheyShallNotPass #NoPasaran

A packed East End street in 1936: thousands of anti-fascist residents filling the road and pavements, shopfronts behind them.

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C. Fray @cfrayforcarrboro.bsky.social · 4d

Faux "soft serve". Freeze the paw paw pulp, then put 15 oz of it into a food processor with a can of sweetened condensed milk and beat a bunch of air into it. Freeze for an hour before serving.

Complements the tropical flavor & smooth consistency, less work than real ice cream.

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digby @digby56.bsky.social · 6d

So the WH is belatedly realizing that the huge ACA price spikes might be a tiny bit problematic. But they're refusing to negotiate until the government is re-opened.

Why on earth would the Dems agree to vote for that CR on the GOP's word that they'll "negotiate?" Lol.

Advisers are worried that the GOP will take the blame for allowing healthcare subsidies to expire, raising costs for millions of Americans ahead of next year’s midterm elections, according to administration officials.

Inside the White House, aides are discussing proposals to extend the enhanced subsidies for Affordable Care Act health-insurance plans, the officials said. Trump hasn’t yet decided whether he will endorse such a proposal, according to the officials. Republicans say they will only hold negotiations with Democrats on the matter after the government is reopened.

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Shepherd @neolithicsheep.bsky.social · 9d

Not just the subsidies are at stake. Language that would ban healthcare facilities that receive federal funds from providing transition care must be expunged. Call your Dem senators and reps and tell them to protect trans people.

🎃 public HELLth guy 🎃 @publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 9d

good lord, dick durbin wants democrats to give up their only remaining leverage this year for an *informal commitment* from republicans. www.semafor.com/article/09/2...

For instance, some Democrats indicated they could be open to funding the government with simply a commitment from Thune to extend health care subsidies in the coming days.
"It would be a real mark of progress. I hope that's considered by him. That's progress, as far as I'm concerned; whether it's enough, I can't say," said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-II. "If we're not sitting down talking about ending this responsibility and helping people deal with health care, it's going to be a rocky road."

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Melissa Bowman @dtkmelissa.bsky.social · 9d

Andy Boenau argues, "Today, status quo planners use the same city building framework from decades ago, so it should be no surprise that communities across the country are still dealing with the same headaches Jacobs highlighted. In 2025, local planning regulations… buff.ly/6g1CPxf

Text: Prevent mixed-use neighborhoods. The combinations of housing, shops, and civic spaces that people love about old neighborhoods are outlawed.

Prohibit housing variety. The vast majority of residential zones only allow detached, single-unit homes, rather than legalizing different types and sizes.

Prioritize automobiles. Roads are planned and prioritized for long-distance, high-speed rush hour traffic at the expense of safe, multimodal transportation systems.

Impose “we know best” rules. Planners decide how tall buildings can be, how far they must sit from the street, how many parking spaces they must have—all based on pseudoscience or hot takes from neighbors.

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JB_AU @jbau.bsky.social · 10d

This whole section really.

Finally: AI cannot do your job, but an AI salesman can 100% convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job, and when the bubble bursts, the money-hemorrhaging "foundation models" will be shut off and we'll lose the AI that can't do your job, and you will be long gone, retrained or retired or "discouraged" and out of the labor market, and no one will do your job.
AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations:

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Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.social · 9d

Here's one of Barcelona's famous superillas, or superblocks, on Rocafort-Consell de Cent. All of this used to be asphalt and space for moving and storing cars. Now it's green, quiet, calm, and safe.

paved sidewalk with grey squares next to green space on left and cafe tables and trees on right.

Light brown sand/park with trees overhead.

Grey pavement and green space and picnic tables.

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eke @eke.bsky.social · 10d

i love this part and i think it very much shows the difference in depth of thinking between someone like Klein, desperately fighting in the here-and-now and arguing to win a battle with compromise, versus Coates' position that he is a soldier in a long war.

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Jeremy Markovich @ncrabbithole.com · 13d

For the Rabbit Hole this week, @jessicawakeman.bsky.social talked to the woman who delivered information to the public during Hurricane Helene about what she saw and heard behind the scenes. www.ncrabbithole.com/p/the-woman-...

The Woman Who Spoke to a Broken Asheville

During Hurricane Helene, Lillian Govus was thrown into a role that she never thought she’d have. A year later, she talks about the trauma she saw, and the trauma she endured.

www.ncrabbithole.com

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Alexandra Lanes @ajlanes.bsky.social · Aug 28

This, from the Quakers, is a pretty good example of how to resist pressure from bigot lobbying groups. Effectively “we legally can allow trans people to use the loo, we morally should, and we tried it and nothing bad happened”

www.quaker.org.uk

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Jonathan Berk 🏠 @berkie1.bsky.social · 10d

“Regulations that hinder building or add costs should be reexamined… State policy makers should, in consultation with developers & fire safety professionals, change the state building code to allow more single- stair construction.”
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/28/o...

Do apartment buildings really need two stairwells? - The Boston Globe

Fire safety advances have made single-stair construction safer.

www.bostonglobe.com

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