Dear Friends,

         I’ve been writing letters to people like Ellie Kinnard, an NC State Senator, Moses Carey, the Orange County Commissioner, and Sally Greene who is on the Chapel Hill Town Council.

       My writings on those issues have been directed at the operations of the local airport IGX, Horace Williams, the plight of the homeless and what to do about it, and advancing wherever possible the prospects for local motion picture production.

      I had a nice talk with Diane Reed because Moses Carey told me to call her about what is done with money collected in the county from motel and hotel room taxes.

       My question to Commissioner Carey was, "How much money does the County get from taxes on hotel and motel rooms, and what is done with it?"

       Apparently according to Ms. Reed there are only 1300 hotel and motel rooms in Orange County and the budget for her office of tourism is only 400 to 500 thousand dollars a year.

      As far as the initiative to elimanate homelessness as much as is possible and practical, I would like to see homeless people exempted from paying taxes when they get the money together to stay in a motel or hotel room as a little thing that would help them.

       I did discover that State Employees get a special rate when they stay in hotels and motels in the state, and think that the homeless ought rightly get that rate as well, as a little help to them.

      Now it does appear that most of the money that the Tourism Board gets from taxes on hotel rooms and motel rooms in Orange County is spent on brochures and the like.

       I have suggested that at the least Bill Arnold of the State Film Commission have such publications in his pocket and packet of "literature" when he goes with his staff to LA to lobby for film productions to come to the State and work.

      Further I think that although brochures and flyers have some utility, they would be more effective in conjunction with an event or events that draw the people who run desirable businesses such as motion picture production, physically to the area, of their own volition.

      Them guys from LA play Golf, and whenever they come to NC to work they bring their Golf Clubs.   I did convince Mr. Arnold and his staff to at least give away passes to great Golf Courses in the State of NC whenever they go out there to LA to Lobby for Business.

       For years now I have been trying to get an ABOVE THE LINE INVITATIONAL GOLF FISBEE GOLF TOURNAMENT instituted in the State of North Carolina, somewhere.

       When I lived in Guilford County I found out that significant amounts of money do end up in the County Coffers that could be used to finance such an event.   This is apparently common to most Counties, that money collected from taxes on hotel and motel rooms goes in some degree to the County Tourism Boards.

       I am trying to get some County to put up the money to institute such an event that builds on inherent strength and desirablity of the existing infrastructure in conjunction to "incentives", or what I call bribes.

       There are some good Golf Courses in Orange County, and as well some of the premier Disc Golf Courses in the Nation along side of them that I feel ought to be advertised and utilized so as to attract the people and players we need for a mature Motion Picture Industry to thrive in the State of North Carolina.

      Really I do not think that brochures are enough.

      People like to go to places they see in the movies and on TV, so I want to see a televised Golf Tournament for Motion Picture Producers, Actors, and Writers somewhere in the State, and since I live in Orange County, I’d like to see it happen where I live, since it might help me continue to live here.

      On the issue of the airport, Horace Williams, it is not run in a way that I approve of for it is run as if it is a private airport owned by the University of North Carolina, and it is not by law a private airport, but really a community airport.

      Landlocked localities need their own airport.

      Really it is odd to me that the County Commissioners and the Town Council of Chapel Hill and Carrboro have so completly abdicated their responsiblities as far as the asset that is the only airport in the County.

      I’ve worked to change their view of this asset so that the airport is acknowledged as important to the infrastructure and benefits the working people of the County in all of the ways it could as an Economic Multiplier.

       In the meantime I’m coming apart from lack of income to finance the healthcare I need.   I’m also coming apart due to the hard physical work I’ve drifted to doing in construction because that is the regular work I have been able to find.

       So it is time that I did focus a bit more on my own work, which is writing, and to that end I have started to refocus on my new novel Force of Nature.

       I rewrote and posted into the Poetry Section of transcendia.org, the first Chapter today, and I hope you will read it along with subsequent chapters as I may post them.

       I am tempted to run for either Mayor of Carrboro, or County Commissioner, and have been working on a platform worthy of support.

       Whatever Platform I codify in coming weeks will be based on what I understand as important for the Working Classes.   In general I am certain that a fully developed infrastructure is vital to the health of the overall anarchistic capitalistic economy, and that that means energy, police, schools, healthcare, roads, and water.

       I will refine the order and methods in subsequent postings as I serialize this novel that is on my mind.   I hope you will keep up with both, and welcome imput on the political subjects I turn to when I am not feeling particularly entertaining.

                                         Love, Russell Scott Day

Founder of Transcendia