Citizen

• Loida, at right in this photo from Day 6, was hospitalized last night. Rosario is at left.

One of the three young women on a hunger strike for immigration reform was hospitalized last night, apparently due to heat stroke. (Update: Just before noon, WRAL reported that Loida was treated and released from the hospital and is resting at home.) A fellowship event scheduled for 8 pm tonight — Monday — will go on as scheduled at their encampment. It's at the southeast corner of Lane and Wilmington Streets in Raleigh, very close to the Legislative Office Building.

An announcement came in today from the N.C. Justice Center:

Hunger Striker Hospitalized
Announcements about the strike will be made tonight at 8 p.m.

RALEIGH (June 28) — Loida, one of three women on a hunger strike until Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) co-sponsors the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act was hospitalized last night after suffering what appeared to be a heat stroke.

Several supporters were among her when she fell ill. Friends and family are with her at this time. While we cannot offer specifics to the press this morning, a full update will be given this evening at 8:00PM at the campsite, located at the intersection of Wilmington Street and Lane Street in downtown Raleigh.

The NC DREAM Team, composed of the hunger strikers and their immediate supporters, had previously scheduled a fellowship event open to the public at the campsite for 8 p.m. Some of this time will now be devoted to updating press and all concerned community members about Loida’s situation and everything that has happened with the hunger strike thus far. We will still be accepting visitors to the campsite.

Any major announcements about the strike will be made tonight.

Efforts to schedule a meeting with the senator have not been successful. Last week, Senator Hagan announced that she would not support the DREAM Act, but it is unclear if she opposes it simply as a stand-alone bill or even if it were included as part of a broader immigration reform measure.

• What's My Name Amphitheater

The downtown amphitheater in Raleigh won't be the BLA after all. The state ABC says it can't be named for Bud Light or any other booze item. Doggone it, the BLA seemed so perfect.

$300,000 a year times 5 years = $1.5 million down the drain.

What are we bid for your name [HERE] on the city's new amphitheater?

More on this from Grayson Currin on the Triangulator blog.

In honor of Bud.

Light.

After all, who's done more to make this a great city than —

Never mind.

(Did they ask PBR? Now there's a name.)

Thoughts?

Groundbreaking for the new Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) is set for Tuesday, May 11 at 5 p.m. All I can say is — how do you spell S-wheat?

One of the first stories I did as a freelancer for the Indy was about Raleigh Mayor Tom Fetzer and his band of "Annie" fans on the City Council, who'd killed funding for the old CAM (back then, it was a gallery on Moore Square). '97 or so. (Pre-web days; it's not online.) They didn't like contemporary, obviously. They preferred tried-and-true — with Jesse Helm the last word on true.

Not long before, Fetzer, aided and abetted by then-Councilor Paul Coble, Helms' kin, had so frightened the arts community here that sponsors "voluntarily" cancelled a touring company's performances of "La Cage Aux Folles." Too gay.

Re-runs of "Annie" were quickly substituted.

Kids, those were dark daze in Raleigh back then.

Mayor Fetzer has gone on to greater fame, of course, as the state Republican Party's chairman. Councilor Coble, later Mayor Coble, is now Wake County Commissioner Coble.

Meantime, CAM soldiered on as a "virtual" organization and never gave up. Now, it's back, thanks in major part to Mayor Charles Meeker's support along with virtually every other City Council member since Meeker ousted Coble in the 2001 election.

Meeker brags on the CAM some in this press release, as he should:

Raleigh’s Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) will officially break ground at its future home, 409 W. Martin Street, on Tuesday, May 11, 2010, at 5:00 p.m. The renovated 20,000 sq. ft. historic warehouse-turned-museum will serve as the only non-collecting museum of contemporary art + design in North Carolina.

Jay Gates, CAM Interim Director, City of Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker and Dean Marvin Malecha, NC State College of Design, will lead the ceremony. Predicts Mayor Meeker: “The opening of the Contemporary Art Museum will be key to the revitalization of Raleigh’s Warehouse District. Its location near the City’s Convention Center and planned Union Station Transit Center, in addition to its innovative art and design exhibitions, will make the new museum an important cultural destination for our region.”

More from CAM is below:

Saturday morning dawns, and Morgan Street is now 2-way all the way from downtown to the new roundabout at Hillsborough Street. No more "Do Not Enter" sign going west when you come to St. Mary's.

Slowly but surely, emphasis on slowly, the city is converting our downtown one-way raceways to two-way urban streets. The former: Good for cars in a hurry to get out of Dodge. The latter: Good for pedestrians, dogs, residents and what, for lack of a better term, are known as walkable neighborhoods. (How about just neighborhoods?)

In other words, slow is good.

The completion of the Hillsborough Street—Morgan Street roundabout, and the conversion of Morgan Street, sets the stage for downtown Raleigh's latest rezoning case, involving the nearly 7-acre "Bolton tract" and Charlotte-based developers FMZ. (Note: That's the old Bolton building on the right in the picture; the acreage is around and behind it.)

This is in the area that city planners attempted to attach to the downtown Central Business District last year when the new comprehensive plan was in play. Neighbors in the adjourning Pullen Park, West Morgan and Cameron Park neighborhoods (I live in Cameron Park) pushed back, one fellow calling it "the monster's head" because of the shape the DT-CBD would've had if given a big neck and head (the Bolton tract) out to the west. City Council then made the Bolton property and West Morgan the subject of a special "small area study" that is underway to determine what the character of this area should be.

Before the study is finished, however, FMZ has filed to rezone most of the Bolton tract for an apartment project along the lines of the 712 Tucker Street development.

Fodder for another day. On a lovely Saturday morning, it's enough to say that this is one of downtown Raleigh's most important, strategic locations. It's halfway from downtown to the NCSU campus. It's on one of Raleigh's busiest bus routes. It's close to the spot where a streetcar line might someday run if — a big if — we ever get a light-rail system going in Raleigh and IF — another big if — the line comes out of the rail corridor behind Central Prison and runs into and out of the downtown along West Morgan Street.

What should be built at such a strategic location? A strategic location, I'd add, that has been sitting fallow for years and years — one of the first meetings I attended in Raleigh after moving here 23 years ago concerned the future of the already-vacant Bolton Corporation property.

As a neighbor, I'm involved in the planning exercise. So whatever I have to say about it and the rezoning case should be understood in that context: This is a great chance for Raleigh to move forward as a city with the right kind of development in a key location, but it's obviously not a great time to get any sort of development anywhere ... so how should we proceed?

There are at least four good reasons to be downtown between 10 am and 2 pm Wednesday. One, the return of Wednesday Farmers Markets. Two, a Pig Pickin' courtesy of The Pit. (What goes better with fresh vegetables than, uh, pig?) Three, Old Habits is playing. Four, it's in City Plaza, which — if you haven't gotten down to see it yet — is a big downtown plus.

Oh, and make that five: Mayor Meeker's remarks are at 11:15.

It's all in the press blab from the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, which is copied below the fold.

• Photo: Mark Turner

And for the first time ever, ever, it'll be held in the southeastern U.S., where WWW traditionally stood for wrestling until Raleigh, NC become the center of the creative universe. (Thanks, Sparkcon!)

That's right, the WWW2010 will be in Raleigh at the Convention Center starting Monday, April 26 through Friday, April 30.

With Google, Yahoo, Lulu and all your other favorite internet characters.

See more below or check the website.