Cary, NC – We try to talk about the happy news in town, but these are some saddening pictures. Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. The dog saved the family. (more…)

Cary, NC – Like a patch of crab grass, CaryCitizen continues to spread into new areas of town.

STATISTICS

It’s a techie town we live in and everybody loves stats. Late in January, CaryCitizen topped 50,000 total page views. We’ve grown to over 15,000 page views a month. We also passed our six month anniversary and have posted over 300 stories about Cary thus far.

WHAT WAS POPULAR

Snow was a popular topic. We ran a great slide show of snow pictures from around town via Flickr.

The scandal at Impact Athletics continues to be a story with legs. Owner Frank D’Alonzo was arrested in New Jersey on 14 counts of embezzlement including collecting health care payments from employees after he’d canceled the policy.

3-time Olympic Gold Medalist Ryan Lochte’s visit to Triangle Aquatic Center sparked a lot of interest. Didn’t hurt that he’s better looking than teammate Michael Phelps.

TAGS: A NEW WAY TO FIND STORIES

Tags are like keywords. We attach them to stories as an additional way to find content.

You’ll find a Tag Cloud on the right side of the CaryCitizen home page. Click on a tag to see all the stories on that subject.

OTHER NEW FEATURES

We’re always experimenting with CaryCitizen as a platform for community info. Here are a couple of new features.

The Real Estate Page – We found a neat Google widget that shows all the homes for sale in town, including price, specs, a picture and a link to more info. See what houses in your neighborhood are worth.

Cary Business Report - Our colleague Brenda Larson is set to begin a new column about business in Cary. Email Brenda if you have business news to share.

Cary Chamber – We joined the Cary Chamber of Commerce, becoming the first new member of the new decade. Look for more stories and info about Chamber members and events.

NEW ADVERTISERS

CaryCitizen is pleased to welcome two new advertisers to the publication:

Cary Players
Don Frantz for NC House District 35

We’re also pleased to report that interest in the ad space has been brisk. We rely on our sponsors to underwrite the stories we publish about Cary everyday. Please consider advertising on CaryCitizen.

Our 50% Intro Sale on CaryCitizen is almost over. Contact Lindsey Chester for more information on rates you won’t see again this year. Contracts must be signed by Feb 28 so act now.

Editor’s Journal – a potpourri of things that don’t fit elsewhere. This week, it’s Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, known throughout the land as a shopping decathlon. Sure enough, things were jumping at Cary Towne Center.

Photos by Hal Goodtree

A few blocks away, at the corner of Dry Ave and S. Academy St., the Jaycees were selling Christmas trees. About 60 volunteers man the lot 7 days a week until mid-December, selling fresh-cut trees from Ashe County to raise money for charities including the NC Boys & Girls Home, Jaycees Burn Center and the Duke Cancer Center.

Heather helps wrap a tree for the Jaycees

The Jaycees hope to sell 280 trees. They’ve been selling Christmas trees in Cary to raise money for charity for more 35 years.

Hours:

• Mon-Fri      5-9
• Saturday    10-6
• Sunday       11-6

Over at Searstone, they lit their angel Christmas tree and placed ornaments for The Carying Place, a charity here in town. The goal is to fully equip a kitchen for a needy family.

The Carying Place tagged ornaments at Searstone

All in all, a merry Black Friday here in Cary. What did you do?

Everything can’t be a post. That’s why we have Editor’s Journal. It’s where we stuff in the extras that don’t quite fit elsewhere.

Davis the High Horse

As reader Bob Hickey correctly answered on Facebook, a new sculpture is gracing our fair town. Bob identified the location as the corner of Davis Drive and High House. He also coined a nickname which sounds like a keeper.

One editor’s humble opinion: it’s a pretty nice statue.

How Do You Like These Apples

We ran into the Apple Man at the Western Wake Farmer’s Market. This gentleman grows the most amazing varieties of apples including the Arkansas Black pictured here. You’ll never eat a Red Delicious again.

Here are some other pictures from the WWFM on Saturday at Carpenter Village.

Documentary: This is Green Hope

We write about Green Hope a lot because one of my kids goes there (love to get some stories from other town high schools, people!).

Anyway, we always like to run a picture with a story if possible, but have never found very appealing shots of the school. So I took a couple of pictures of a documentary nature.

Horizontal and vertical. WCPSS is free to borrow.

All photos by Hal Goodtree.

It’s been three months since we launched CaryCitizen and now seems like a good time to share some info about where we’ve been and where we are going.

STATS

To date, CaryCitizen has had over 20,000 page views. We have hundreds of email subscribers and fans on Facebook.

We’ve been listed as an official news source by Google News.

We’ve published over 140 stories created by more than two dozen writers and photographers.

WHAT WE’RE ALL ABOUT

As CaryCitizen has evolved during our first 90 days, our focus has sharpened on our primary mission: celebrate Cary.

Our most popular stories are about outstanding and unique local businesses, the environment, high school sports, cultural events and people who make a difference. We love writing about local agriculture, music and stuff for kids. We’ve launched the first true calendar of events for the whole town.

KEEP IT NICE

CaryCitizen is committed to producing non-partisan news and stories about all the good things in Cary. We love getting comments to our posts and on our Facebook page. 99% of all comments get posted. But, occasionally, we feel we have to delete a comment.

Here’s the rule: no name calling or gratuitous insults. Simple. If you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t post it on our wall.

We may be the seventh largest town in North Carolina, but this is still a place where we all shop in the same supermarkets and go to the same Friday night football games.

ADVERTISING

On November 1, we’ll be launching our official advertising program. We’ve had a lot of interest in advertising on CC, and the next three months promise some unique opportunities for getting in on the ground floor.

We’ve taken an innovative approach to advertising. We don’t feel intrusive pop-ups or spam emails are a benefit to our readers or our brand, so we won’t do them. Leaving money on the table, you say? Not at all.

We believe advertising IS part of the content of CaryCitizen, not just a sticker we paste over the headlines on the front page. Our readers respond to interesting ads and compelling offers by clicking through to the advertiser’s message. It happens every day.

Stay tuned for our big ad launch. If you’ve considered advertising on CaryCitizen, act fast because the inventory is limited and the introductory deal will be amazing. Sponsors make CaryCitizen possible. We are grateful for their support and committed to publishing a quality news product about our town.

BIG THANKS

As the editor, I’ve had a lot of late nights and a few tough decisions to navigate. I’ve loved it all. Let me take a moment to thank the Tribal Council, the inner crew that has helped launch, grow and guide CaryCitizen over the last three months:

• Lindsey Chester – Associate Publisher
• Matt Young – Managing Editor
• Leslie Huffman – Associate Editor
• Vickie Maxwell – Associate Editor
• Brenda Larson – Business Operations Consultant

Thanks also to the dozens of people who have contributed stories, photos and ideas including Chris Adamczyk, Vanessa Mouton, Brent Miller, Michael Pelz-Sherman, Karl Fisher, Friends of Page Walker, Catherine Evangelista, Dwight Mouton, Winston Hooker, Lisa Rogers, Sydney Maxwell, Nancy Caggia, Phil and Angie Loudon, Cary Photographic Artists, Smythe Richbourg, Chris Young and Al Sibille.

Thanks also to Susan Moran and the Town of Cary staff for their cooperation in developing stories like Cary Bio Fuel Plan First in Nation.

Finally, the biggest thanks must go to you, the pioneer readers of CaryCitizen. Thank you for giving us a shot, thanks for telling your friends, and thank you for all your comments and emails. They truly do help us shape our coverage.

Here’s some info that didn’t find its way into print over the last couple of weeks.

CRIME REPORT

Two serious and troubling crimes occurred during the last week in Cary. If you hadn’t seen these stories, they are of concern to all Cary citizens.

Realtor Raped in Cary

A Realtor showing a home in the West Lake subdivision was raped at knife point last Sunday.

The accused perpetrator is 33 year old Michael Sleeman of Raleigh. Sleeman was arrested within hours by Cary police and is in Wake County jail on $2 million in bond. He was previously convicted of a similar crime in Virginia.

Meth Lab in a Backpack at Motel 6

Police arrested 26 year old Brandon Carlon of Fuquay-Varina at the Motel Six on Buck Jones Road early last Sunday morning.

According to Cary Police Lt. John Szymeczek, Carlon’s backpack held containers, a hot plate, lighter fluid and other chemicals and hardware typically used to make methamphetamine.

“It is very dangerous,” Lt. Szymeczek said. “We do not by any means frequently have methamphetamine labs in Cary.”

Cary Police called for backup, a standard procedure in meth cases. The State Bureau of Investigation cleared the site, assisted by a hazmat unit from Raleigh.

Carlon is in Wake County Jail under $26,000 bond.

Editor’s Viewpoint: For all the “small town charm,” Cary is the seventh largest city in North Carolina.  What can we do to avoid the crime that plagues other small cities?

TOWN COUNCIL CANDIDATE INTERVIEWS

We’ve completed our series of video interviews with all six candidates for contested seats on the Town Council. Julie Robison, running uncontested in the At-Large district, could not participate due to a scheduling conflict.

Town Council members decide how our substantial tax revenues are spent. Do we repave the roads or get a new park? Do we have a new drugstore at the corner or do we lose 80 acres of wooded land? Considering how important these issues are in the daily lives of Cary citizens, and considering the education and activism of our population, it’s surprising that so few people vote in Town Council elections.

Would you know your Town Council member if you bumped them with your shopping cart at Food Lion? I wouldn’t. At least, not until I shot these interviews.

Now you can meet the candidates face-to-face, on the privacy of your own PC. Each interview is approximately six minutes long. We asked each candidate for some biographical information, why they deserved our vote and one or two other obvious (we thought so, anyway) questions.

District A – Western and Northern Cary

• Jennifer Robinson (incumbent)
• Terry “Doc” Thorne
• Cindy Sinkez
• Lori Bush

District C – Southern Eastern Cary

• Jack Smith (incumbent)
• Catherine Evangelista

Cary elections are nominally “non-partisan,” meaning candidates don’t appear on the ballot as Democrats or Republicans. But the elephant and the donkey absolutely lend influence and channel money into our elections. The Editor of this news source thinks this is a bit of a farce, but maybe we’ll address that in another piece.

Vickie Maxwell, herself a candidate for Town Council in 2008, conducted the interviews.

Here at CaryCitizen, we know we’re not Meet the Press. But our Town Council Candidate Interviews are more content than you are likely to get from the area’s “major” news sources. Just saying.

Thanks again to all the candidates for participating and to all the readers who have had suggestions and comments. Do leave us your thoughts here or on Facebook.

Producer: Lindsey S. Chester. Director & Editor: Hal Goodtree. Production Crew: Tyler Bennett, Leslie Huffman, Matt Young. Production Support: SteadyFilm LLC and Southeastern Camera.

CARYCITIZEN STATISTICS

CaryCitizen has been publishing for seven weeks. Here are some interesting stats about our launch thus far:

• 70 – Stories Published
• 8, 936 – Page Views
• 3:39 – Average Time On Site
• 97 – Email Subscribers
• 146 – Facebook Fans
• 2% – Daily Growth of Audience

Thanks to all our supporters and contributors in the community. Want to reach of growing audience of influencers in Cary? Contact us about advertising and sponsorships.

~ Week Two comes to an end at the Cary Citizen. Here are a few stories we worked on that didn’t make it onto the web but are noteworthy nonetheless ~ The Editor

All photos this page by Hal Goodtree

Who is David Bowden?

Cary made the national news this week when David Bowden of Maynard Road spray painted his own house with the message above.

His beef is that the renovation of Maynard has caused runoff of Biblical proportions, flooding his crawl-space everytime it rains.

We visited Mr. Bowden at his house on Tuesday. Nice enough man. There certainly seems to be an issue with how the driveway drops ten feet from the street and debauches into his garage.

We decided not to run a story at that time because the area’s major media had been swarming the poor man and we had nothing really new to add. Since then, the ACLU has weighed in affirming Mr. Bowden’s right to spray paint his own house. The Town of Cary cannot fine him for a sign ordinance, taking away their most potent weapon in the spat.

We’ll see how it all plays out. But here’s the question: Is Mr. Bowden justified in his somewhat extreme form of protest, or is he a wingnut who’s lost his grip?

Tell us what you think.

Walnut Street Park Opens

The new Walnut Street Park officially opens today. We dropped by yesterday to check it out for ourselves.

For us (I took one of my kids), the highlight was some futuristic playground equipment. If your child likes to climb strange web-like structures or spin around on bean-pod constructions of tubes, this park is sure to please.

There’s also a small field and a modest trail for a stroll. If you like a good hike, go to Umpstead or Hemlock Bluffs instead.

Hand-painted birdhouses dot the park, adding a little spontaneous fun as you walk around. A central promenade has been constructed of brick in the shape of a long knot garden.

Parking and rest rooms on site. The Park cost the town $1.5 million dollars. It’s located at Walnut and Lawrence just before Route 1.

S-Mart Asian Supermarket

Tucked around the back of the Magnolia Marketplace shopping center at the corner of Walnut and Cary Towne Blvd is S-Mart, a new Asian supermarket.

Fancy a snack of dried snow peas or maybe a black of black rice? S-Mart has it. How about some instant Miso soup or a dried squid? This is the place.

Clean, friendly and reasonably priced, S-Mart is a welcome addition to Cary even if you weren’t born in Pusan. We picked up a few treats and some fresh vegetables including a bag of garlic stems (pictured above). S-Mart also has a cafe serving quick and tasty lunch.

Got News?

Got news? Want to write about Cary or take pictures? Contact us - we’d love to hear from you.