If you live in Orange County but outside Chapel Hill's town limits, your Chapel Hill Public Library card is going to come with a price tag.

The Chapel Hill Town Council voted unanimously on Wednesday, September 23, to approve a $65 annual fee for out-of-town library cardholders. It takes effect July 1, 2027.

The fee is the town's answer to the Orange County Board of Commissioners' decision to phase out its financial support for the library. County funding covered about 15 percent of the library's expenses.

About 14,813 county residents currently hold a Chapel Hill library account but live outside town limits. If you live in Carrboro, Hillsborough, or elsewhere in the county outside Chapel Hill, that could include you.

A few things won't change. Chapel Hill-Carrboro students and town employees who live outside the limits will still get free cards, and town staff is looking into free cards for CHCCS employees too. You can still walk in, use the study spaces and WiFi, attend programs, and browse the stacks. The fee applies to checking materials out.

The Southern Branch Library at Carrboro's Drakeford Library Complex and the Orange County Public Library in Hillsborough remain options for county residents.

Nothing changes until July 2027. But it's worth knowing now.

After our feature on PORCH Chapel Hill-Carrboro, reader Kathe, a neighborhood coordinator and volunteer with the organization, wrote in with an important clarification. The photo we used showed bags with fruits and vegetables, but PORCH neighborhood pickups can only include dry goods, such as canned food, pasta, rice, and snacks. Nothing from the pantry with an outdated use-by date, or no date at all, can be accepted either.

Thank you, Kathe, for making sure we got that right. If you've been meaning to put a bag on your porch, now you know what goes in it.

Reader Lawrence wrote in to say Barnes & Noble has something he hasn't found at the shops on our list: a wide selection of magazines. Thank you, Lawrence, for reading so closely.

Longtime senior pastor Marcus McFaul is retiring after 12 years at Binkley Baptist Church and moving back to Texas. To honor him, his congregation has launched the Marcus McFaul Medical Debt Relief Fund.

Working with the national nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, they hope to erase at least $1 million in medical debt for residents of Orange, Durham, and Chatham counties. It takes $10,000 to get there. That $10,000 would help at least 200 of our neighbors get out from under medical debt they may have been carrying for years.

If you have ever put off a doctor's visit because you were still paying for the last one, you know what that weight feels like.

Give to the Marcus McFaul Medical Debt Relief Fund →

Bill and Peggy Britt were longtime Chapel Hill residents and business owners who owned homes here for more than forty years. Bill died in 2013, and Peggy in 2024. Now the Bill & Peggy Britt Foundation has given Chapel Hill $10 million.

$5.8 million will build the Bill and Peggy Britt Building at Cedar Falls Park on Weaver Dairy Road, an indoor pavilion for wellness activities and recreation programs. The other $4.2 million goes to two greenways: extending the Campus Recreation Trail between the NC Botanical Garden and Barbee Chapel Road, and the Pritchard Branch Trail connecting W. Cameron Avenue to Morgan Creek.

The Town Council thanked the foundation at its Sept. 23 meeting and approved naming the facilities for the Britts. Markers honoring them will go up along both greenways.

After 29 years on West Rosemary Street, Carrburritos has moved into Carr Mill Mall, in the suite that was Elmo's Diner and then Grata Diner. The Rosemary Street location closed Sept. 5, and the Carr Mill doors opened Tuesday, Sept. 29.

The new space has 30-foot ceilings, brick walls, antique windows, a courtyard patio, and nearly double the seating and parking. There's a full bar now, not just margaritas and beer, and a bigger kitchen that finally gives the catering operation room to breathe. Sunday brunch starting at 10 a.m. is due within a few weeks.

Rae Mosher, who runs the restaurant her parents, Bill and Gail Fairbanks, started in 1997, told The Daily Tar Heel: “Carrburritos opened when I was 17 years old, and so it's like home.”

200 N. Greensboro St., Carrboro | carrburritos.com

Tongde Wu takes her oath of office tonight at 6 p.m. at the Lincoln Center. The board chose her from the pool of 53 applicants we told you about last week.

Wu is a scientific consultant and Glenwood Elementary parent who told the board she has been attending its meetings since February, after becoming more involved during the debate over Glenwood's closure. She finishes Rani Dasi's term, which runs through the end of 2027, and the seat will be on the ballot that fall.

Emily Kass is retiring as executive director of the Chelsea Theater. She has held the job since 2018, when she first signed on as interim director while the theater was becoming a nonprofit. She stayed for nearly a decade, guiding it through COVID-19 and a major renovation.

She was also part of the volunteer group that raised the money to buy the Chelsea from the Stone family and keep it open in the first place.

I don't have details on a farewell event or what comes next for the Chelsea's leadership. If you do, hit reply. But if the Chelsea is one of your places, this is a good week to say thank you.

The 10th annual Paint It Orange is back at the Eno Arts Mill in Hillsborough after flooding from Tropical Storm Chantal pushed last year's exhibit to the Thomas Stevens Gallery.

ArtsOrange organizes the plein air paint-out, where artists work outdoors across Orange County. Then the public gets to buy the fresh paintings at the Wet Paint Sale. This Friday, Oct. 2, from 6 to 9 p.m., you can see and buy what they made. The exhibit stays up through Nov. 21.

artsorange.org

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Hit reply and tell me.

A new business, community event, neighborhood story, good news, something changing around town, or something you think deserves a closer look: I want to hear about it.