(The transmission from Channel 10 went down Tuesday night about 5:50 p.m. as the town board’s work session was underway so much of the information in this article came from Town Manager Kip Padgett and the PowerPoint presentations.) The Wake Forest commissioners and mayor have discussed the problem of vacant buildings in the historic South White Street downtown and elsewhere in the Renaissance Area. Currently, Downtown Development Director Lisa Hayes said Wednesday, there are 10 vacant spaces. The Gazette editor knows that two of those are prominent buildings that have been vacant for decades, the former Holding drugstore at the corner of South White and Jones Avenue and the triangular building next to Roosevelt Avenue across from the CSX Drug store. Tuesday Hayes and Senior Planner Patrick Reidy shared a PowerPoint about three possible actions the board could take, starting with the present tools which are to establish standards for

Hurricane Isaias was pretty much a pussy-cat when its outer bands reached Wake Forest Monday night into Tuesday morning, town officials say. “Fortunately, Wake Forest sustained no major damage and no flooding,” Bill Crabtree, the town’s Communications and Public Affairs director, said in an email Wednesday. “Crews picked up several large limbs Monday night and Tuesday morning that were blocking portions of Chalk Road, Ligon Mill Road and a few streets in the Margot’s Pond area. There was also one downed tree along North College Street. Otherwise, the town fared pretty well. “In addition, Wake Forest Power had no power outages which is a testament to the great work our tree trimming crews do year-round. Downed trees and limbs are the leading cause of power outages during storms. Those crews work to minimize storm impacts year-round through preventive maintenance, including trimming of trees around Wake Forest’s 140 miles of overhead

(I wrote this several years ago and am resurrecting it because Professor Gulley is one of the vital parts of Wake Forest history.) I’m reading This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place by Mark L. Bradley, and I’ve been struck by two place names that were repeated as waves of retreating Confederate troops and advancing Federal troops headed for Raleigh: Gulley’s Station and Hinton’s Bridge. Hinton’s Bridge near Milburnie certainly was named for the Hinton family which descended from Col. John Hinton who moved into the eastern part of Wake County and built a log house with a door above head height to deter marauding varmints and humans. The family acquired land and slaves, built houses and married into almost every Wake, Franklin and Johnston family that owned more than five acres. And Gulley’s Station on the North Carolina Railroad, a vital link in those days, was surely named

If you are a hermit back in the woods you might not have heard how President Donald Trump has been fomenting unease and distrust about voting by mail – even though he uses it. Do not believe all that misinformation. Five states – Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah – have  been using vote by mail for years with infinitesimal amounts of fraud – something like 0.0000006 instances. In another state, Nevada, the legislature just passed a bill to allow universal mail-in balloting and the governor is expected to sign it soon. And most of the states, including North Carolina, allow voting by mail without an excuse. The North Carolina State Board of Elections and the Wake County Board of Elections are anticipating a much higher volume of absentee ballots, also called voting by mail. They were used during the Civil War, all overseas members of the armed forces can