A Raleigh holiday tradition will start this year in the Bull City.

Ira David Wood III's "A Christmas Carol" will be performed at the Durham Performing Arts Center Dec. 5-7. It will be the $46 million downtown theater's first full-scale production.

The production then will return to its home at Raleigh's Progress Energy Center Dec. 9-17 to mark the 34th year of the show.

Wood is the executive director of Raleigh's Theater in the Park and is well known for his portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge. He's also the father of actress Evan Rachel Wood.

It was a wild one in City Hall on Monday night, as the council wrangled over next year's budget at the 11th hour.

Mayor Bill Bell flexed his muscle and secured a 4-3 vote to get a budget with the 54-cent property tax rate Bell championed. He got Councilman Farad Ali to come along after Ali last week joined with three other council members in supporting a 54.57-cent tax rate.

Bell balanced his budget by cutting the city's fund balance, essentially the rainy day fund, by about 7 pecent. It was to be 12 percent of the general fund. It now is projected to be about 11 percent.

Interim Finance Director Keith Herrmann strongly advised against cutting the fund balance. He noted that most cities that, like Durham, that enjoy AAA bond ratings with all three rating agencies have fund balances of around 15 percent. If the city lost its AAA bond rating, it likely would lead to the city having to pay higher interest rates when it borrowed. Which it does a lot.

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They haven't been distributed to the public yet, but the City Council's agenda says the council will be deciding between two options for next year's budget.

One likely will contain a property tax rate of 54.57 cents, the other a 54-cent tax rate. Will be interesting to see what's cut out of the 54-cent rate budget.

Mayor Bill Bell favors the lower rate. But he was at the losing end of a 4-3 vote last week, with a slim majority of council asking staff to bring back a budget with the 54.57-cent rate. There's been a fair bit of behind-the-scenes wrangling since then, and Bell said last week there could be enough votes for the 54-cent rate.

That's upset some council members who think cutting the .57 cents out of the tax rate — about $1.2 million out of the $353 million budget — would have a negative impact on city services without much benefit to the taxpayer.

Here's some background.

Stay tuned...

On Tuesday afternoon, the News & Observer blogs will be moving to a new system and a new server. This change will make getting to our blogs quicker and easier. Most of the blogs will change their appearance, while blogs like Taking Stock and Under the Dome will remain the same.

This change requires nothing from the reader. There will be a link to the older posts, and you won't need to change your bookmarks. If you have trouble finding your favorite blog or you have a comment, please email feedback@newsobserver.com.

— Rachel Carter

Durham Public Schools Central Offices will operate on a summer schedule through August 15.

The schedule is as follows:

For the weeks of June 16 and 23: Offices will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Offices will be closed June 20 and 27.

For the week of June 30: Offices will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and will be closed Friday, July 4 for the holiday.

From July 7 through August 15, the offices will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Fridays.

Beginning August 18, office hours will resume at the normal schedule, opening Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

In about 15 minutes, the Durham Area Transit Authority will show off their plan to bring hybrid buses into its mix of vehicles.

They'll announce that DATA will purchase 20 Gillig hybrid buses in the coming fiscal year, a change expected to cut as much as 40 percent of the city's fuel consumption and associated cost.

The hybrid buses also are designed to reduce emissions and negative impacts on the city's air quality.

DATA will be holding a ride-along for media folks at 2:30 p.m., so you might even catch a glimpse of the new model of bus on the road.

More about DATA: they run 19 routes. Fifty buses transport more than 14,000 people every day.

You may have heard that a baseball movie of some regard was made here in Durham 20 years ago.

Well, the good folks over at ESPN's website have been having some fun with it lately. Take a look here.

Durham Deputy City Manager Ted Voorhees is one of two finalists for the top job in Gaithersburg, Md., according to that city's Web site.

Voorhees has been a deputy manager in Durham since 2002. He served two years in a similar position in Wilmington before that.

If you've been reading the paper this week, you'll remember that the county commissioners held a public hearing on the proposed budget for next year, and several non-profit groups appealed to the board for more money.

One such group, Triangle Champions Track Club, had 11-year-old Kiara Thorpe talk about her experiences. She was exceptionally adorable, which was noted in the story.

And on Thursday morning, it appeared the cuteness factor might have played a part in another $20,000 commissioners allocated this morning to three nonprofits.

The Triangle Champions Track Club will get $10,000.

AnimalKind Inc., which helps low-income pet owners pay for spay/neuter surgeries, got another $5,000, for a total of $10,000 from the county. The Animal Protection Society of Durham promised Monday to match whatever the county gave to them.

Durham Congregations in Action will receive $5,000 to help with their Yo:Durham program.

In meetings this morning, county commissioners cut the proposed property tax-rate increase from 2.73 cents to 1.99 cents.

For a $200,000 home, that shaved about $15 off the tax bill.

Here's the full story.

The Durham Public Schools have a pretty neat map online that shows where most of the 1,940 students who graduated this week are going to end up next year.

I love interactive graphics, so I wanted to share this one. You can click on a state and it lists the colleges that DPS students are attending.

Students in Durham's Class of 2008 have been accepted into 155 colleges and universities in 32 states, plus Mexico and Canada.

Shelly Green (left) was named the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau’s CEO/president-elect Tuesday. She will succeed Reyn Bowman, the bureau’s current head, who plans to retire in January 2010.

"We’re kicking in the succession plan now," said Bowman (right), who took over the DCVB in the late 1980s.

Green has been the Durham bureau’s chief operating officer since 2000. Before coming to Durham, she directed visitors bureaus in Asheville and Chapel Hill, and served as president of the N.C. Association of Convention and Visitors' Bureau in 1997-’98.

Getting good photos at graduation can be hard, especially if you're around hundreds of other people who are trying to do the same thing. And you don't have a telephoto lens.

Well the Durham Public Schools had this great idea to put photos of all their high school graduations online (including this Southern High School student, whose name wasn't listed.)

Not only that — you can order prints of your kid in case your photos weren't so frame-worthy.

With the last of the ceremonies happening today at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the schools promise to have all the photos up by tomorrow.

Public hearings wouldn't be nearly as interesting without some controversy.

Often, it's community activist, and perennial political candidate, Victoria Peterson who brings it. (She ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for a seat on the Board of Commissioners).

At Monday's meeting of Durham's Board of County Commissioners, Peterson stood up to comment on the status of nonprofit funding during a public hearing on next year's budget.

At some point, she called Commissioner Lewis Cheek a liar, accusing him of dishonestly representing some group as a non-profit.

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You may remember that back towards the end of 2007, a thief or thieves burgled dozens of expensive band instruments from the music building over at N.C. Central University, casting into doubt the marching band's trip to a national showcase.

(The band did go and performed with borrowed instruments).

Well, there's nothing new. So says NCCU Police Chief Willie Williams, who was kind enough to field a few questions from me today.

Basically, the police have made little progress thus far, Williams told me.

"The investigation is ongoing, but we have not ben able to generate any evidence to help us," he told me.

He did say the thefts have led to better security at the music building. He added that some of the instruments have been recovered, but could not say how many.