By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- A City Council majority still smarting from a Durham Planning Commission vote that nearly went against the proposed Rolling Hills redevelopment has appointed one of its closest allies to the advisory board.

Mayor Bill Bell and council members Farad Ali, Howard Clement and Cora Cole-McFadden voted Monday to name east Durham minister Melvin Whitley to a vacant city seat on the Planning Commission.

The majority bypassed a recommendation in favor of Burch Avenue neighborhood activist Mark Eckert that came from a joint panel of council members and county commissioners.

Council members Diane Catotti and Mike Woodard, who sit on the joint panel, supported Eckert.

Councilman Eugene Brown cast his vote for Mechanics and Farmers Bank Chairman James Stewart, but afterward indicated that he's fine with Whitley's selection.

"The reverend is a good man who knows the community, and I think he'll do a good job," he said. "But there's a lot of work involved."

Brown also made it clear he thought council thinking on the appointment was influenced by the Planning Commission's narrow, 6-5 support for labeling the Rolling Hills and Southside areas blighted.

The blight vote, had it gone the other way, could have torpedoed financing for the council-backed redevelopment effort.

"They took a hit to their credibility when five of them voted to tell the council that Rolling Hills and Southside was not a blighted area," Brown said. "And I don't think Melvin, if he was on, would've voted that way. I know damn well he wouldn't have."

In picking Whitley, the council went with a man who helped organize the joint campaign for Bell, Cole-McFadden, Clement and Woodard in last fall's mayoral and ward elections.

The mayor, Clement and Cole-McFadden responded by backing Whitley's abortive attempt to become chairman of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.

Bell serves with Stewart -- who's also active in commercial real estate -- on the Mechanics and Farmers board.

But the mayor said Tuesday he'd "felt Melvin deserved an opportunity" on the Planning Commission, and had told Stewart that.

"He was aware of what my intentions were," Bell said.

Bell devoted a significant portion of his annual state of the city address on Monday to defending the Rolling Hills project. He specifically termed the area "blighted" and said it "must be revived."