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Carter Wrenn posted on July 02, 2010 10:15
Unless you happen to subscribe to the Asheville Citizen Times, you probably missed this article by columnist John Boyle about North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman David Young:
Citizens Times.com
May 27, 2010
Time for David Young to do the right thing
John Boyle
COLUMNIST
Really, David?
I can’t believe how tone-deaf politicians can be.
Earlier this week, David Young, the chairman of the N.C. Democratic Party and the owner of the Eden Glen Mobile Home Park in Weaverville said the orange-colored water he charges residents for is safe but “not pretty.” Oh, and for those who refused to pay the bills because the water is so nasty? The people who may want a word with the part owner after their water was cut off?
“I don’t manage it (the mobile home park). …I’m just an investor there.” Young told our papers.
Dear lord.
You’re not just an investor, David; you’re the owner, along with your wife, Leigh. It’s on the legal papers.
On Wednesday, I went out to the park, driving down the potholed road through old, rusting trailers. One resident, Renee Purvis, handed me a bottle of orange water she drew from her bath tap that morning, and I watched her draw a lighter-orange tinted bottle from the bathroom sink.
It’s been that way for 10 years, although the color ebbs and flows, she said. She and her daughters, 9-year-old Megan and Hilda, 10, don’t drink the water.
And, yes, they stopped paying the water and sewer bill, too – in her case, $106 for two months.
“It’s never totally clear,” Purvis said of the water, standing near her rust-stained tub. “It’ll clear up maybe a little while, then it’s right back straight to muddy orange-brown.”
In short, the water there is disgusting. Young and others say it’s just high iron content, but really, David, would you drink this junk? Would you want your children to bathe in it or wear clothes washed in it?
Leslie Burnett and trailer-mate Draven Marco, who have five children in their trailer, just moved in about a month ago and weren’t told about the bad water.
“At first I used some of the water to mix up formula, and my baby vomited profusely and didn’t stop until I started using bottled water,” Burnett said. “We’ve gotten rashes, boils, yeast infections. The ants die if they get in the bathtub and drink the water.”
That’s more than “not pretty” David. That’s shameful.
They all invited you to come live with them for a day and enjoy the fine water you provide.
You and your wife are listed as the owners of the park since 2001, and residents say the water has been orange and nasty since then and even before. In 2008, you petitioned the state to start charging for this and were granted permission in January.
They started getting bills in February – for water few human beings would use. People are supposed to pay $45 or $50 a month for orange water that stains their clothes and tube? Water they’re convinced sickens their children?
David, residents of your mobile home park are so disgusted they’re not paying the water bills. Some opt to use raw creek water instead of the well water you provide.
Yes, you. Not the management company or the water company you hire to separate you from the residents.
You. This is your problem.
You’ve been a politician for two decades, and you head the party that stakes a claim to helping the least affluent among us. And this is how you treat the people who live in your trailer park?
Forget about the political flak you’re deservedly going to catch for this when you run for any other political office. What you’re doing to these people is just wrong.
You didn’t return my call, and you weren’t in your office Wednesday afternoon, so I went to our archives for a quote. Back in 1998, when you ran for Congress against Charles Taylor, who had his own image problems related to his wife’s ownership of shabby housing, you said this: “People have this image of politicians padding our own pocketbooks and looking out for our own self-interests instead of theirs.”
Oh, and this: “I enjoy finding ideas that will work to solve people’s problems. Put simply, I want to put my energies and abilities to work for the people of Western North Carolina.”
Here’s an idea: Fix the water problem in your trailer park. A decade is long enough to find a solution and those people of Western North Carolina deserve better.
This is the opinion of John Boyle. Contact him at jboyle@citizen-times.com, and read his blog at citizen-times.com/boyleitdown.
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Gary Pearce posted on July 02, 2010 09:37
The proposed international port at Southport is headed for Davy Jones Locker. The money was cut from the budget, and Congressman Mike McIntyre came out in opposition.
A wise reader – and veteran Raleigh hand – believes there a lesson here: how to royally screw up a public-policy initiative.
His take:
“This was the GTP By The Sea, a classic example of bureaucrats finding an expensive solution for which no problem existed. They sold the state on the economic development benefits, which sounded good and everyone was on board. But once political and community leaders learned that the price was the disruption of an entire region (new roads and rail), threats to critical infrastructure (power plants and munitions facilities), and the impact on the coast (dredging, etc.) the support evaporated.”
Plus, the Ports Authority lost more than the project. It forfeited a huge amount of respect and trust.
The reader adds: “Our coastline isn’t even suitable for this kind of project. Hell, the pirates learned 400 years ago that North Carolina’s coast totally sucks for sailing ships.”
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Posted in: General, Issues
Gary Pearce posted on July 01, 2010 08:32
President Obama rolled out his best 2010 message yesterday at a town hall in Wisconsin. Click here to see one clip that captures it.
The message is simple: The Republicans gave us a mess, and they refuse to help clean it up.
Maybe Obama’s team has learned a lesson: They haven’t played the Blame Game well enough.
Ronald Reagan played it for eight years. Obama can play it at least four.
In The Promise, his book about Obama’s first year, Jonathan Alter quotes a great analogy Obama used – one that Democrats could ride all year.
It’s the mop analogy.
Obama is trying to mop up Bush’s mess: starting a war that didn’t attack the people who attacked us, squandering a budget surplus and turning it into a deficit, and nearly running the economy into a depression.
But Republicans won’t help mop up. They complain about how Obama’s holding the mop. Or they say it looks like a socialist mop.
Coincidentally, congressional Republicans reinforced the message yesterday – not once, but twice. They blocked the financial regulation bill AND extended unemployment benefits.
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Carter Wrenn posted on June 30, 2010 16:02
Back in 2003 two enterprising ladies from the mountains (from the Hamlet of Sparta) went into the business of providing care to Medicaid patients. Seven years later a judge in the mountains put them out of business and sent them to jail for four years – because the two ladies had hoo-dooed Secretary Lanier Cansler’s department out of $622,000.
But here’s what’s odd: Secretary Cansler’s Department has all kinds of auditors and investigators and independent contractors scrutinizing Medicaid providers but, somehow, for over four years the ladies managed to fool them all and bill the state for dead people and people who lived hundreds of miles away.
Now, it’s easy to see how a state auditor could slip and approve ten or twenty or maybe even a hundred fraudulent claims – but how about 15,833?
So how much trouble did Secretary Lanier Cansler have explaining this eye-popping statistic – hardly any. He barely broke a sweat. The Houdini of Cabinet Secretaries announced to the press he was “thrilled,” just thrilled two skizzlers had been brought to justice and then waxed so eloquent about the evils of Medicaid fraud no one even thought to ask how two ladies from Sparta, North Carolina fooled his department 15,833 times.
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Posted in: General, Issues
Carter Wrenn posted on June 30, 2010 12:45
These days we old-fashioned southerners in Raleigh are getting an education about Italians as the war between the Tedescos and Margiottas (who’ve taken over the School Board) and our local ‘Progressives’ (who’re livid at the Italians for ending busing) roars along.
About the only person in town sounding reasonable these days is the News and Observer humorist Barry Saunders who’s having a field day poking fun at both sides.
The other night the ‘Progressives’ got together and held a camp meeting and compared new Italian School Board Czar, John Tedesco, to the Klu Klux Klan – then in the newspaper the next morning Tedesco shot back, producing absolute proof he’s not a KKKer, saying he had ‘a few girlfriends who are African-Americans and Latinos.’
That tickled Saunders so much he commended Tedesco for his “rainbow coalition love life” – a touch of humor lost on a dour ‘Progressive’ lady who said Tedesco’s claim was “degrading to Black and Hispanic women.”
Next, somehow, a Duke University professor jumped into the fray trying to explain the history of race relations in the South, a mystery which mostly left the Italians puzzled and madder still, provoking Tedesco to send a sort of epistle to the Reverend Nancy Petty (an ally of the professor’s) of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church.
Tedesco’s epistle had him siding with everyone from Henry David Thoreau to the ‘beloved Dr. Martin Luther King’ – then he declared he’s got a ‘heart full of love’ and invited Reverend Nancy to coffee.
So, suddenly, we’ve got Baptists, Progressives, the newspaper, the TV station, a phalanx of Italians and a Duke professor all going at it hammer and tongs and any old-fashioned southerner with a lick of sense is laying low.
Back when this rhubarb started I figured our local ‘Progressives’ would make short shrift of the Italians, but now I’m beginning to suspect I underestimated the Italians and, instead, they’re carrying the banner for a legion of highly militarized wanderers from New York and New Jersey who’ve settled in the Raleigh suburbs. We’ve never seen anything like this before in Raleigh; the Italians have brought a whole new kind of politics to Dixieland.
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Gary Pearce posted on June 30, 2010 08:11
Elaine Marshall has to make a tough choice: raise money from Raleigh lobbyists or not.
She already took flak for it in the primary. Her defense: It wasn’t much money, and the donors were old friends.
Now that she’s won, it could be a lot more money. And a lot more flak.
If she were running for reelection, she couldn’t legally take the money. And the proposed Senate ethics bill prohibits raising money from people you regulate. As Secretary of State, she regulates not just lobbyists, but ALL corporations in North Carolina.
Some people in Raleigh view this as a fundamental conflict in her decision to stay as Secretary of State and run for Senate.
The upside for her is that, no matter what happens in November, she has a job.
The downside is the scrutiny that will come.
She got a taste of it by attending the Democratic Party fundraiser this week. Her campaign needs to recognize there’s more trouble where that came from.
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Gary Pearce posted on June 30, 2010 08:06
Richard Burr better hope that debate performances have little impact on the November election – or get better fast.
A lawyer friend (I’m not sure if she’s a Democrat or Republican) went to the Burr-Marshall debate last week at the N.C. Bar Association.
Her take: Marshall was stronger than she expected – and Burr much, much weaker.
In fact, his performance – smiling, aw-shucking and not saying much substantive – reminded her of George W. Bush. That is, clueless.
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Carter Wrenn posted on June 29, 2010 13:24
The Department of Health and Human Services has to be my favorite part of state government – it’s the perfect blend of bungling, chicanery and politics all built on a foundation of good intentions.
Over the past year Secretary Lanier Cansler – who’s sort of a combination of Fagan and Houdini – has been telling legislators that somewhere between 45% and 85% (the number seems to grow every time Cansler speaks) of the Medicaid Home Care patients are chiselers and if he cuts their care he’ll save taxpayers millions.
Next, Cansler parlayed all that talk of fraud and savings into a deal with legislators that allowed him to pass out a $25 million no bid contract to one of his former clients (from back in the days when he was a lobbyist).
But, a year later, after pouring millions into studies and reviews and computer programs it doesn’t look like Cansler’s cut a single chiseler.
Now, those are examples of bungling and chicanery. Here’s where politics comes in.
Since no one’s been cut some folks are beginning to wonder if Cansler’s numbers are any more reliable than, say, President Obama’s projections of how many jobs his ‘Stimulus Plans’ would create and if his goal all along wasn’t to get that no bid contract past legislators.
Plus, money’s tight and some legislators are getting fidgety because Cansler’s department’s spending is going up not down like he promised.
So Cansler’s in a bit of a fix. But he’s come up with a solution. He’s gone over to the legislature and said he needs to change the definition of who is sick – which, explained simply, means he’s rewriting the rules to make fewer patients eligible for care. Which means he can deliver the cuts he promised. Which means, hopefully, legislators will stop asking him pesky questions.
But if, as Cansler claims, 85% of the patients are chiselers who aren’t eligible (or who are getting care they don’t need) now – why on earth does he need to change the rules (to make fewer patients eligible) to deliver the cuts he promised?
Anyway, Cansler baited the hook, dropped it in the water and Democratic legislators bit. Which gets Cansler out of one mess but brings us back to bungling.
Because Cansler ignored a key fact.
There are three levels of care for elderly and handicapped patients on Medicaid.
There is ‘In Home Care’ – where people stay in their homes and nurses’ aides come to help them for an hour or two a day, which is the least expensive form of care.
The other two levels are what’s called ‘institutional’ care.
The first are Adult Care Homes – which are what most of us think of as ‘Nursing Homes’ but aren’t; they provide care to patients in institutions whose infirmities are, comparably, less severe. Adult Care Homes are the next step up the ladder from In Home Care and, naturally, cost more than Home Care.
And, finally, there is full-fledged Nursing Home Care – for folks who need a lot of care which, of course, is a lot more expensive than either Home Care or Adult Home Care.
Now when Cansler cuts care to 22,000 In Home Care patients on the bottom rung of the Medicaid latter what happens?
The answer is some of those patients – who won’t be able to stay at home without care – will move up the ladder into Adult Care Homes. How can that be? Because, oddly, under North Carolina law it is easier for a patient to get into an Adult Care Home than it is to qualify for less expensive In Home Care.
Bottom line: Cansler promised legislators his latest plan is going to save $45 million. But if, say, half of the In Home Care patients he’s cutting move up the ladder to Adult Care Homes it’s going to cost the state $91 million; plus it’s going to cost the counties (who help pay for Adult Care Homes) a matching $91million – so to save taxpayers $45 million in one program Cansler may cost taxpayers $182 million in another, which brings us back to politics.
Because, at least, Cansler will have gotten himself off the hook and no pesky legislators will be asking, Why haven’t you cut those chiselers you keep telling us about?
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Carter Wrenn posted on June 29, 2010 11:10
Back in the old days in political campaigns there were usually three ‘voices’ talking to voters. Today there’re more voices than anyone can count.
For instance, back in 1984 when Jesse Helms ran against Jim Hunt the three ‘Voices’ voters heard were Helms,’ Hunt’s, and the press. Twenty-six years later we’re in the middle of another campaign and with the blossoming of cable TV, News Talk Radio and the Internet no one can count how many ‘Voices’ are shouting at the top of their lungs.
The rules of political debate have changed too.
Say what you will about traditional journalism – and it had it’s critics – it also had traditions and ground rules. If, say, the News and Observer ran a story criticizing Helms – it also asked him to comment and, generally, reported whatever he said.
Today the new ‘Voices’ have thrown out the rules.
In the old days we had traditional newspapers and in big cities, like New York, a handful of more popular (and entertaining) tabloids like the New York Post owned by Rupert Murdock.
Then in a moment of inspiration Murdoch figured out if his readers loved tabloids in print they’d love them even more on TV and Fox News was born – with the added spice of a partisan slant which has left conservatives addicted to the ‘No Spin Zone.’
MSNBC – taking the opposite political slant – followed Fox and now Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Keith Olberman and Rachael Maddow have all become prominent ‘Voices’ of conservative and liberal politics and tabloid TV has grown so powerful it’s redefined the standards – and language – of political debate.
Only when the debate rolls over onto the Internet – where folks are free to say whatever strikes them and say it anonymously – the result sounds like a million Sean Hannity’s or Keith Olberman’s gone wild, shouting at the top of their lungs.
For example, the other day in Congress a grandstanding Democrat stood up on the House floor and used his 5 minutes on C-Span to throw a match on a powder keg by ripping into Rush Limbaugh – that sent a shock wave rippling through the ether followed by a roar of outrage on the Internet. Consider these responses posted anonymously on one pro-Limbaugh blog:
‘These S*#! for brains Democratic Congressmen can’t get beyond Rush.’
“Jim Moran” – another Democratic Congressman – “is getting more and more senile every day.”
“El Rushbo is public enemy No. 1 of the leftist socialist slime.”
“The Dumbocrats hate dissent almost as much as they hate our constitutional republic.”
And that’s a snapshot of the living, breathing world of politics today: Candidates shouting. Voices roaring on cable TV. And the voices of a million Americans roaring on the Internet. It’s a no holds barred freewheeling democratic symphony of free speech.
And it’s also a long way from the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
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Gary Pearce posted on June 29, 2010 08:15
Conventional wisdom is that runoffs are hurtful. Not always.
Elaine Marshall’s runoff helped her. Helped her especially with her most important target right now: the national fundraising community.
If Cunningham hadn’t called for a runoff, doubts would have lingered about Marshall’s electability.
As in: “She couldn’t even get 40 percent against a first-time candidate.”
Instead, the story in Washington now is that she pulled off a surprising and convincing victory against an attractive challenger.
For now, the money race is her most important campaign.
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