According to the News and Observer (7/24/06), since Mayor Meeker took office Raleigh’s debt has tripled. In a few weeks, on September 30, for the first time the City’s debt will pass $1 billion. Five years ago it was $294 million. That puts the spending spree the Mayor has been on in perspective. Granted, some…
Read MoreIt didn’t take Bush and the Republicans long to turn the airline-terror plot against Democrats. “Defeatocrats,” one blared. Cheney didn’t even wait for the arrests. The day before, he said Ned Lamont’s victory in Connecticut emboldened “al Qaeda types.” So what do Democrats do? Two relatively new Democrats – with impeccable military credentials – show…
Read MoreJoe Lieberman went even farther than the Republicans: “If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. It will strengthen them,…
Read MoreTwo politicians, a Republican, Mike Decker, and a Democrat, Jim Black, sat down at an IHOP in Salisbury. Black was there to convince Decker to switch parties and give him a key vote he needed to hold onto the House Speakership – and Decker was listening. And, in all likelihood both men probably suspected, one…
Read MoreThe same week former State Rep. Michael Decker pled guilty to taking a $50,000 bribe to switch parties and vote for Democrat Jim Black for Speaker of the House – Governor Easley signed the legislature’s new ethics bill into law. Easley said this bill “is a powerful first step at establishing clear ethical standards…” (The…
Read MoreJoe Lieberman’s supporters suggested it was wrong for Ned Lamont to even challenge a sitting Senator. Bad for the party, they said. Lamont’s supporters said they had every right to challenge an incumbent. They said a cause was at stake. And that’s what democracy is all about. They were right. Now, some Lamont supporters suggest…
Read MoreIf nothing else, North Hills developer John Kane has put Mayor Meeker over a political barrel. Mr. Kane has asked the City Council to agree to provide $75 million in public financing to help him build a parking deck at North Hills. Mayor Meeker, apparently, doesn’t want to do that. But he has a problem.…
Read MoreMayor Meeker’s spending a billion dollars on renovations downtown, building convention centers and parking decks, subsidizing hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, and turning Fayetteville Street…back into a street. What will be the result when he’s done? Well, based on a story in the News and Observer, it looks like the Mayor may be creating a pretty exclusive…
Read MoreI’m sure Carter will be fulminating here soon about the proposed public art in downtown Raleigh. After all, he got Tom Fetzer elected mayor in 1993 partly by attacking the Time+Light Tower on Capital Boulevard. Think what he could do with this. But I have a different question: Why is City Manager Russell Allen suddenly…
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