Posts by Carter Wrenn
Easley on Ethics
The 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 MoreA Political Dodge
If 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 Raleigh
Mayor 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 MoreJoe Lieberman
Last night, I turned on the television to see what was happening in Joe Lieberman’s Senate race in Connecticut. What I ran into was a pair of talking heads: A Republican and a Democrat. The Republican said: Lieberman’s defeat proves the Democrats support terrorism. And the Democrat retorted: The war in Iraq has nothing to…
Read MoreHow Politics Works in the State House
Waste management companies were well on their way to building the four largest trash dumps ever in North Carolina – mostly to hold trash from the northeast – when the State Senate passed a ‘moratorium’ to stop them dead in their tracks. The waste companies responded with a passion after. After the bill passed the…
Read MoreToll Roads
How’s this for a flim-flam? Roads that are paid for with gas taxes are supposed to be free. While roads that are paid for with tolls are, well, paid for at toll booths. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. No tolls are charged on existing roads. But it turns out the N.C. Turnpike Authority…
Read MoreCity to Subsidize Loans Downtown?
According to an article in the News and Observer (7/19/06) big retailers – like GAP or Banana Republic – are not likely to rush to open stores downtown. Why? There are not enough people living downtown to make the stores profitable. But the Downtown Raleigh Alliance – which serves as downtown Raleigh’s unofficial booster club…
Read MoreThe Ferry Cruise
The State Ports Authority just took elected officials and selected ‘VIP’s’ on a cruise on a state ferry so they could watch the tall ships sail into Beaufort harbor on July 1st. The cost to taxpayers: $28,000. (News and Observer, 7/18/06; 7/27/06) North Carolina’s Eastern Region, an economic development group funded by taxpayers, chipped in…
Read MoreThe Ferry Cruise
IHOP!
Former Republican State Representative Michael Decker says three years ago, at the IHOP in Salisbury, he made this deal with a Democratic legislator: Decker switched parties and voted for Democrat Jim Black for Speaker of the House – in return he got $50,000 and a job for his son. Later, Decker also says, he got…
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