Posts by Carter Wrenn
Toll Roads and Polls
The North Carolina Turnpike Authority’s mission is to build toll roads. Its problem is people feel, with all the gas taxes they’re paying, they shouldn’t have to pay tolls, too. So the Authority has taken a poll – or more concisely it conducted a focus group – to figure out how to convince voters to…
Read MoreSchool Board
The News and Observer recently asked the School Board for copies of its e-mails – under the state’s public records law – about student reassignments to different schools. (This year 9300 students are being reassigned.) This is a routine request newspapers often make to government agencies and, initially, it was expected it would only take…
Read MoreThe Great Contract Embroglio
The state’s biggest contract is its $171 million Medicare contract. Two years ago, it put the contract out to bid and Secretary of Human Services, Carmen Hooker Odom, announced with great fanfare she was awarding it to Texas computer giant, ACS – and saving taxpayers millions. Two years later, Secretary Hooker Odom says she is…
Read MoreDemocrats, Republicans and ‘Pay to Play’
The Democrats in the State House have been conducting their version of ‘damage control’ to dodge the political fallout from the ‘pay to play’ scandals in the House. What’s their strategy? Well, it’s to pass meaningless reforms and then to proclaim from the rooftops that they have solved the problem. When, in fact, they have…
Read MoreThe Governor’s Race
The Republicans Salisbury attorney, Bill Graham, has spent a million dollars of his own money to pay for TV ads to express his opposition to the Gas Tax. And, now, he’s getting ready to spend another bundle of his own money to say he’s against illegal immigration. Graham’s potential opponents might call this buying an…
Read MoreJohn Edwards: Leading the War on Terrorisim
John Edwards has called for us to immediately withdraw 40,000 troops from Iraq. Not next month. Or by Christmas. Or in a year. Now. Granted we’re in a mess in Iraq. But where does bringing 40,000 troops home tomorrow leave the troops still in Iraq? Are they safer? Mr. Edwards is running for President as…
Read MoreSocking it to Developers
The Mayor has increased the fees the city charges builders when they submit plans by $150,000. Sounds fine? Doesn’t affect you? You’re not a developer. Well, how expensive will the cost of doing business in Raleigh have to be before it does affect you? Those developers the Mayor uses as political foils serve people who…
Read MorePaying for Growth with Taxes?
There was a time – when Raleigh had a Republican Mayor – when growth meant no new taxes. Back then, when the city grew, new people and new businesses moved here, they paid new taxes, revenues went up and the city didn’t have to raise tax rates on the rest of us. Mysteriously, this has…
Read MoreNew Life for ‘Pay to Play’?
Republicans are hoping the ‘pay to play’ scandals swirling around Speaker Jim Black will help them retake control of the State House this fall. So it sounds odd that a Republican, Representative Paul Stam, has introduced a bill to delete a key provision from the legislation to end ‘pay to play.’ Money and campaign contributions…
Read MoreMaintenance
The News and Observer reports the maintenance for the RBC Center is going to cost $60 million over the next 16 years (6/27/06). Who can argue with that? We built it, we’ve got to take care of it. But there’s a warning here. When the City Council or County Commissioners spend $100 million for an…
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