Raleigh

There’s a little flap going on in Raleigh’s city elections about who’s coziest with developers. It started when someone, apparently tied to a blog supporting Councilman Russell Stephenson, put up a phony website attacking challenger Mary Ann Baldwin. But, in fact, Meeker, Stephenson, Crowder and Company – the three amigos on the City Council –are…

To add insult to injury (as far as North Hill’s developer John Kane’s $78 million parking deck goes) the city is now building not one but two decks downtown. The first mammoth ($35-40 million) underground deck is already underway. But just to be sure he doesn’t run out of parking the Mayor’s building another 500…

Another sign of the Net times: A long-time Raleigh lobbyist told me how much the brave new world of blogs has changed his world. “I used to be afraid to look at Under the Dome every morning,” he said. “Now I have to look at it every 15 minutes. It’s done nothing but raise my…

The most vulnerable member of the Raleigh City Council this year may be Russ Stephenson. He’s facing a tough challenge in the at-large race. A lot of his old supporters are disaffected. And he carries a whiff of the elitism that is the Council’s biggest Achilles heel. Exhibit A: The debate in the Council last…

One of the odder commentaries I’ve seen on the Raleigh City Council race came recently in the Independent Weekly. That’s not normally a pro-military rag, but the article seemed mighty impressed with the military records of the two candidates, one a Republican, running against Jessie Taliaferro. I suspect the attraction wasn’t the uniforms. In fact,…

What is it about Wake Forest and the public schools? Fifty years ago, the town north of Raleigh (then home of Wake Forest College) gave rise to Dr. I. Beverly Lake, the segregationist who ran against Terry Sanford for Governor in 1960. (When Lake was introduced at rallies, the speaker would say: “I don’t know…

Developer John Kane’s back, asking the City Council to give him $75 million in public money (tax breaks) to subsidize the expansion of North Hills Mall. (I guess he’s figured out he can undercut his competitors if the city goes along with the county commissioners to allow him not to pay 75% of his property…

I confess to not knowing much about Senator Janet Cowell from Raleigh, who wants to run for State Treasurer. But she did something rare for a politician last week. And my opinion of her immediately went sky-high. She apologized. She admitted she made a mistake. She owned up to it. And she did so in…