Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
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 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…
Read MoreLast 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 MoreWaste 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 MoreHow’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 MoreAccording 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 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 MoreFormer 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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With a better General Assembly, Josh Stein could join Jim Hunt and Terry Sanford on North…
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Once upon a time, there was a great and powerful newspaper: The News & Observer. Everybody…
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The shouting, sign-waving and cane-wielding by congressional Democrats at the State of the Union isn’t a…
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