Apr 23 2008
Archive for April 23rd, 2008
Apr 23 2008
Violent Crime In Charlotte Jumps Double Digits
For weeks, fearful residents have convened meetings, questioned police and, in one neighborhood, paid off-duty officers to patrol streets.
On Tuesday, police confirmed what people suspected: Crime is spiking in Charlotte.
The number of violent crimes and property crimes both jumped about 11 percent in March from the month before.
And for the first three months of 2008, violent crime leapt 15.3 percent and property crime grew 11.9 percent compared with the same period in 2007, police said.
Experts say a worsening economy is adding to the usual causes of crime — repeat offenders, drugs and dangerous lifestyles.
The spike drew residents’ attention even before police unveiled numbers Tuesday.
“March was a bad month for us,” said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Deputy Chief David Graham. “Nobody is more frustrated than we are as a police department.”
Chief Darrel Stephens, who retires in June, downplayed the increase Tuesday, saying that while his department takes it seriously, there are always variations in crime numbers, and that people should consider rates and long-term trends.
Darrel Stephens has been a complete and utter failure as a police chief. Instead of pursuing an aggressive agenda of cracking down on crime around the city he has sat around with his thumb up his ass singing Kum Ba Ya. His upcoming retirement is the best thing that can happen in Charlotte right now. Hopefully, McCrory will replace him with a competent police chief. Rudy Giuliani and his Chief of Police, William Bratton, totally overhauled the NYPD and cut crime by over half in a city of 8 million people. There is no excuse why it can’t be done here.
Apr 23 2008
Sanford Endorses Shealy
Gov. Mark Sanford has waded into a Lexington County Republican battle, endorsing the former county GOP chairwoman over incumbent Sen. Jake Knotts.
In backing Katrina Shealy, Sanford said her family-owned electrician business and involment in the community were important. Also important, Sanford said, is that he and Shealy agree on issues such as smaller, more accountable government and cutting taxes.
This is not surprising. Knotts and Sanford have been butting heads for a long time. It was just a few months ago that Knotts accused Sanford of committing “government atrocities.”
I like Shealy as well. She is more small government minded than Knotts has been. She has also been endorsed by the South Carolina Club for Growth.
Apr 23 2008
Terrell speaks out about giving taxing authority to school boards
Paul Terrell III-R, a candidate for NC House district 33 in Raleigh (Wake County), NC, is totally against giving the Wake County School board taxing authority. He states that the “Wake County School Board has not been able to even manage the $80 million dollar maintenance budget for the school buildings and facilities. The Democrats on the school board have failed our children and failed the citizens of this great state. Do we want to give them more chances to fail us. The solution to our problem is to elect responsible school board members next year.”
Apr 23 2008
Local Wake Politicians Want to Give School Board Taxing Authority
Nowhere in North Carolina do school boards have taxing authority. But making that happen in Wake County was a key part of discussion at a joint meeting April 15.
The Wake County Board of Education and elected officials from Cary, Morrisville and Fuquay-Varina met and discussed lobbying The N.C. General Assembly to give the Board of Education taxing authority in Wake County. That authority currently lies with the Wake County Board of Commissioners.
“We think we are great stewards of the money,” said Board of Education Chair Rosa Gill said. “We feel good about what we do with what we have. But when someone else is your banker, you can’t get but so much.”
Bad idea. I lived in Pennsylvania for seven years where the school boards had the power to regulate taxes and it was a nightmare. Pennsylvania has some of the highest property taxes in the country because of how careless the school boards were with controlling money. To put this in perspective, in South Carolina I own a $120,000 condo and my property taxes are about $1,000 a year. In Pennsylvania, I owned a $61,000 house and my property taxes were $1800 a year plus a 2% income tax to the school district.
Don’t move to that method. Keep voters in control with continuing the referendum.
Apr 23 2008
Mumpower Opposed to Earmarks
Take earmarks, for instance. While most of the nation’s 435 representatives strive to bring home as much federal funding as possible, Mumpower says he will not pursue them.
“If folks are anxious to elect someone to bring a lot of pork back from Washington, they need to elect one of the other guys,” Mumpower said from his North Asheville home. “I consider earmarks part of Washington’s community welfare system, and I have no intention of being an active participant in that anymore than I’m interested in exotic committee appointments.”
He is interested in keeping more of people’s tax money here and making sure the federal government “honors the promises that it makes, whether that be for roads for Western North Carolina, veterans services, or Social Security disability payments.”
If Republicans want to prove to America that they truly are a fiscally conservative party and not just give lip service to it, they need to put forth more candidates who will work to rid Washington of the corrupt business of earmarks. As Mumpower pointed out, our money should stay local. We can spend our own paychecks better than some stuffed-shirt politician in D.C. Several Congressmen over the past few years have gone to jail over corruption resulting from earmark abuse and a few more are still being investigated. The politicians are using earmarks to buy votes for their reelection with our money. It needs to stop.
Apr 23 2008
Medicaid Cuts May Cost 11,700 N.C. Jobs
A series of Medicaid regulations proposed by President Bush would slash an estimated $514.6 million from North Carolina in the coming year, according to a report issued Tuesday morning by Families USA, a national health care advocacy organization.
“States have two alternatives,” Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said during a press conference. “They can discontinue services the federal government won’t pay for, or they can try to pay for all the services themselves.”
According to the report, titled “Bad Medicine,” the state stands to lose $2.7 billion over the next five years, and the ripple effect will cost the state 11,700 jobs and $412 million in lost wages during the first year alone.
The regulations in question affect case management and rehabilitation services for people with developmental and other disabilities and mental illnesses, school outreach programs that help eligible children get Medicaid, medical education programs and funding for public hospitals.
I’m extremely skeptical of this job loss number. Furthermore, I have no problem with these cuts. The Federal Government shouldn’t be paying for any of this in the first place. If the State of North Carolina wants to have all of these services then let North Carolina pay for it.