Carolina Politics Online

Peter Rascoe had a rough first day on the job. Shortly after taking over as Chowan County manager, he learned that the county couldn’t pay its bills. It had only $723,335 in total cash and investments on hand, had burned its way through a $29 million reserve fund, and faced a $4 million budget shortfall.

The situation has local residents up in arms. Hundreds of citizens attended a heated meeting of the Chowan County Board of Commissioners Aug. 14 to protest leaders’ handling of the crisis. Commissioners voted the same day to cut services and raise taxes, including a 9-cent property tax increase, to help balance the budget. They also voted to put a quarter-cent sales tax referendum on the November ballot.

Carolina Journal

I don’t even know how to react to this. Obviously, the elected officials who did this ought to be pilloried in front of the courthouse so cabbage and tomatoes can be projectiled in their general direction.

I don’t know what newspaper covers Chowan County, but somebody there was asleep at the printing press.

But as painful as it may be for Chowanites to hear, a great deal of blame has to go to the people who elected these morons and forgot to hold them accountable. Double blame goes to the “Gimme Gimme” crowd who thinks that government is freakin’ Santa Claus and that every day can be Christmas, as long as someone else’s tax money is being used to buy the presents. 

Unobserved republics don’t remain republics for long, folks. Let that be the moral of this story

Already in North Carolina, Sen. Elizabeth Dole and Reps. Mike McIntyre and Walter Jones, both of whom represent coastal counties, have switched their positions.

All now support offshore drilling with the state’s approval. Dole and Jones are Republicans. McIntyre is a Democrat.

The News & Observer

President Bush lifted the executive order today, ironically put in place by his father, that banned drilling off the coast of much of the U.S.  While this does not clear the final path for coastal drilling, it eliminates one of the final hurdles.  The Congress still has to repeal their ban and while that has been an uphill battle for years, many representatives are changing their tune.

The quick pace of rising gas costs have made this a top issue for voters across the country.  With the exception of a few in heavily leftist areas, representatives in Congress are going to face strong resistance from their constituents if they continue to oppose efforts to open up our coastal waters.  We will undoubtedly see more members of Congress coming over to our side of the aisle on this.

The lawsuit filed in the civil division of Halifax County Superior Court names as defendants Moonlight Bandit Productions and its subsidiaries, along with the Northeastern North Carolina Regional Economic Development Commission and North Carolina’s Northeast Partnership.

The defendants “lured the city into taking $21.5 million in bond debt for the start-up of the theater. They sold the concept as a way to bring jobs and much needed economic development (to the city),” said Jeanette K. Doran, an attorney for the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, at a press conference at the Institute’s Raleigh headquarters. The Institute is representing Garrett at no charge. It has a history of challenging perceived inequities in taxation and government.

Doran claimed the defendants withheld important information and gave false information to the city “so they (the defendants) could personally profit at the expense of people in Roanoke Rapids.”

Public money, Doran said, went to pay for a $600 girdle for Parton’s wife, trips to Las Vegas and liquor stores and apartment rent for Watson’s son.

Roanoke Daily Herald

This is an interesting law suit.  I’m not exactly certain how the group is going ot be able to prove fraud, although they may be able to nail Parton for some of the wasted money he used.  I don’t know.  I’m no lawyer, but can you really sue someone based on poor decisions made by your elected officials?  Really, they are the ones who need to be bushwacked for this.

Congressman G. K. Butterfield (D-NC-01) has sponsored House Bill 6068 affectionately known as the “Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2008″ intended to use Federal dollars to combat the resurgence of bedbugs in hotels throughout the United States. According to the text of the legislation:

Congress finds that–

• (1) on February 12, 2008, a thorough inspection of a hotel in Nashua, New Hampshire, found that 16 of 117 rooms were infested with bedbugs;

• (2) cimex lectularius, commonly known as bed bugs, travel through the ventilation systems in multi-unit establishments causing exponential infestations;

• (3) female bedbugs can lay up to 5 eggs in a day and 500 during a lifetime;

• (4) bedbug populations in the United States have increased by 500 percent in the past few years;

• (5) in 2004, New York City had 377 bedbug violations and from July to November of 2005, a 5-month span, there were 449 violations reported in the city, an alarming increase in infestations over a short period of time;

• (6) in a study of 700 hotel rooms between 2002 and 2006, 25 percent of hotels were found to be in need of bedbug treatment; and

• (7) bed bugs possess all of the necessary prerequisites for being capable of passing diseases from one host to another.

I bet you’ll sleep well the next night you spend in a hotel.

After serving two years in an appointed capacity, Annie W. Mobley won the District Five House of Representatives seat in her own right Tuesday night defeating former Hertford County Commissioner Robert Richardson.

Mobley swept all four counties (Bertie, Gates, Hertford and Perquimans) to earn the Democratic nomination to the seat. She faces no Republican opposition in November.

Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald

As we all know the North Carolina primary is coming up on Tuesday and there are lots of races across the state for voters to decide. I am going to weigh in on a few here. Note, I am giving my opinion on who I think will win, not necessarily who I think is the best candidate or would like to see win.

I have already given my opinion on how I think the 11th Congressional Republican Primary will turn out.

In the Lieutenant Governor’s race there are primaries on both sides of the aisle. The Republican race is easy to call. Robert Pittenger has it locked up, end of story. The Democratic race is going to be a little more tight, but I think Walter Dalton is going to prevail by about 7 points, with Dellinger finishing second.

There are primaries on both sides in the 10th Congressional District as well. On the Democratic side I believe that Daniel Johnson will prevail over Ivester quite handily. On the GOP side, I think McHenry will win by a large margin. I think Sigmon’s ad about the Iraq attack after McHenry ran his video was a bit much for people to swallow and may have backfired on him. I think people viewed it as a cheap and dirty shot. I guess we’ll see on Tuesday. McHenry’s internals show him winning in a landslide. I don’t foresee as bad of a bloodbath as McHenry says it will be, but it won’t be a close race.

The Third Congressional District is going to be closer than people think, in my opinion. I predict that Walter Jones will triumph in the end, but not by a landslide margin. I think most Republicans in the district hold him in decent to high regards. I don’t feel that McLaughlin hitting Jones on his reversal of the war is a winning issue. The majority of Americans have grown tired of Iraq and that includes Republicans. Despite the high proportion of military families in the district, I don’t see Jones in much danger. People are also assuming that military families are automatically dedicated to the continued job in Iraq and that’s not a horse I would bet my money on.

In the U.S. Senate race Kay Hagan is going to trounce Jim Neal. That’s all I have to say about that.

Regarding the Presidential race, Barack Obama is going to win, but I don’t think he’ll break a ten point spread against Clinton. She has been gaining ground on him due to two things: her win in Pennsylvania and the continued media focus on Jeremiah Wright.

And now for the big one, the gubernatorial race. Bev Perdue wins the Democratic nomination hands down. Throughout the campaign she has generally lead Richard Moore, but there have been a few times that he has caught up with her in the polls. However, I think his sleazy attack ad about her husband selling Confederate memorabilia in his stores hasn’t played well with the public and it’s going to cost any chance he may have had.

On the Republican side, this is going to be close. While it’s technically a four man race, only Fred Smith and Pat McCrory are viable contenders on Tuesday. I think McCrory is going to pull this out, but not by much. It may not be enough for him to avoid a runoff and if that’s the case I think the following runoff election will favor Smith.

So there you have it. Tuesday awaits!

BEAUFORT, N.C. — The walls at Cubbie’s diner used to be plastered with pictures, stickers and campaign signs for U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, who championed the eatery’s idea to serve up “freedom fries” in the days before the start of the Iraq war.

But the Republican soured on the war soon after it started, and now there’s a new banner hanging above the grill: Joe McLaughlin for Congress.

“Walter abandoned us,” said Cubbie’s owner Neal Rowland. “Walter hopped on the bandwagon. But when the heat got turned up, he hopped off.”

The diner’s decision to support Jones’ opponent in next week’s primary reflects growing discord with the seven-term congressman in this coastal N.C. district, home to the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune and other bases. Though many Americans agree with him, Jones represents a district where his anti-war stance could cost him his job.

Charlotte Observer

I haven’t seen any polling on this race, but I have wondered how much of a danger McLaughlin really is to Jones on Tuesday.  Personally, I think Jones is going to win because the Iraq War has become very unpopular and I don’t think McLaughlin’s pro-war message is going to resonate much, even in that district.  It may be a closer race than expected, but I think Jones squeaks it out.

MOYOCK — U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones said Saturday that he continues to oppose Navy plans to study a site in Camden for a jet airfield. The congressman also said he doesn’t think the county site will be seriously considered for the project.

However, Jones declined to commit now to opposing federal funding for the OLF if the Camden site is ultimately selected.

Read more from The Daily Advance

It will be at least April before residents, visitors, and business owners find out if a federal judge will agree with environmental groups and shut down the most popular recreational areas of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore to off-road vehicles year-round.

U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle set Friday, April 4, at 2 p.m. for a hearing in a request by The Defenders of Wildlife and the National Audubon Society, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), for a preliminary injunction to stop driving on parts of the seashore beaches until after a trial in a lawsuit the groups filed on Oct. 18.

That lawsuit challenges the National Park Service’s interim plan to protect threatened and vulnerable species of shorebirds that nest on the seashore. The groups contend that the plan does not go far enough to protect the birds, which include the threatened piping plovers, as well as black skimmers, American oystercatchers, and gull-billed and common terns.

The request for the preliminary injunction, filed Feb. 20, asks that Boyle replace the interim plan with more restrictive measures until after the lawsuit is settled. Specifically, the plaintiffs are asking Boyle to stop ORV use year-round at the most environmentally sensitive areas of the seashore – Bodie Island spit, Cape Point and part of the South Beach, Hatteras Inlet, and the north and south points of Ocracoke. These are also the areas that are most popular for recreation, especially fishing.

Island Free Press

Watch out!  The environmental Nazis are back in action and looking to run your life.  This may not seem like a big deal at first glance.  So people can’t drive their ORVs down the beach, so what.  Well, aside from a long tradition of people driving down to the seashore and fishing, there is an economic impact that will be felt here.  If they close off parts of the beach to the vehicles and fishermen it will have a negative impact on tourism in the area and result in the decline of revenue for local businesses and that has the business community in the area outraged, as it should.

It’s amazing how our elected officials will allow this kind of pandemonium to occur over a handful of birds.

ELIZABETH CITY – Elizabeth City State University is offering counseling to faculty and students after some became unknowing participants in an emergency response drill.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported in Wednesday’s editions that an armed man burst into a classroom Friday, threatening to kill students. The drill came eight days after a gunman killed five people and himself in a classroom at Northern Illinois University.

Anthony Brown, vice chancellor of student affairs, said ECSU was testing its response to such shootings. E-mail and text messages were sent five days before the drill, notifying students, staff and faculty, he said.

“The intent was not to frighten them but to test our system and also to test the response of the security that was on campus and the people that were notified,” Brown said.

Asheville Citizen-Times

Morons.  Academia is riddled with morons teaching our children.  In wake of recent events, this is not a permissible mistake.  Someone could have gotten seriously injured and maybe even killed.

ROANOKE RAPIDS - Alleging that the city reneged on a $100,000-plus payment it was due, UGL Unicco ended its tenure as manager of The Roanoke Rapids Theatre Monday.

The decision came six days after the city put the company on 30-days notice that it would be terminated. City officials initially had no comment on the company’s decision to leave immediately, but overnight City Manager Phyllis Lee did issue a statement.

Roanoke Daily Herald

$21.5 million down the crapper for the already struggling city of Roanoke Rapids.  Just another example of the failure of government trying to artificially create the market rather than simply letting the forces work themselves.  They’ll never learn.

Yesterday Maryland took part in what was dubbed the Potomac Primary. Maryland joined the Commonwealth of Virginia and Washington D.C. in having their primary elections. The result on the presidential side and the primary focus of the media was a sweep for both Barack Obama and John McCain, but there was more to last night’s shalacking. Two incumbent Congressmen, Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD-1) and Albert Wynn (D-MD-4) both lost reelection to primary challengers within their perspective parties. According to AP writer Tom Raum, both were ousted as a result of being “out of touch” with the base of their parties, holding up their stances on the Iraq War, Republican Gilchrest being opposed to and Democrat Wynn supporting. Sound familiar?

Unlike Gilchrest who had a fairly leftward voting record, Jones has been quite conservative. After all this is the guy that coined the term “freedom fries”, but on the issue of Iraq he has supported a time table pullout angering many Republicans in his district and prompting the primary challenge from Joe McLaughlin. Now both Gilchrest and Wynn faced well funded opponents from special interest groups on both the left and the right. I don’t know how full McLaughlin’s campaign chest is, but last night’s results in Maryland must have surely sent shivers up Jones’ spine.

“I think we have to do our homework and let voters know the importance of it,” Davis said.

Commissioner Curtis A. Freeman said he would continue to maintain education of the public was key.

“All they saw in November was taxes going up,” he said. “They didn’t see if we don’t get it, we might have to go up on property taxes.”

Commissioner Johnnie R. Farmer said he felt people in Hertford County should know that the sales tax option was passed in Pitt County.

“They’re going to drive to Greenville and pay it anyway,” he said.

The Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald

U.S. Rep. Walter Jones has taken a lot of flak from Republican Party regulars, mainly because he has questioned the wisdom of the war in Iraq.But while the Farmville Republican has angered some party stalwarts, there are signs the GOP establishment is not ready to abandon him.

Jones raised more than $50,000 last week at a Washington fundraiser attended by Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The News & Observer

Joe McLaughlin and Marshall Adame have declared they will both run for the 3rd District seat. McLaughlin, a Republican, will face Jones in the primary. Adame, a Democrat, will face the winner of that race in the general election if no other Democrats file in the race.Jones’ chief of staff, Glen Downs, said Jones has made a “conscious decision not to talk about the campaign until the filing period,” which runs from Feb. 11-29.Jacksonville Daily News

Congressman Walter Jones is going to have to stay on his game this election season. Not only does he have to deal with the normal general election, but he also has a challenger in the Republican primary.

The biggest issue, McLaughlin said, is the war in Iraq - which Jones opposes. Jones continues to support a troop withdrawal and voted against the recent troop surge. McLaughlin, a retired solider, calls it “a message of despair.”

“On virtually every major national security vote on the War on Terror in the last year, he’s voted with the liberals,” McLaughlin said. “The man we sent to Washington in (1995) is no longer the conservative member (he was).”

It is hard to gauge how successful McLaughlin will be. Jones represents a district that is heavily populated by military personnel who have been irked by his stance on Iraq. However, recent polls have showed that the majority of North Carolinians are not in approval with how the war has been fought. That could help give Jones a boost in addition to the advantage of incumbency.

Assuming he beats McLaughlin, he then goes on to face Marshall Adame in November.

“There is chaos in Iraq today, and there will be chaos when we leave. But until we leave, the beginning of the end of the chaos cannot start,” said Adame, who retired from the Marine Corps and spent three years in Iraq as a civilian contractor and state department official. Two of his sons have served in Iraq - one is recovering now from an injury he received there, and the other is still in Tikrit, he said.

Adame said he believes the U.S. should maintain logistic and administrative support in Iraq’s civil affairs.

“But I believe our combat troops need to come out,” he said. “We do owe something to the Iraqis, but we owe more to our own people. The best way to support the combat troops is to bring them home.”

Adame is a veteran and spent more time in Iraq than any current member of our Federal government. His opinion on this issue is not to be taken lightly. I trust the judgment of someone who has actually lived and breathed the situation far more than a stuffed shirt in Washington D.C. who goes and visits for a few days and never steps out of the Green Zone.

For now, McLaughlin must focus on beating Jones in the primary - a challenge he said he is ready to undertake.

“We’ve put together a very good team that’s helping us build some momentum,” he said.

He called the district a Republican one, in which it is “unlikely” that a Democrat - any Democrat - would win the election.

I think both Jones and McLaughlin would be foolish to write Adame off. If Jones barely eeks out a primary win against McLaughlin, there might be enough voters irritable with Jones’ Iraq stance to vote for Adame as an anti-Jones vote. If McLaughlin prevails in the primary that gives Adame better odds because there is no incumbency advantage to compete against. Open seats are almost always easier to win.

Furthermore, Adame appears to be, based on what I have read, a more centrist Democrat, much more representative of the traditional southern Democratic party and that plays well in North Carolina. Regardless, I have a feeling this will be one to bite your nails over.

Country music star Dolly Parton came to the defense of her brother Tuesday, saying he is being used as a scapegoat for problems at his namesake theater in Roanoke Rapids.

Parton said her brother’s act at The Randy Parton Theater was “top of the line” even though city officials, who borrowed $21.5 million to build the facility, indefinitely banned him from performing. They also cut his salary and removed him from production duties amid slow ticket sales and questions about how he spent public money.

Fayetteville Observer

You can’t blame Randy Parton for the outrageous amount of money the city spent on the theater. That was bureaucratic stupidity at work. The personal use of tax money on the other hand is very much inexcusable and it seems he is unquestionably guilty on that account. Naturally Dolly is going to defend him. He’s her brother.

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate hope to launch a blimp bearing his name next week from Elizabeth City.

Supporters hope to fly the 200-foot-long blimp up the East Coast over major cities before taking it to New Hampshire for a couple weeks. New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary is set for January 8th.

Wilmington Star

The city has released financial records detailing how part of more than $2.4 million given to entertainer Randy Parton and his company, Moonlight Bandit Productions Ltd., was spent.

The money was intended to help get the city-owned theater bearing Parton’s name off the ground. The initial documents include 14 pages of bank and credit card records tracing deposits, withdrawals and charges.

A preliminary review of the report shows payments to members of the Parton family and other individuals under “memorandums of understanding.” The payments included rent payments. Additionally there are “credit card” charges to restaurants, liquor stores, grocery stores, gas stations and hotels amounting to thousands of dollars. The five pages of credit card charges listed cover the period from June 7, 2006 through Nov. 30, 2006 and reflect some 77 restaurant charges alone.

Roanoke Daily Herald

Bandit is an appropriate name because he has robbed the taxpayers of Roanoke Rapids of their money for his own personal pleasure. Furthermore, the theater hasn’t made the return on the investment that was expected and Parton’s performances have been less than professional.

Mayor Drewery Beale, once one of Parton’s most ardent supporters, disagreed. “I am very disappointed in Randy Parton,” he told the Daily Herald this morning.

Let that be a lesson, Mayor. Blowing your constituents’ dollars on attempting to manipulate the market never works. Industry will return to your city on its own if it has a reason to.

James Mills, who is retired from the manufactured housing industry, said he was excited to be elected the town’s first black mayor on Nov. 6. But a protest by the current mayor, Robert Partin, has put a damper on the victory, Mills said.

“It goes right back to voter suppression and voter intimidation that’s been going on for many years,” Mills said. “I think I won the election fair and square.”

Partin, who has been mayor of Scotland Neck for a decade, rejects the notion that his protest has anything to do with race. The former teacher, coach and principal said his campaign has uncovered many irregularities and improprieties, including voters from out of town and voters who cast ballots twice.

“I hope no one else will try to make it what it isn’t,” he said. “I only want what’s fair and honest.

His complaint says more than 70 voters used addresses that were inaccurate. The protest included photographs of what he said were abandoned houses and vacant lots at addresses used by voters. He is asking for a new election, and the county board of elections is scheduled to hear the complaint at a hearing today.

The other protest, by town commissioner Kenneth Branch, was dismissed by the board at a preliminary hearing Nov. 19. Branch, a retired manager of a heating and air business, has served on the town board for eight years. His protest questioned a high number of provisional ballots cast without acceptable proof of identity. A surge of provisional votes in the town’s predominantly African-American precinct gave victory to the top challenger.

“It was organized by somebody,” Branch said. “I think they organized it to have those provisional votes just in case it was close.”

The News & Observer

These are all valid issues that deserve to be looked into.  Mills should keep a more respectable profile, as he may be crying wolf.

Northampton County officials and citizens got a chance to get a personal update on the latest issues from their local legislators.

On Wednesday evening, Senator Ed Jones (D-4th) and Representative Michael Wray (D-27th) participated in a forum, briefed the public on the General Assembly’s 2007 legislative session and took questions.

Among the hot topics discussed by the legislators were Medicaid relief, education, healthcare and the environment.

Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald