Commissioner Berger Court Update

New Hanover County Commissioner Brian Berger was supposed to be in court this morning.  Here’s the latest from the StarNews:

Leland Woes Continue

There is much that can be said, or should be said about the ongoing fiasco in Leland.  The officer largely responsible for former Officer Sherry Lewis being shot in the crotch with simumitions that led to a $25 settlement from the town, has been promoted.  Chief Jayne was put on “probation” which is a term that is found nowhere in their policy manuals.  He has paid back an unpublished amount of money to the town. He also allegedly used a town car for personal use.  On that issue former New Hanover County Sheriff’s PIO, Charles Smith plead guilty and was forbidden from serving in law enforcement again.

The town has been secretive, not denied numerous additional issues, has not released (even to elected officials, illegally) the results of a private investigation, and has NOT restored public trust in either the police department or the leadership of the town.  The bizarre nature of how Leland has dealt with all of these issues continues to plague their legitimacy as representing citizen interests.

WWAY had a scathing editorial, here’s an excerpt:

Back in September, ironically on the same day that the town agreed to settle former Leland Officer Sherry Lewis’s EEOC complaint for $25,000, then Town Manager Bill Farris put Jayne on a six month probation and made him pay back an unknown amount of money for “misuse of town property.” Although current Town Manager David Hollis refuses to say how much and what was misused, reports are that it was less than $100.

By releasing this information last week, town manager David Hollis actually raised more questions than he answered. What did Jayne do to be put on probation? How much money did he have to repay to the town? How did he misuse town property (his vehicle?) And why was he only put on probation when everything he’s accused of doing is a terminable offense? Are these the people Leland residents was running their town and their police department? Something still stinks across the river, and it’s not drifting over from Riegelwood.

We’re all waiting for the truth. . . here’s hoping we’ll someday get it.

Baseball Stadium Thoughts

There are multiple problems with a taxpayer funded stadium, most notably the elected officials who won’t openly discuss how they would pay for it.  Thus far, we’ve only heard that it won’t be supported by “property taxes” but that leaves a world of tax options.  Folks in Florida have plenty of taxpayer funded sports endeavors and it might be worthwhile for Wilmington to consider using taxpayer funded endeavors in similar fashion (tongue firmly in cheek).

I’m sure it’s an issue that won’t be addressed locally.

Homeless Bills Targeting Sports Teams Make Rounds
CBS MIAMI

A pair of bills making their way through the Florida legislature could have local homeless sleeping on the 50-yard-line of Sun Life Stadium or up in the rafter of the AmericanAirlines Arena.

Florida State Senator Mike Bennett (R-Bradenton) and State Rep. Frank Artilles (R-Miami) have introduced bills to demand Florida’s professional sports franchises to either start housing homeless folks in their stadiums and arenas, or give back the hundreds of millions of dollars they have received from the state.

“I want to make good citizens out of them,” Bennett told CBS4 News Tuesday. “Here we are cutting money for Medicaid, we’re cutting money for education, we’re cutting money for homeless programs and shelters and all these other things and we’re saying, you know what maybe we should ask for that money back since they didn’t do it, they didn’t comply, they chose to ignore the law.”

The law Bennett refers to is a provision of a 1988 statute requiring teams that take state money to convert to homeless shelters when the teams aren’t playing. In the 23 years the law has been in existence; it has never been enforced.

Bennett and Artilles point out that every sports team in South Florida has taken millions of dollars of state taxpayer’s money. Across the state the total figure is more than $270 million.

“I think they should follow the rule and the rule was you took the money you were supposed to use it for a program for homeless people and you didn’t do it and therefore we want our money back,” Bennett said.
But homeless advocates argue warehousing homeless individuals in large facilities is not the answer and would actually be counter-productive.

In 1988, when the stadium homeless law was first enacted, there were more than 8,000 people living on the streets of Miami. Today, there are fewer than 800 – with many of those refusing help. “Miami-Dade has a more comprehensive, broader program than most anyplace else in America,” said Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust. The Trust was created in 1993 and spends more than $45 million a year on helping the homeless.

“The 27 person homeless trust board would never look at a solution as to housing people in our stadiums and our arenas as an acceptable method to end homelessness,” he added. “That’s just not what we do.”
It should be noted that Ron Book is also the lobbyist for the Miami Dolphins. Whether this bill will make it very far remains to be seen.

It seems unlikely that legislators will actually be able to claw back the millions they’ve given the various franchises. At the very least though, it offers legislators a chance to beat up on the pro sports teams and their billionaire owners; a sport that is always fun for politicians.

Open letter: To Robyn Tomlin, StarNews Executive Editor

Ms. Tomlin:

I read your Editor’s Note in the Sunday paper. (link) Congratulations that “all is well” with you and the new owner Halifax Media Group. I was pleased to learn that CEO Michael Redding “clearly loves newspapers.” I, too, love newspapers. I’m an avid reader—and sometime critic.

It’s good to know that you and Mr. Redding are on the same page, so to speak, for investing “time and resources into producing more in-depth and investigative stories”; and that you have “plenty of room” to expand those news areas and want to do a better job of reporting what matters to us—I presume to speak for those of us who look for meaningful reports (rather than “stories”) on the political fronts.

We yearn to know what goes on behind local political meetings; learn about how bureaucrats actually manipulate spending and regulation—and our elected officials; find out how they get away with spending money taken from taxpayers on self-serving projects; and what interest groups actually benefit from that spending at the expense of the majority of citizen taxpayers.

Your “Watchdog” series has been helpful, but only scratches the surface of all the irresponsible waste of our money and foolish regulations. Your exposure of the Alcohol Beverage Control board fraud was great investigative journalism. In my opinion, there’s much more out there worthy of critical examination —especially downtown and at Carolina Beach in New Hanover County.

Frankly, in the past, I’ve observed that certain public programs seem to be “off-limits” to serious, in-depth investigation and reporting. The unaccountable, questionable spending and proliferation of UNCW projects, programs and curricula; taxpayer’s hard-earned cash handed out to nonprofits and select charities by our political class; and the huge WAVE Transit bureaucracy serving very few people measured against the massive costs are embarrassingly obvious examples.

In addition, real estate deals using public monies by downtown interest groups benefiting well-connected operatives at the expense of the larger body of city residents demand continual critical scrutiny. Also investigating the network of radical environmental activist groups behind the Stop Titan campaign to prevent the Carolinas Cement Company from rebuilding a former plant in Castle Hayne desperately needs exposure by “in-depth” investigative reporting.

I hope we will see the results of more “time and resources” put into investigative journalism such as “Watchdogs.” Patrick Gannon and others on the staff have made valuable contributions in the public interest.

I offer these suggestions because you asked for ideas from readers.

Thanks for “taking some time to consider how (you) might serve (us) better going forward,” to paraphrase your words.

R. E. Smith Jr.
Wilmington, N. C.

POTUS SOTU 2012 Notes

During the State of the Union speech tonight, the following words were used by the president.

“Values” – 6 times

“Taxes” – 17  times (mentioned a company minimum tax, went after millionaires, also proposed a 30% tax for millionaires)

“Fairness” – 5 times  (referred to fairness numerous times using words like  ”rules”, “leveling playing field”, “equal pay for equal work”, “shared responsibility”)

“Economy” – 5 times  (interesting that this wasn’t mentioned often)

“Jobs” – 33 times (indirectly via “hiring” several additional times, employment, hiring, working,  etc.)

“Energy” – 18  (open 75% of offshore resources for oil and gas, natural gas to be safely developed, disclose chemicals, government developed fracking, clean energy – thousands of jobs, will not walk away from clean energy, double down on clean energy, stop subsidizing oil, allow development of clean energy on public land, military will commit to clean energy ) A lot to think about here.

Other notes:

• Blamed 8 million job losses to everything before his policies took place. (4 million jobs during the 6 months prior to getting in office, 4 million prior to his policies taking place.)

• Still pushing Keysensian economics.  Proud of government restructure of GM.  No mention of placing bond holders at the bottom.

• Masterlock Unionized plant running at full capacity. Tied this to America being competitive globally.  (But unions aren’t globally competitive.)  There was a degree of protectionism to his thoughts during this part of the speech.

• Proposed massive new incentives. . . and. more inspections. . . .these ran counter to one another.

• Mentioned that states have laid off teachers at the state level. In NC, state funded teachers increased while the Fed cut teachers in NC.

• All students graduate or stay in school until they are 18. . . OH my!! More government?

• Stop interest rates from increasing in July on student loans, extend tuition tax credit.

• Illegal immigration – Comprehensive reform right now, stop expelling young people, give young’uns the opportunity to earn their citizenship.

• More regulations, rules, for the financial sector. New Federal unit with Eric Holder to go after more people on financial/home loan stuff.

• If a millionaire gets a tax break someone else has to pay.  Tried to assert that government spending is a zero sum game.

• Wants to ban insider trading by members of Congress and have some lobby reform.

This speech will be picked apart by many, but a VERY political speech.  Personally, I’m not sure where he was heading.  He talked about the need to get rid of regulations and yet proposed having many more regulations.  Talked about more drilling for oil, but doubling down on clean energy.  Avoided some of the most damaging aspects of his tenure.  Never addressed health care reform increasing costs of health insurance dramatically.

It will be picked apart by the talking heads.  We’ll talk about it a great deal on the show in the morning from 6-10 on TheBigTalkerFM.com.  Can’t wait to see John Hood’s column over at Carolina Journal in the morning as well.

Political distractions and questionable activities

New Hanover County Commissioner Brian Berger’s voting record has, again, become a distraction to more serious political dysfunction. Apparently he voted against a “13.1 percent revenue increase” by the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority before he voted for a “rate model that included rate increases,” according to a Wilmington StarNews reporter—and consistent with his erratic behavior. (link) But the more important question of why hundreds of people “can’t” or won’t pay their water and sewer bills has not been reported.

In a typical do-good, knee-jerk reaction, Commissioner Rick Catlin reacted with the message: other people should pay these bills. Mr. Catlin has crafted an ill-conceived plan to subsidize “low-income” resident’s default on paying for services provided—with charity for some and disregard for others. Catlin wants to transfer “private donations” (whatever that means) to delinquency. Our politicians have acquired a bad habit of providing for their favorite charities with other people’s money.

Mr. Berger voted against Catlin’s scheme on the grounds that officials were “overlooking the larger issue” of lowering rates for all users; a solid conservative position. Unfortunately, Berger has a bad habit of muddying his message with irrational, over-reactive verbiage. (link) This tends to send reporters chasing sidebars and neglecting the more important story line.

Big Talker FM radio talk show host Chad Adams posed some need-to-be-answered questions about Catlin’s bigheartedness. For starters, who decides what residents get subsidized: government bureaucrats, nonprofit personnel, Catlin?

Apparently, Mr. Catlin has investigated this issue. He reported that people in 480 households don’t pay their bills. Further, he concludes that $150,000 will be needed to reconnect water and sewer service to them. Catlin doesn’t seem to understand the role of government; it’s authority not charity. If government is unjust and abusive it must be curtailed, not manipulated to favor some and take from others. But if his charity scheme prevails, questions must be answered.

How will “donations” be collected? Can donors be assured their money will be properly spent? Who will be accountable for it? If enough to pay all delinquent bills can’t be raised what criteria will be used to determine the lucky beneficiaries? What happens when bills paid again become delinquent? Will this project become another never-ending program to encourage dependency? And most important: Is this fair to all responsible people who pay their bills?

Anti-Titan Meeting This Evening

The forces aligned against Titan are hosting a special presentation this evening.  StopTitan, working with Southern Environmental Law, contracted ICF International to produce an air quality study. Among their findings:

* Increases in emissions of the pollutants that create ozone could trigger about 530 cases of acute respiratory symptoms. (they don’t mention Titan specifically here, but allude to it.)

* That finding, if it occurs, will account for 320 lost work days each May through September according to the study estimates.

* Increases could also result in an estimated 160 lost school or camp days among children 5-17.

* Study estimates that Titan’s pollution could cause approximately 320 cases of acute respiratory symptoms and result in 54 lost work days.

* It also alludes to premature deaths occurring but does not quantify it.

The results, posted in the press packet, never state anything factual, but use words like “could” and “estimated” and won’t even come out and say Titan will do this.   In the press packet, outspoken critic Tracy Skrabal, of StopTitan, said “This report confirms what we’ve suspected, that adding Titan’s pollution to our area will harm the health of our citizens. . ”

But the press release NEVER confirms what Skrabal says.  It alludes to, estimates it, makes informed guesses, but it does not confirm it.  Another nagging problem for the StopTitan folks is that they continually assert that “more than 200 physicians from the Cape Fear Region” have asked for a delay with Titan but won’t produce those names.

It’s more than fair to ask serious questions about Titan’s proposal, but this is akin to pandering to fear rather than dealing with facts.  And, as of yet, there don’t seem to be attacks on the EPA or NC DENR for allowing the process to move forward.

The meeting is tonight at 7:00pm at the Executive Development Center, Northeast New Hanover Library (near Mayfaire/Landfall)

There will be the opportunity for questions and answers from those in attendance.

StarNews Takes On Head Start?

Always interesting when even the local left leaning paper takes on a government agency, I hope they will think a bit more about their opening paragraph in today’s editorial:

First rule: When a public agency gets 99 percent of its money from the government – i.e., the taxpayers – it doesn’t get to dictate how and when regulators drop in to inspect the program. Yet in their arrogance, officials of New Hanover County Community Action attempted to do just that.

It’s an interesting opening and the Head Start program deserves every word of it.  Here’s hoping the StarNews would agree that ANY group receiving ANY amount of taxpayer money needs transparency and accountability.  It is also interesting that they have to remind folks (maybe themselves) that “money from government” is actually “the taxpayer’s” as they often seem to miss that point.

Interesting Facts On State Of The Union

Facts from Joseph Curl over at the Washington Times worthy of more than a cursory glance:

* Unemployment rate when Mr. Obama was elected was 6.8 percent; today it is 8.5 percent.  In reality, the Financial Times writes, “if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent.”

* In addition, there are now fewer payroll jobs in America than there were in 2000 — 12 years ago — and now, 40 percent of those jobs are considered “low paying,” up 10 percent from when President Reagan took office. The number of self-employed has dropped 2 million to 14.5 million in just six years.

* Regular gasoline per gallon cost $1.68 in January 2009. Today, it’s $3.39 — that’s a 102 percent increase in just three years. (By the way, if you’re keeping score at home, gas was $1.40 a gallon when George W. Bush took office in 2001, $1.68 when he left office — a 20 percent increase.)

* Electricity bills have also skyrocketed, households now pay a record $1,420 annually on average, up some $300.

* Some 48 percent of all Americans — 146.4 million — are considered by the Census Bureau either as “low-income” or living in poverty, up 4 million from when Mr. Obama took office; 57 percent of all children in America now live in such homes.

* Since December 2008, a month before Mr. Obama took office, food-stamp use has increased 46 percent. Total spending has more than doubled in just four years to a record high of $75 billion. In 2011, more than 46 million people — about one in seven Americans — got food stamps. That’s 14 million more than when Mr. Obama took office.

* Median household income has dropped nearly 7 percent in the last six years, taking inflation into account. What’s more, nearly 20 percent of males age 25 to 34 now live with their parents.

* Low- and middle-income Americans 65 and older now hold more than $10,000 in credit card debt, up 26 percent since 2005. The average age of the American car is 10 years; in 1990, it was 6.5 years old (by the way, in 1985, Americans bought 11 million cars; in 2009, less than half that, 5.4 million).

* On the macro side, America’s annual budget has jumped to $3.8 trillion — and yet the United States brings in only about $2.1 trillion in revenue. The U.S. trade deficit for 2011 was $558 billion. America’s total public debt stands at $15.23 trillion; in January 2009, the debt was $10.62 trillion. Mr. Obama is on pace to borrow $6.2 trillion in just one term — more debt than was amassed by all presidents from Washington through Bill Clinton combined. The debt is rising by $4.2 billion every day — $175 million per hour, nearly $3 million per minute.

Just food for thought as you take in the SOTU from POTUS this evening.

Righteousness and reality

Righteous indignation and racial rant spews forth from an editorial in the Raleigh News & Observer reprinted in the Wilmington StarNews. (link) The editorial begins with slanderous comments about “the Confederate rebellion” and South Carolina “full not so long ago of Lost Cause red-hots.” This defamation of the people of a neighboring state also raised the long-settled issue of the Confederate battle flag that once flew over their capitol.

Moving to current events, the editor stirred more racial unrest promoted last week in Columbia, S. C. by President Obama and his “African-American” Attorney General Eric Holder. They used Martin Luther King’s memory to score more ugly political points by warning that “minority voting rights are being systematically threatened.”

And on it went: editors brought back the irrelevant bad old days of “poll taxes,” “literacy tests” and beatings by “racist goons” in the Palmetto State. It’s all about a “disturbing pattern of election law changes that could suppress the number of votes by African-Americans,” says the N & O editor of Eric Holder’s speech.

Attacks by Holder’s Justice Department on states that want to tighten up on known voter fraud, attempt to prevent them from identifying voters at the polls. It’s discriminatory, according to the AG. This is the same guy who ordered JD staff to ignore Black Panther “racist goons” who threatened white voters with beatings at the polls during the last national election.

Here in North Carolina Gov. Perdue also favors this kind of reverse profiling—to ignore the identity of illegitimate voters. She vetoed a voter ID bill by the “Republican-controlled” legislation similar to South Carolina’s.

Attempts to control voter fraud—a real threat to fair elections in our republic—threatens Democrats. They must sometimes use fraudulent tactics to win elections because often a majority of voters oppose their policies and candidates.

It’s difficult to understand why black people would buy the political press argument that implies they aren’t capable of being able to legitimately identify themselves at polling places. In their zeal to promote racial strife, editors demean the people they presumably want to protect. They see racism lurking everywhere; and promote fear and resentment in the face of reality.