News-Record.com

So I got an e-mail this morning announcing the following:

Gov. Mike Easley will make an economic development announcement at 11:15 a.m. TODAY (Sept. 1) at the General Electric plant (3901 Castle Hayne Road) in Wilmington.

What is unusual is that yesterday I sat in a news conference where Easley told us all to conserve fuel and said that he was banning "non-essential" travel by state employees. Is this sort of travel essential? This is the question I posed to his press office this morning by way of e-mail:

The governor asked us all to conserve fuel yesterday and specifically said he was putting a stop to all "non-essential" government travel. What makes an economic development announcement in Wilmington something that's essential to travel to? Why couldn't he make the announcement from Raleigh? Isn't this kind of a bad example he's setting for the public?

I will admit up-front that this is sort of a smart-aleck question, but I think it's a valid one. If everyone should conserve gas, shouldn't EVERYONE conserve gas? Maybe the announcement is just that important, I don't know.

I'll let you know when I get a response and post it here.

Update1: Well, here's what Easley went down there to announce anyway.

Update2: Here's the answer I got from the governor's press office:

"As a part of this deal, the Governor told GE Nuclear officials he would be there today and 200 people will have jobs paying over $65,000 annually plus benefits because he kept his word."

Call me a skeptic, but I think the GE officials would have settled for the "$300,000 One North Carolina Fund grant and a $3.1 million Job Development Investment Grant." Or is a personal appearance by the governor that big of a deal that they would have pulled up stakes and left town? Feel free to tell me I'm off base via the comment link below.

From Gov. Easley's office:

"Gov. Mike Easley called on North Carolina citizens to continue fuel conservation while the two major pipelines that provide 90 percent of the gasoline to the state are brought back on-line and while the U.S. Department of Energy develops a national strategy during this temporary shortage. Currently, both pipelines are operating at a limited capacity, supplying between 25 and 35 percent their normal output. Companies hope to continue to increase the flow rate of the pipelines over the weekend as the electricity is restored. According to the N.C. Petroleum Council, North Carolina began receiving reduced gasoline deliveries today, the state’s first since Hurricane Katrina made landfall."

Click here for the whole statement.

The House and Senate adjourned this morning about 10:13 a.m. They are not scheduled to be back until May 9, 2006 (at noon, if you must know).

Now . . . only about four months until campaign season begins in earnest.

Two news releases from Gov. Mike Easley's office hit my e-mail box in the last 30 minutes.

• This one urges citizens to continue conserving fuel and details some of the steps Easley thinks the feds could do to help North Carolina out. Foremost among them, he wants the U.S. Energy Department to send us tankers to help alleviate the supply problem. Says the release:

  According to the US DOE, the larger pipeline serving the Southeast is at approximately 66 percent capacity today and is expected to be at 80 percent capacity by early next week. The smaller pipeline is operating at approximately 95 percent capacity today.

• This one details the state's efforts to help folks affected by Hurricane Katrina.

  "North Carolinians know first-hand the experience of recovering from devastating natural disasters," said Easley. "Our state agencies are continuing to send personnel, services and other resources that were key to North Carolina's recovery efforts after Hurricane Floyd to our neighbors that have been hit by Katrina."

On that note, my boss mentions on his blog that our parent company is making a pretty sizeable donation to hurricane relief efforts. He also provides a link the American Red Cross. Go use it if you can.

I expect my next post here will be on Tuesday unless events merit otherwise. Have good Labor Day weekend.

This notice came from the governor's office today:

Gov. Mike Easley today announced that victims displaced from their Gulf Coast homes by Hurricane Katrina will be provided shelter in North Carolina. Easley made an initial offer to accept 1000 citizens in Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro. More refugees may be accepted as the need develops.

Click here to read the whole thing.(It's a Word document.)

Not that the lottery was on anyone's mind this weekend, but in case you're curious:

• This story ran Saturday and explains why it might be a while before you'll actually be scratching your lottery itch in North Carolina.

• Somewhere around 50 readers sent me questions about the lottery. I did my best to answer them with this Q and A.

Good Tuesday morning. I hope everybody had a pretty good Labor Day.

As I mentioned Friday, the General Assembly has booked out of town and doesn't plan to be back until May. That means I'm left with only two of the three branches of government operating full time up here in Cap City - the judicial and executive for all you remedial civics scholars out there.

(Although, given the number of statewide offices and quasi-independent bureaucracies we have here, I often think we should change executive branch singular to executive branches plural, but that's another blog post.)

Thanks to the lottery (speaking of quasi-independent bureaucracies) I have a new off-season obsession to feed. And as election season approaches I'll be ramping up political coverage. And I've got a pretty good story list going of things that I ought to get to between now and the New Year.

But I'm not above a little procrastination taking a few good suggestions.

So what's on your mind? Are there any burning state issues on your mind that a mischievous reporter might want to put on his coverage calendar. Is there anything you've ever wondered about that might make a good story?

Send me a shout via the comment link below or via e-mail at mbinker@news-record.com. I make no promises other than I'll read and consider every suggestion sent my way.

One of the hazards of working down at the legislative building too much is that my desk there doesn't have a spiffy high-speed connection, so uploading large chunks of audio is problematic.

Sorting through the electronic debris of the last couple weeks of session, I found on my hard-drive the Senate's lottery debate...yes, all 120 minutes of it. With a spiffy high-speed connection in hand here at the N+R's Raleigh newsroom, I figured I'd share.

If you plan on listening, there are a couple things you should know:

• There are four large MP3 files that are about 20 minutes each, give or take. The whole lottery debate in the Senate took about 120 minutes.
• The quality is a little grating in places. I was on the floor and paying attention to the debate, not monitoring the recording. Basically, I jacked my computer into an audio plug, turned on Audacity (a sound editing and recording program) and let her rip.
• There may be some overlap between segments, up to 30 seconds or so.

This is the debate on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. That is the session that the Senate convened after the leadership initially said they were done for the year.

Content wise, you're going to hear several things. If nothing else, this is a pretty good summary of the arguments for and against the lottery.

You're also going to hear a lot of procedural motions. The Republicans in opposition to the lottery used just about every parliamentary maneuver at their disposal to try to derail the vote, to no avail.

With those disclaimers, here you go:

• The first segment.
  
• The second segment.
  
• The third segment.
  
• The fourth segment.

Discuss below if you like.

From N.C. Agriculture Secretary Steve Troxler’s office:

RALEIGH – Dr. George Chambless of Lexington has been named director of the Emergency Programs Division at the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler announced.

From Gov. Mike Easley's office re: Katrina:

North Carolina's K-12 public schools, universities and community colleges have opened their doors to children from Hurricane Katrina-affected areas. The State Board of Education and Department of Public Instruction have advised the state's 115 school systems to register and enroll children in school. Information can be found at www.ncpublicschools.org or by calling 919/807-3300. In addition, Communities in Schools of NC is prepared to work with school systems enrolling students to provide school supplies, mentors and other needs to help students make the transition into schools in North Carolina.

Late last week, the spokesman for the state Democratic party sent around an e-mail asking reporters to compare the North Carolina Democrats' web site to the North Carolina Republicans'. The point he was making was that:

• The NC Dems site has information on how to help Hurricane Katrina victims, but
• the NC GOP site does not. (This is still the case as of Tuesday at 10 a.m.).

Is this a valid criticism of just a cheap shot? Does lack of web savvy amount to lack of caring? Or is it even appropriate for the Dems to be using their political infrastructure in this manner?

Our lines comments are open.

Update: GOP has a Red Cross link up now.

Why do print reporters write rather than go all broadcast? Because we're too ugly for TV and too slow-witted for radio.

Want proof?

Check out the podcast I did for with Herb Everett for "The Beat."

From the governor's office:

RALEIGH – Gov. Mike Easley today declared a state of emergency for North Carolina. The latest hurricane center advisory projects Hurricane Ophelia will make landfall Monday on the N.C. coast. Tropical storm force winds and rain are projected to begin Monday and will increase to hurricane force winds during the day on Monday.

Good Monday morning. Only one story from me that ran over the weekend to report:

• This story talks about the composition of the new board that will oversee the lottery board.

Gov. Mike Easley held a news conference today to let us scrubby press types (and all you folks) know what it is the state is doing to prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Ophelia.

Click here to read the official-looking news release.

Given the problems along the Gulf Coast, it's nearly impossible to view the governor's actions without comparing and contrasting the response in advance of Katrina.

The cynical among us might say that Easley is taking the chance to appear all gubernatorial and in charge now so he can't be accused of not being on the ball later.

And, in fact, as he stood in his news conference room flanked by military, police and other emergency management folks, he was asked whether some of the preparation might be an over-reaction.

"This is the exact same pattern we always follow," Easley said. "This is the way we've always done it."

I'll buy that. But I'll also buy the thinking that says Easley wants to make darn sure everyone knows what the state is doing, even if it is the same old stuff.

At any rate, the governor was asking folks down east who might be in the path of this thing to get out of the way. Given what happened with Katrina, that's probably pretty good advice, whatever the motivation for giving it.

Update: And this tidbit from my notebook shows that even high-ranking government officials have reason to quibble with the weather man: "Ophelia's track has changed . . . on each update I’ve gotten every six hours," Easley said.

By the way, my news reader says Ophelia has been downgraded to a tropical storm.

Back a couple weeks ago I asked folks for their ideas on stories to follow. One of the requests was to follow up on what, if anything, Roy Cooper was doing in response to a state audit of what had become known as "the legislative slush fund."

This story extends back to the last General Assembly session, but before I wandered up here. The basics are this: at the end of the last big budget cycle, legislative leaders tucked money away for certain small projects throughout the state. You and I know this as pork.

The problem with the spending was that it was off-book, it was there but wasn't really accounted for in the final draft of the budget. So money was getting spent on stuff that the General Assembly hadn't really approved. That's a no-no according to the state constitution.

There was, of course, political baggage trotting along beside this. The spending happened during the tenuous and controversial co-speakership in the House of Jim Black, a Democrat, and Richard Morgan, a Republican. The co-speaker arrangement infuriated Republicans who thought that had taken control of the chamber, only to see it snatched away when then-Forsyth County Rep. Michael Decker switched from the GOP to the Democratic party.

Even though Morgan is a Republican, he caught heat from his own party for teaming-up with Black.

That Morgan and Black were involved in what amounted to patronage pay-outs brought impassioned condemnation of the whole arrangement, particularly from the GOP side. A couple things happened in the aftermath.

In this year's budget, there is the same kind of pork-barrel spending but it is, for the most part, out in the open. Each piece of porky goodness is detailed in the budget.

Also, state Auditor Les Merritt, a Republican, opened an investigation into the spending. Click here for a rather large PDF of that report.

Merritt's report essentially found that the process of distributing these grants didn't work the way it should and asked Attorney General Roy Cooper to considering doing something...like maybe pressing charges.

Cooper, a Democrat, has apparently finished noodling over Merritt's suggestion. The bottom line: while he thinks things weren't done right - and offers some handy tips for making sure they don't ever go down that road again - he's not going to prosecute anyone.

You will hear over the next few days from Republicans who decry Cooper's decision and will, I'm pretty sure, accuse him of not pulling the trigger because the folks involved are Democrats (mainly). The comments link below is available if you'd like to have that discussion here.

For more on this story, here's what our friends at the Associated Press sent out this afternoon:

I've been getting a pretty steady stream of e-mail (okay, it's about one-a-day, but it's a nice break from the spam and people telling me what an ignoramus I am) about House Bill 706, which would allow North Carolina school districts to more easily recruit teachers from other states.

Click here for prior coverage.

As of right now, the most definitive thing I can say is that it's on
the list of bills awaiting action by the governor.

Gov. Mike Easley doesn't like this bill and the local punditry has posited that he will veto this thing. Of course, that's not his only option.

While the General Assembly is in session, the governor has 10 days to decide whether to sign or veto something. If he does nothing during that time, the bill becomes law without his signature.

Nine days had ticked off that clock for HB 706 when the General Assembly adjourned a couple weeks ago until May. That started a new 30-day clock ticking. Similarly, if the governor does nothing during this time period, the bill becomes law without his signature.

The clock expires at midnight on Sunday, Oct. 2.

When folks in Easley's office are asked about this bill, the response has been that Easley is "still reviewing the bill." The rough translation of that phrase is something like: "He may have decided but we're not telling what that decision might be yet." Easley has Ophelia (the hurricane) on the brain this week, so I wouldn't hold my breath to see anything on this soon.

It's a pretty good bet Easley won't sign HB 706 given the amount of venom he's unleashed on it. That would leave two options:

• As discussed above, he could let is pass into law without his signature. That would be a reasonable option, especially given that the bill passed unanimously twice in the House and by a 45-4 vote in the Senate. Those sorts of numbers would handily over-ride a veto any day.

• If he does veto it, the state constitution requires the governor to call the General Assembly back into session to consider an over-ride. It takes a three-fifth vote in both the House and Senate to over-ride a veto. That's a 30 of 50 votes in the Senate and a 72 of 120 votes in the House. (Would-be constitutional scholars can click here for all the nitty gritty.)

So which will happen? I don't know. Which should happen? You can discuss that in the comments section below.

It's been a slow week here at Capital Beat . . . I've been working on a couple things that have proven to be a bit more tedious than I expected. Not that you would have seen much out of me this week anyway, since I've been mainly trying to spin up a couple things for later this month.

There's still no word on lottery commission appointments. If, as Speaker Black says, the governor and legislature want to announce all nine appointments together, it'll probably be next week before you hear anything for certain.

That's because the Gov. Mike Easley has hurricane Ophelia on the brain right now. Not that paying attention to the storm is a bad thing, given recent events down on the gulf and the odd-ball nature of this slow-moving storm.

To show us how hard he's working, Easley has been doing daily news conferences, the last couple in the basement of the state administration building, which serves as an emergency operations center of sorts - it's all very war room like, complete with some big honking maps and grim looking guys in various uniforms.

The good news so far seems to be that the storm, which isn't expected blow completely out of North Carolina until tomorrow, has done some damage but there are no reports of deaths yet. Easley urges everyone to be cautious, offering up that more people get hurt or killed after a storm passes than by the storm itself.

Clean up on the southern-most sections of North Carolina's coast have already begun, as the storm passed by the Wilmington area earlier this morning. Expect to see shots on the local news of Easley and other folks touring / flying over the affected areas.

On vacation, thank you very much. Some friends and family spent a few days down at Oak Island, which is a quiet little spot that managed to avoid too much hurricane damage.

Now let's see, what's been going on around these parts?

Gov. Easley has signed a couple bills:

• House Bill 254 lets the state issue about $900 million in grant anticipation bonds. Basically, N.C. doesn't want to wait around for federal grants, so the state will issue bonds, use the proceeds and repay them when Congress finally sends the money along.

• House Bill 750 will allow the state transportation department to change the way it goes about paving unpaved roads. One of the bill's sponsors was Rep. Nelson Cole (D-Rockingham). Basically, it allows a bit of shift toward maintaining small roads that are already paved rather than putting asphalt on in places that don't need it. Fun facts from the news release:

  Secondary roads comprise nearly 64,000 miles of North Carolina’s more than 78,000-mile highway system, and only about 4,400 miles of those roads are unpaved. A recent condition assessment projected a $121 million gap between available funds and secondary road maintenance needs.

Also, there's another bill signing in just about 15 minutes (more on that later) and a big ol' pile of e-mail and snail mail that I'm still sifting through...so more to come.

Gov. Mike Easley held himself a little news conference this morning to sign a bill and take some questions. You can expect a bunch of these between now and Oct. 2. It's an easy way fro the governor to keep himself in front of the cameras and dole out the odd political favor. (It seems that an invite to one of these shindigs is a big deal for legislative types.)

Here's what was covered:

• The topic at hand was Senate Bill 1048, which carries the formal title of "The Identity Theft Protection Act of 2005."

  Basically, the bill is meant to protect consumers from criminals who steal personal information and then take out fraudulent loans and credit cards or even get arrested and give someone else’s name to the police.

  The marquis provision of the bill will allow consumers to freeze their credit reports, making it impossible for someone to take out a loan in their name. That begins Dec. 1.

• Apparently Easley was asked earlier this week when he would announce appointments to the lottery commission, the group that will run the new state numbers game. At the time he said, "early in the week."

  Well, the early week is running out and he was asked about this again today. His response: "It could be announced as early as today."

  Without the commission in place, nothing else lottery-related can happen.

• When asked about the sharp rise and subsequent slow drop in gas prices, Easley said he was considering joining other Democratic governors in calling on the feds to do something. He said that the recent supply interruption (and subsequent price spike) showed that the U.S. needed more refineries and shouldn't just keep all its supply down in one place (the gulf) where a big storm can interrupt the whole deal.

  Attorney General Roy Cooper, who was at the news conference as well, said his office was watching out for price gouging.

  "We have sent out a warning to retailers across the state letting them know that the price gouging law is in effect," Cooper said. He later said, "I think it's important of Congress to look into this issue."

• Easley actually make a couple of spontaneous funnies today. The first came after Cooper pointed out that there was only one glass of water to share for the speakers, much like conditions working in a tobacco field.

  Easley chortled and replied, "I haven't been in a tobacco patch since I got a drivers' license to make it to construction work."

  The last came at the end of the news conference, when reminded that the water providers were watching an emerging drought across the state carefully. There was a big rain storm here in Raleigh late Tuesday night / early Wednesday morning.

  "I was up late making it rain," Easley joked.

I just received an e-mail alerting me to this press release by the National Taxpayer’s Union.

It urges Gov. Mike Easley to temporarily lift the state’s 26.5-cent tax on gasoline. Easley was asked this morning whether he would do such a thing this morning. His one word reply: “no.”

Why pass on the seemingly feel-good power play? Easley may just be looking at the numbers.

Cutting 26.5 cents won't get prices below $2 a gallon at my local station. Meanwhile, cutting the state will cost the state somewhere north of $120 million a month - money that's set aside to help build and repair roads.

So, is getting your petrol bill down to, say $2.35 rather than $2.61, worth putting a host of road projects behind the fiscal eight ball? Discuss in the comments below.

Of all the questions swirling around the lottery - what games will be played, how big will the jackpots be, how much money will it actually raise - the first that needed to be answered was who was run the thing.

We know now that a Greensboro woman will be among the nine member lottery commission, the group that will run the state numbers game.

Gov. Mike Easley has made his five appointments according to the Associated Press. House Speaker Jim Black and Senate Leader Marc Basnight each have two and are expected to make their choices known this afternoon.

Among Easley's appointments is Linda Carlisle, a member of the UNCG Board of Trustees and the former president of Copier Consultants. Carlisle is known locally as a community activist and fundraiser.

I grabbed this blurb on her from a 2001 UNCG press release:

Linda Arnold Carlisle of Greensboro, Class of 1972. Described as "an example of 'service' in action," Carlisle is one of the founders of Friends of Women’s Studies and is a long-time supporter of the UNCG Women’s Studies Program, which created the Linda Carlisle Faculty Research Award in her honor. In addition, she has been both a board of directors member and president of the UNCG Excellence Foundation. She recently completed a term on the Bryan School Advisory Board. At the local level, she serves on the boards of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, the Family Life Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the Greensboro Montessori School and Youth Chorus. She also is on the board of SterlingSouth Bank and Trust. She retired in 1997 from Copier Consultants, a firm she owned and managed with her husband for nearly 20 years.

According to the Associated Press, Easley's other four appointees included: Former Glaxo Inc. chief executive Charles Sanders, who will chair the board, Crime Control and Public Safety Secretary Bryan Beatty, former Easley aide John McArthur, who is a vice president and general counsel for Progress Energy Inc., and Wilson attorney Robert Farris Jr.

You may also know Sanders from his 1996 run for the Democratic nomination for Senate.

Black and Basnight's appointments were expected to come later this afternoon. (So much for announcing them all as a group, I guess.)

Update1: Basnight has appointed Robert W. Appleton of Wilmington and Malachi J. Greene of Charlotte to the North Carolina State Lottery Commission. Click here for more on those two.

Update2: Click here for Easley's news release on his appointments.

Update3: Black has appointed Gordon Myers, of Asheville and Kevin Geddings, of Charlotte. Meyers will serve as the lottery commissioner with retail experience. He recently retired from his job as Vice President of Real Estate for Ingles Markets, Inc., where he oversaw all real estate development and leasing for the chain's approximate 200 stores and shopping centers. Geddings is the owner of Geddings & Phillips Broadcasting, a radio station holding company, and Geddings & Phillips Communications, a Charlotte-based PR-advertising agency.

And yes, we'll probably have something about this in the dead-tree version of the paper tomorrow.

Update4: Our friends from the Associated Press weigh in with an early version of their story after the jump:

Here are the stories I've been working on lottery-wise for the paper:

• This one ran Friday, and is just a quick run down of the new lottery commission
• A profile of new lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings ran Saturday. Of all the lottery commissioners, Geddings has the most experience with lotteries.
• And finally, this profile of Linda Carlisle, who lives in Greensboro, ran today.

Something I've been neglecting to put in stories but really should have: the salaries of the new lottery commissioners.

For the record, it's $15 a day plus travel expenses. That's meant to cover the cost of driving to and from meetings and any meals or lodging required.

If you haven't already, please go and read the series on economic development incentives by my colleagues Taft Wireback and Richard Barron.

Taft leads off the series with this graph from his Sunday story:

North Carolina's job-recruitment policies have developed significant flaws that threaten to squander millions of taxpayer dollars, a News & Record investigation has found.

If that's not enough to get you interested, nothing will. This is a pretty thorough look at how incentives work, and when they don't deliver on promises.

Their series started Sunday and continues through tomorrow. Go read it now.

Update: Click here for today's story on this from the dead-tree product.

Gov. Mike Easley has vetoed House Bill 706, which would have made it easier for North Carolina school districts to hire teachers from other states. Click here for prior coverage.

Easley did the veto in public and held a news conference to tell us scrubby press types that he really didn’t like the bill. This is a break from his usual procedure, under which he usually sends vetoes back to the legislature nice and quiet like.

"This bill reduces the North Carolina teaching standards to the lowest in America. It cheats our children out of a quality education and dishonestly classifies unqualified teachers as 'highly qualified,'" Easley wrote in his veto message.

Easley has until Oct. 12 to call the General Assembly back into session to consider whether to over-ride his veto or not.

Legislators and the state board of education have been working on a compromise but those talks fell apart Wednesday night, Easley said.

If nothing changes in the next week or so, expect the honorables to be headed back to town for a day or two.

I've had on my editing hat today (Friday) and will again Saturday.
That basically means I'v been moving copy rather than writing it.

But if you're yearning for my somewhat scatterbrained take on state politics and such, find WNCU 90.7 in Raleigh on your radio dial Saturday at 10:30 a.m.

I'll be on with Kerra Bolton on her last NC Capital Review show. Kerra's leaving the program to pursue other things and I filled in as her last guest this week. (The show is taped in advance.) Topics included the lottery and Gov. Mike Easley's veto of HB 706.