Lottery Appointments
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:
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Former Glaxo Inc. chief executive Charles Sanders will lead the North Carolina Lottery Commission, the office of Gov. Mike Easley said Thursday.
Sanders, who ran for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 1996, will head up a nine-member commission that will oversee the creation of the new North Carolina education lottery.
One of the commission's first tasks will be to hire an executive director and choose a lottery operator that can help get out the first scratch cards as early as next spring.
"Charles Sanders has a strong record of running, directing and advising major corporations around the country," Easley said in a prepared statement. "It would be difficult to match his qualifications to help guide this new endeavor to a successful start."
Easley's office also confirmed his other four appointments to the board, including Crime Control and Public Safety Secretary Bryan Beatty and former Easley aide John McArthur. Other Easley appointments are Linda Carlisle of Greensboro and Wilson attorney Robert Farris Jr.
House Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg, named radio station owner and former Democratic operative Kevin Geddings of Charlotte and former state Board of Transportation member Gordon Myers as his two appointees.
Senate leader Marc Basnight, D-Dare, apppointed former Charlotte city councilman Malachi Greene and Wilmington accountant Robert Appleton.
The law creating the commission required a certified public accountant to sit on the board. Beatty's appointment fulfills the requirement that the commission include a member with at least five years of law enforcement experience.
McArthur is vice president and general counsel for Progress Energy Inc. Geddings is a former chief of staff to South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges who recently bought a radio station in Monroe.
Easley's appointees — not including Farris — combined gave at least $10,500 to the governor's 2004 re-election campaign, according to campaign finance reports filed with the State Board of Elections.
The lottery law requires at least 35 percent of gross revenues to be returned to the state for public school construction projects, need-based college scholarships and class-size reduction and More at Four preschool initiatives.
The Easley administration projects net profits of $420 million in the 2006-07 fiscal year from the lottery. The winning contractor for the game could receive tens of millions of dollars annually.
Comments (2)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
Maybe this is a stupid question, but can you share the party affiliation of the people who were appointmented to the commission? Looks like it's all in the (Easley) family.
Only 35% of gross revenues goes to education?
Posted on September 23, 2005 7:59 AM
Hmmm...good question on the party affiliation...I'm pretty sure that most are Democrats but can't say for sure...will get back to you on that one.
The law says 35 percent of revenues must go to education. That leaves open the possibility that more could go toward education funding. There are some other states where no such limit exists.
Posted on September 24, 2005 8:18 PM