News-Record.com

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.