Registration fee in traffic
I wrote earlier (here and here) about a bill that would raise your annual car registration fee $8 a year (to $36 for most cars). The money raised, about $50, would go to fund toll road projects around the state, the first one of which would be right here in Cap City.
The Senate passed the bill on Monday and sent it over the House, where it sits in the Finance Committee.
If my mail and e-mail is any indication, you folks back in the 'boro don't like the idea of shelling out more in fees for roads you'll have to pay to drive on. It's an idea, if I understand some of your comments rightly, that made you question the parentage of some legislators.
The honorables in the House seem to agree with you.
"The registration fee is not really popular with the House members," said Rep. Paul Luebke, a Durham Democrat and one of the Finance Committee chairman. He said that negotiators were working on a solution that didn't involve increasing the fee.
Rep. Bill Owens, the Rules Chairman, said that "two or three options" were being looked at and that a final compromise might be worked out at the level of the Speaker and Pro Tempore.