Characters and gangs
There are some real characters wandering about the General Assembly today - and not just the elected sort.
Yes, that's Sen. Tony Rand reading a book to school kids flanked by Little Red Riding Hood and some fairy-queen-magical looking critter. Not pictured: the Cat in the Hat.
The state association of library directors is lobbying for a $5 million appropriation down here today.
Also in the building: A coalition of big-city mayors pushing for anti-gang legislation. Those bills are on the Senate calendar this afternoon.
Background here.
Greensboro Mayor Yvonne Johnson is not up here in Raleigh due to scheduling conflicts. However, she said on the phone that she's less than impressed with the effort to criminalize recruiting or belonging to a gang.
"But I think differently from a lot of people," Johnson said. In addition to being mayor, Johnson runs the nonprofit "One Step Further," which works to provide sentencing alternatives and helps youth offenders get back in the community.
"We could get a whole lot more out of trying to change person's behavior from negative to positive than out of putting everybody in jail," Johnson said. That puts her more in favor of the rehabilitation bill coming from the Senate than the punishment piece in the House bill.
More later.
Due to recent automated spamming attacks on our blogs, we are temporarily requiring commenters to authenticate themselves via TypeKey® before posting comments to any News & Record blog in order to prevent denials of service. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.