News-Record.com

I've been contemplating a short story on a state program that certifies roadside fruit and vegetable stands as selling locally grown produce. Has anyone out there used this Dept. of Ag website to find a fruit or vegetable stand near you? Anyone have a particular roadside stand in Davidson, Guilford or Rockingham counties?

I'm about to clear out of the office, but before I jet here are a couple of things that are of interest:

And just because a lot of state tax money went into it, the High Point furniture market folks are pretty darned excited about their new transportation terminal. Look, they even sent a picture of where the thing will be... ...once they build it.

Of those three, the release on the immigrant tuition is the most significant. There was a huge row when that bill was proposed, with resistance mainly coming from folks who said that those who enter the country illegally should not be rewarded for doing so. The other side of the argument said that children were being unjustly punished for the sins of their parents. Don't be surprised to see the issue come up again.

I'm about to clear out of the office, but before I jet here are a couple of things that are of interest:

And just because a lot of state tax money went into it, the High Point furniture market folks are pretty darned excited about their new transportation terminal. Look, they even sent a picture of where the thing will be... ...once they build it.

Of those three, the release on the immigrant tuition is the most significant. There was a huge row when that bill was proposed, with resistance mainly coming from folks who said that those who enter the country illegally should not be rewarded for doing so. The other side of the argument said that children were being unjustly punished for the sins of their parents. Don't be surprised to see the issue come up again.

Just a few notes to get you through your Friday:

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.

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.

Good morning.

For those who missed the dead tree version of the paper, check out this story on a recently released audit of the N.C. prison system.

And Click here to read the report itself. (Warning, this is a pretty big PDF file.)

The most remarkable thing to me about the report is not that they found problems. But one of the chief problems they found - overpaying prison workers - is ongoing and something that prison officials don't seem to think they can stop.

Update: Click here for the story related to this post.

Since 2000, the state has given day care centers and other child care facilities ratings of one through five stars, five stars being the best. It a rating that a lot of parents look at before choosing a day care.

The system was the first of its kind in the nation and has become a model for others to follow. However, some said the program gave day cares too much credit for doing basic things that they should be doing anyway. The argument went that a day care that had a mediocre teaching program might get a prestigious three, four or five star rating by virtue of meeting basic "compliance" requirements.

The General Assembly took that criticism to heart this spring and changed the law. While day cares will still have to meet certain criteria for health and safety, those scores no longer count towards a day cares' star rating. The changes go into effect in 2006 for new day cares, in 2008 for existing ones.

Update: My story in Sunday's paper details some of the concerns that day care owners have about the new scoring system.

For those of you interested in finding out more, some links:

• An overview of the star rating system, from the state Division of Child Development.
• Look up info on your child's day care or find day cares in your area that match certain criteria, including on star rating.
• Information on what's changing in the day care licensing system.

There were a couple stories from me on Sunday and Monday regarding the state's efforts to update its network of voting machines.

Update2: Click here for the Monday story.

Update1: Click here for the Sunday story.

If you were paying any attention at all to politics last year long about this time, you knew something wasn't quite right. A voting machine in Carteret County had gobbled up more than 4,000 votes, enough to turn the tide in the statewide Commissioner of Agriculture race. (There were enough other glitches as well, but the Carteret problem has become emblematic of the lot, at least around Raleigh.)

I spent the morning watching our legal system in action. Sadly, it wasn't acting on the case that I (and maybe you) are interested in.

For those who have missed prior coverage on the voting machine topic, click here, here, or here.

The real short summary: voting machine makers are trying to get themselves exempt from parts of the state's newly written law governing computerized voting machines. The crux of the matter has to do with how much (or how little) of their source code they have to fork over for inspection should something go wrong.

The Judge (who is hearing a bunch of motions today) finally took mercy on those interested in the voting machine matter and set 2 p.m. as the time for that hearing. (If you're in Raleigh, why not head on down to courtroom 10-B of the Wake County Courthouse. Come for the legal arguments, stay for the hind-end-numbing seats in the courtroom.)

I'll write something for tomorrow's paper and blog a bit about the outcome today, time permitting.

Update: For the newspaper story on the Diebold suit, click here.

For those who haven't been following, I'm updating this post.

The judge in the case brought by Diebold Election Systems against the state dismissed the suit.

Diebold had asked that the court clarified what the law meant.

The judge, in essence, said that the law was pretty clear and that without some sort of ongoing controversy (someone getting arrested or sued for damages) there wasn't anything for him to rule on anyway.

Diebold's lawyers said they expected their clients to withdraw from the state contracting process as a result of the decision.

More on this in tomorrow's paper.

A couple days ago (Monday if the electronic voodoo machine here in front of me is correct) this story regarding identity theft protection and other new laws going into effect Dec. 1 ran.

I've gotten a couple questions since then, all of which surround how to go about freezing one's credit report as the law now allows.

To avoid cluttering up the newspaper version of the story, I had just included one link to the NC Department of Justice's website. That site links to a couple tip-sheets on protecting yourself from identity theft such as this general primer on how to protect yourself and this one that lays out specifically how to freeze one's credit. Both of those are in PDF format.

But the DOJ's web page can be a bit difficult to navigate (and if your internet connection is slow like mine, PDF files can cause you fits) and some people weren't able to find what they were looking for.

So despite the best efforts of my computer to crash and burn on me this afternoon, I'll steal what the AG has up re: credit freezes and post it here after the jump:

Those who remember the controversy over certification of teachers and Easley's veto will be interested to know there is apparently a compromise in the offing.

Read the Associated Press story by clicking here. (Some registration may be required. I'm sending you off site because I can't find the story in our own system.)

The summary of the compromise from the story:

Under the plan, middle school and high school teachers from other states who have less than three years of experience will have to meet several existing conditions to get a permanent license in North Carolina. Those include completing a third year of teaching, earning a recommendation from the local school district and any other professional development work.

The final step for a state license has been passing a standardized test or completing a standardized evaluation program. Monday's recommendation would create a third option: receiving a positive evaluation from a supervisor addressing the teacher's ability to "impact student learning." The evaluation also would have to say the school district has offered to continue employing the teacher.

The third option would give local districts more control over hiring, supporters said.

Excuse me while I reach for an aspirin, but this is the sort of thing that gives me a headache.

You may remember that voting machine maker Diebold last month went to court asking to be excused from part of the state's brand spanking new voting law.

Earlier this week, the judge, in effect, said "no, obey the law as written."

During and after the court heading Monday, Diebold's lawyers said they would be unable to bid on the state's voting machine contracts without the change to the law. They would withdraw from consideration, the lawyers said.

So who was approved as one of the three vendors allowed to sell voting machines in North Carolina next year?

Diebold.

And no, the law hasn't changed since Monday.

In case you missed it, here’s my story on election folks worrying that they might not be able to roll out new voting systems in time for the May primary.

You may think that four months and change (early voting begins in April next year) is a lot of time to get something like this done. But governments are not known for moving with alacrity. And there are still a few details to be nailed down before the voting machine vendors that were certified yesterday can legally begin selling their wares.

Bottom line: We may not know where. We may not know exactly what. But the folks who are responsible for running the state’s elections say that North Carolina residents should be prepared for problems next spring.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which helped intervene in the Diebold lawsuit earlier this week, is none to impressed with the SBOE's certification of the company to sell voting equipment in North Carolina.

Readers at this blog have seen a lot about voting machines over the past few weeks. Are you curious to see what all the fuss is about? Well here’s your chance.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, on behalf of Joyce McCloy of Winston-Salem, said today that it has sued the state for improperly certifying voting machine manufacturers to sell equipment in North Carolina.

Click here for the press release.

Click here for the legal brief.

Click here for links to prior posts on this topic.

You may remember a post and story I wrote last week saying that state election officials were worried about being able to deploy a whole new network of voting machines in time for the May primary.

Well, they aren't the only ones.

The North Carolina Association of County Commissioners says the state hasn't come through with enough funding to help the counties buy and deploy the new machines. From association director David Thompson:

“It is unreasonable to expect that all 100 counties can review the approved equipment and then decide which to order by Jan. 20,” said Thompson. “In addition, funding provided by the federal and state governments under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) is insufficient to meet the increased state requirements under the General Assembly’s Public Confidence in Elections Act. The General Assembly’s decision to require a paper trail is essentially another unfunded mandate on counties.”

Click here to read the whole release.

The Department of Cultural Resources
How can it be is podcasting. Does this make podcasting more or less hip? (And have I just proven that I'm completely unhip for using the word "hip" in a sentence without even thinking about it?)

Anyway, go listen if you like. The first edition features the six folks who recently received the North Carolina Award. (One of those was Joseph M. Bryan Jr., for his public service work.)

Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens got a crash course in voting machine laws and computer science Wednesday afternoon as he tried to sort out whether the state Board of Elections examined the state's new crop of voting machines as carefully as the state legislature wanted.

His education will continue next week. Stephens wasn't prepared to make a ruling Wednesday but sounds like he wants to come to some sort of decision before Dec. 23, which is the date voting machine companies given the "OK" by the state can start selling their wares to counties.

By way of background: The state certified two voting machine makers - Diebold and ES&S - as meeting all the requirements laid down by federal and state laws.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, on behalf of Winston-Salem based advocate Joyce McCloy, sued, saying that the state did not go about that certification process correctly.

Hence Wednesday's hearing. Adding to the fun is a strong and probably not unfounded fear that no matter how quickly the state moves, the 100 counties won't be able to deploy new voting equipment quickly enough.

I'm not going to try right now to do full justice to the arguments on both sides of the case. But:

The EFF argues: the State Board of Elections did not hold Diebold and ES&S to the strict standards set forth by North Carolina. Specifically, the foundation argues that the state didn't properly examine the computer code that runs the machines. They further argue that the state should have required the voting machine makers to escrow their code BEFORE granting them certification.

The State Board argues: that they have required the voting machine makers to escrow their code by Dec. 22 and that's perfectly fine under the law. They further say that the code that tabulates votes got a thorough checking out by an undisclosed panel of experts. Further, they argued that state law does not require them to examine the source code for off the shelf produces such as Microsoft Windows.

Who's right? Hey, if the guy with a law degree and a gavel ain't saying, I'm not either. But Judge Stephens did ask both sides to submit more briefs. Stephens seemed bothered by the fact that if he granted what the EFF was asking, he could end up costing the state some money (North Carolina could be asked to hand back some federal funds if a hand-full of counties fail to meet a Jan. 1 deadline) and he could bollix up what's already a process running on a pretty tight time frame.

"I do believe what you are asking me to do is dramatic and could place some financial burden on the state," Stephens said. The EFF and McCloy will be asked if they're willing to post some sort of bond in case things go to trial and they turn out to be wrong.

The next hearing in this case is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 21 at 2 p.m.

Related voting machine vendor news:

• Sequoia, an other major voting manufacture, has withdrawn its application for certification in North Carolina. SBOE officials said they expected the company to re-apply in January. The problem Sequoia may run into, however, is that counties will have to make decisions on which voting systems to use pretty fast. By the time they get certified by the state, a lot of those decisions could already be made.

• Diebold has had a rough week. First the company's CEO resigned. Then it got hit with a lawsuit which alleges "the voting-machine maker lacked sufficient internal controls, was unable to be confident in the quality of its voting machines and made misleading statements about its condition."

I got copied on this letter (MSWORD Doc) from the Warren County GOP this morning. It reads in part:

The Warren County Republican Party respectfully asks that no taxpayer money be appropriated for the purchase of electronic voting machines from Diebold, or any other provider, until such time as all questions regarding the certification process and the relationship between Chairman Leake and Diebold's representatives have been satisfactorily answered.

I know squat about local politics up in Warren County, but this is interesting. I haven't heard of any other party organizations getting involved in this debate.

The reference to Leake and Diebold can apparently be traced back this article, which says that Leake and Diebold lobbyist Steve Metcalf have a long-standing friendship. I can vouch for none of the information in that story except to say that Leake's name does show up on a 1998 finance report for a Metcalf-run political committee.

For prior coverage: click here.

For those of you following the disagreement over whether the state properly certified voting machine vendors:

The judge in the case threw it out today, finding that the state Board of Elections had complied with the law when it certified Diebold and ES&S to sell voting equipment in the state.

More on this in tomorrow's paper.

A couple quick updates re: voting machines:

• Here's my quick and dirty story from today's paper on yesterday's court ruling that threw out a lawsuit challenging how North Carolina certified companies to sell voting equipment here. There's more I could report on the topic, but other stories that need to get filed for this weekend have to take priority for the moment.
• Why do we keep writing all this stuff about voting machines? I mean aside from last year's problems in Carteret County? Because of things like this.

For more voting machine posts: click here.

Voting machine maker Diebold has withdrawn its bid to sell voting machine in North Carolina. This letter from Charles Owen, division counsel for the company, outlines why. This paragraph essentially sums it up:

On December 1, 2005, the SBE publicly announced that every vendor certified faced issues with respect to the escrow of third-party software. At that time, the SBE proposed a solution to the escrow requirements for third-party software. However, after further analysis, we believe the proposed solution is inconsistent with state law. Moreover, the proposed solution fails to address the requirements imposed on vendors to identify all programmers responsible for creating the third party software to be placed in escrow.

If that doesn't make sense to you, click here for background.

Why do you care? Well, Diebold's withdrawal leaves ES&S as the last voting machine vendor standing in North Carolina. Earlier this year, election officials were saying they thought any one vendor could handle about half the state's business. If any one company tried to handle more than 3/4 of the counties in North Carolina, they'd probably be stretching their resources too thin, the thinking went.

ES&S now has to handle every county - all 100 - in North Carolina. As of this writing I haven't talked to anyone at ES&S who can give me a good idea of what they're capabilities are or what they're plans might be.

Update: (6:25 p.m.) I just got this e-mailed to me from a ES&S company spokeswoman:

We have a long history of helping election officials conduct statewide elections. And we are certainly looking forward to helping North Carolina in 2006. Given that this development just happened, we are currently reviewing the situation and we will be working with the state and local election officials to determine exactly what is needed. Because of our industry leadership and longstanding relationships with many North Carolina counties, we are confident we can provide safe, accurate, and reliable voting systems to North Carolina voters and ensure they comply with the Help America Vote Act.

Keith Long, a contractor working for the state on deploying new voting machines, said he's unsure what the impact of all this will be until state officials talk more with ES&S.

"We probably won't have any meaningful discussions until Tuesday," he said, meaning Dec. 27.

There will be a story in Friday's paper about all this. Now for more background material:

Along with his letter, Owen sent this e-mail to N.C. Election Director Garry Bartlett:

Good afternoon, my name is Chuck Owen, and I am the Division Counsel for Diebold Election Systems, Inc. ("DESI"). Attached to this e-mail you will find a letter in a PDF format for your reference. The substance of the attached letter is to advise you that DESI cannot comply with Session Law 2005-323 as currently drafted, and moving forward to a formal contract would place DESI in a position of violating State law. Therefore, DESI will be unable t o move forward in this procurement process, and we want to advise you of this fact sooner than later. DESI does however want to work with the State Board of Elections for the State of North Carolina in getting the current Session Law revised, so that all vendors will be able to comply with the State Election Law. Furthermore, DESI desires to continue to provide support to DESI's loyal customers in the State of North Carolina; however, until the Session Law is revised DESI will not be able to provide such support to its customers. The foregoing is more specifically addressed in the attached letter.

Please do note hesitate to contact me should you have any questions with regard to the attached letter.

Cordially,
Chuck Owen

As a result of all that, the state board sent this message to counties today:

The State Board felt it was important that you received the information below as soon as possible.

The effect of the following message is that Diebold has withdrawn from the RFP process for the state of North Carolina. You are reminded that the State Board meeting on December 1st, 2005 decertified all equipment in use within the state. This means that equipment currently being sold and/or serviced by Diebold no longer meets certification requirements and cannot be used.

If you need to contact us, please remember that the State Board office will be observing the Christmas holidays of Dec. 23rd and 26th.

I may have more to say on this later. For now, have a happy whatever it is you're celebrating this time of year.

There should be a short story in tomorrow's (Wednesday's) paper that is pegged to N.C. Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek urging local boards of elections to go with optical scan equipment. I need to give a tip o' the hat to the person who originally e-mailed me the letter, but don't know if that person necessarily wants the recognition.

I have no idea whether others have reported this - the letter is dated Dec. 8 - but I hadn't seen it until last week. Meek's letter is interesting to me because you don't see a whole lot of other high profile political types weighing on this around here.

See a PDF of the letter by clicking here.

Meek said that issues surrounding voting machines were by far the issue upon which rank-and-file constituents contacted him the most since he took office in the Spring.

-----

Cap beat is taking an end-of-year break but will be back on Friday. In the mean time, lottery watchers should keep an eye out for stories out of Wednesday's N.C. Lottery Commission meeting. The commission had cancelled the remainder of its meetings for the year, so it will be interesting to see what they felt the need to teleconference about.

See y'all back here on Dec. 30.

I have a blog backlog to get to – one entry which will even use the phrase "strip club" – caused in part by working an editing shift Friday night. Also contributing was one of those stories that I started out thinking, "Hey, this will be a cute little quick-hit and take no time at all." I should know by now, whenever that thought crosses my mind, I'm sunk.

At any rate: go read about the pretty sunflowers and what the state is doing to preserve them.

I'm going to dose up on coffee and will be right back to share the latest doings here in Cap City.

While my slacker behind has been writing about pretty flowers, my colleague Taft Wireback has been committing some real journalism. From a report he published last Friday:

School districts in parts of North Carolina are struggling with buses from High Point-based Thomas Built Buses that have such weak heating systems they leave students and drivers shivering whenever the weather turns cold.

Click here for that story.

Apparently, the state has taken notice. From today’s paper:

State officials expect to decide soon whether Thomas Built Buses should pay to improve ineffective heaters in hundreds of buses the High Point company made for school districts across the state.

Officials in the state Division of Purchase and Contract plan to meet with their counterparts in the Department of Public Instruction to discuss a solution, said Ralph Edelberg of the state contract office.

Click here for that story.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I want to be Taft when I grow up.

I last wrote about the idea of holding a special session to debate lowering the recent 2.8-cent jump in the gas tax here and here.

Others weigh in here, here, here and here.

My latest reading of the landscape here is that North Carolinians should (Eds note: 8p.m., I thought that I had fixed this ages ago but apparently it didn't take. So I'm fixing it again.) not expect to see the honorables trucking back to town any time soon. If for no other reason, there aren’t enough Democrats in the Senate willing to put their name to a call for a special session.

Plus, the latest 25-cent jump at the gas pump seems to have drowned out the tax increase. I guess it’s trendy to be mad at the oil companies over fuel prices again rather than the government.

That's not to say there isn't some entertainment to be had out of this affair.

As promised in an earlier post, it’s time to talk about strip clubs, so let’s not dance around the issue:

You may remember Joe Sinsheimer, who is on a mission to drive House Speaker Jim Black out of office. It hasn’t worked so far, but Sinsheimer seems undaunted in his quest to find stuff in Black’s campaign finance reports that folks might find unsavory.

Click here to see his latest effort, sent around Jan. 10, (or click here for a word file if you're reading this long after this posts publication date, since his releases aren’t indexed). It reads in part:

Click here for today's Inside Scoop column, which has a bunch of state news in it, including House Speaker Jim Black heading to town later this month.

"It's always wise to check with a health care professional before you buy anything that claims to replace a legitimate medicine," Attorney General Roy Cooper writes in a news release.

That's probably sound advice, particularly when considering something called Yam Cream. (Word Doc)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off for my mashed potatoes therapy.

Local office supply stores, including at least on in Greensboro, will be happy about this:

RALEIGH – After a thorough review of the evidence, Britt Cobb, Secretary of the Department of Administration, today rejected the recommendations of the administrative law judge and cited an ambiguity regarding the E-Procurement terms in the Request for Proposals to procure office supplies for state agencies. As such, he will terminate the current contract and solicit bids for a new one.

More after the jump.

Greetings to those of you arriving to chew the fat about this story, which says – to no one’s surprise – that we are a state and nation of over-weight folks.

Click here to link to North Carolina’s program.

Now let’s all go take a walk or something.

Gov. Easley on Tropical Storm Ernesto this morning:

"North Carolina was prepared and it appears that the state has been spared any large-scale damage," said Easley.

However, do look out for and stay out of streams that are above normal, flooded roadways and the like. In other words, try to avoid any sentence/action that begins with the phrase "Hold my beer and watch this..."

More from an Easley news release:

Those traveling on roads in the eastern part of the state need to be particularly cautious. A portion of U.S. 70 near Goldsboro, a major route for weekend travelers headed to North Carolina’s beaches, has been closed due to the flooding. The section of U.S. 70, between N.C. 581 and U.S. 117 Bypass, was closed because of a pond dam breach, according to the state Department of Transportation. The eastbound lanes will be closed and that traffic will be shifted to N.C. 581.

While there are isolated roads closed in some low-lying areas of the eastern part of the state, all interstate highways are open. Maintenance crews are working to clear debris that is blocking roads.

Click here to read the whole release.

My colleague Taft Wireback will be writing about this audit report (PDF warning) for tomorrow’s paper. The intro from the report:

The Office of the State Auditor received a number of allegations concerning a State of North Carolina term contract for tire retreading. The tire retreading contract was written and administered by the North Carolina Department of Administration–Division of Purchase and Contract. The allegations primarily concerned the contractor, White’s Tire Service, Inc., (the Contractor), and the procurement of retread tires for local school districts, which are referred to as Local Education Authorities (LEAs). Allegedly, the contractor violated provisions of the contract regarding charges for repairs, tire casing identification, and price adjustments.

On a quick read through, the report seems to say that there are some things that need to be changed with how this contract works.

Click here for one of Taft’s prior stories on the topic.

Yes, I’m serious with that header and I’ll explain in a moment.

I’ve been spending the day reporting a story to coincide with the opening of the N.C. State Fair on Friday.

The state fair begins today. If you go, check out the local kids showing off their cows, goats and other critters.

The Institute for Constitutional Law, a conservative-leaning legal nonprofit, is suing to stop Amendment One from becoming part of the state’s constitution.

What’s Amendment One?

Amendment One was the title of a constitutional amendment put to voters in 2004 that would allow cities and counties to use what’s broadly known as Tax Increment Financing. I wrote in a 2004 story:

Currently, cities and counties must ask voters' permission before issuing bonds repaid by property tax dollars. Amendment One, so named because it is the first of three constitutional amendments on the ballot, would allow government to bypass voter approval in some of those cases.

Specifically, it would allow local governments to designate certain areas as particularly in need of redevelopment help. A business looking to relocate or expand in that area could get government help with everything from clearing environmental problems to repaving streets. To pay for those improvements, governments could issue bonds without taxpayer approval.

Ideally, the value of the property in question will go up, meaning the taxes charged on that property will go up. The increase in taxes collected would then be used to repay the bonds.

Proponents argue that there are sufficient safeguards in place to keep local governments from overspending and that cities and counties have this ability in 48 other states.

But detractors caution that if the government-funded projects fail, taxpayers will be stuck paying the debts, a line that draws objections from advocates.

It was a hard fought campaign and groups that backed the idea, like the N.C. Association of Realtors and Blue Cross Blue Shield, dumped something to the tune of $1.6 million into the effort. That money produced widely broadcast commericials that basically said voting for Amendemnet One would produce more jobs. Although there was an opposition movement, it didn't have the same kind of backing.

The amendment passed.

The Institute is alleging that the way lawmakers went about putting Amendment One on the ballot violated the state and federal constitutions. Specifically, the suit will allege:

the Text of Explanations adopted by the State to summarize the amendment was misleading and confusing, and that neither the ballot question nor the Text of Explanations clearly informed voters that Amendment One, if passed, would abolish their constitutional right to vote on certain types of local bond issues. The complaint further alleges that the submission of Amendment One to the voters violates the Voting Rights Act in that the State did not properly preclear the proposed amendment and resulting changes to voting procedure with the Attorney General as required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I don't know whether the legal arguments will hold up, but it should be an interesting ride.

Neither Greensboro nor Guilford County has taken their new Amendment One powers for a spin. However, at least one North Carolina city (Kannapolis) is making noise like it plans to issue bonds under the Amendment’s authority.

More to come.

It is the Veterans Day holiday today, and downtown Raleigh is quiet…too quiet… with state offices closed in observance.

Click here for some history of the holiday.

And Click here for this year’s presidential proclamation.

The N.C. Wildlife Resource Commission essentially took a non-position today on allowing hunting on Sundays. (Click for story.)

Now, I did a fair bit of target shooting and a little fishing when I was younger, but never got much into the hunting side of the sport so I don’t really have a good gauge on all this. Is Sunday hunting really all that in demand? And are the downsides really that dire?

E-mail me at mbinker@news-record.com or comment via the link below.

Update(12/8):Click here for Friday's story on this.

We’ll have more on this in Friday’s paper. But the headline is not wrong: the state says it has a $23.8 billion liability for its health plan that is, at this point, unfunded.

Part One: What does this mean

The North Carolina State Health Plan is the branch of state government that provides health insurance for teachers, other public workers and retirees.

Not too long ago, the Government Accounting Standards Board told states that they would have to account for their pending health care liabilities, such as the health plan.

This came as quite the shock to the system, since no one had ever figured out exactly how much the benefits that we promised all those public workers and retirees would cost.

The numbers are in, and I'll upload the report as soon as I can.

Update:

• Press release here.
  
• Report here.

So what does a $23.8 billioin unfunded liability mean? The $23.8 billion figure is a cost calculate out over a matter of decades. No one expects that taxpayers would have to set all that money aside in a matter of one year.

So why is this important? A few reasons:

• Bond rating agencies will look at that liability and may start looking for states to start setting some money aside to meet the anticipated demand. That will be one more strain on a state budget that was looking kind of tight next year anyway.
  
• Seeing the number in black and white might cause lawmakers to re-evaluate how generous we are to state workers. That in turn would make state workers grumpy and prompt a show down at the General Assembly.
  
• All governments are going to deal with this. Look for Greensboro, Guilford County and your home town to be calculating this number and then struggling with what it all means.

This is something that government leaders are first going to struggle to understand, and then struggle to figure out exactly what they should do about it.

Update: I’ve chatted with a few of the honorables since posting this.

Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, says there are a number of possibilities that have been discussed. Among those, she said, has been asking state employees to contribute some to the health plan, which they don’t do now.

According to the actuary’s report, the state would need to play about $849 million a year to make up the ground that has been lost. Hagan say there’s no way the state would do that much, but it might start setting aside more money to take care of some of the future payments.

And, she said, the state needs to more vigorously pursue a wellness plan for workers. The logic here is that healthier workers will mean fewer health care costs in the future.

“We need to have better nutrition, we need to have better exercise, we need to make our state employees healthier.”

Sen. Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, was also of the opinion that the state needed to set aside more money. He also said the state may consider shifting to a health savings account-type scheme, such as the one pushed by the Locke Foundation.

Berger said that this is a case where the General Assembly is planning short term when it makes its budget deals but should be looking further down the fiscal road.

“A lot of times, the fiscal horizon we’re looking at is two or three years,” he said. “There’s not a practice a looking at something asking what this does to the next generation and we need to start doing that.”

Part two, after the jump.

From the governor’s office today:

Gov. Mike Easley today announced a series of proposals that will make neighborhoods near hazardous waste storage facilities safer and improve the ability of state and community emergency workers to effectively respond in the event of an emergency. The proposals are from the Governor’s Hazardous Materials Task Force he formed after the Oct. 5 fire at the EQ storage site in Apex.

Click here for the full release.

Welcome to those of you finding your way here after reading this story on the Polo.com incentives.

A couple notes:

• Once the deal is done with an incentives package, the Commerce Department and other agencies have to make with the records, which is a relatively recent addition to the state’s open records laws. Incentives are an area where the public’s right to know about how their government chooses to spend tax dollars is in conflict with the objectives of the business and government agencies. Having the records available after the fact doesn’t balance out this equation in my mind – it doesn’t, for example, let taxpayers who oppose a particular deal get organized far enough in a advance to stop it – but it does give folks a window into the workings of the incentives process.
• The Commerce Department is one of the few agencies I’ve been to where officials won’t let you into the office area. This is not because they think you’re dangerous, but because you might hear some over-enthusiastic employee espousing about some pending deal that’s not ready for daylight…at least that’s what they told me. I’m betting they just don’t want anyone around all those gold shovels they use for groundbreakings.
• The folks at Polo.com didn’t respond in any meaningful way for this story. Heck, once you get $4.4 million in taxpayer money, there’s really no reason to explain why or how you made your decisions is there?

As always, the comments link is open.

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper held a press conference this morning laying out ways in which he thinks the General Assembly should crack down on child predators. (Press releases here; and a more detailed folio here.)

I don’t think anyone will argue with the intent of those bills and if I had to handicap them, I’d say the package in part or full will probably have a relatively easy time getting through the General Assembly.

A couple notes:

• Cooper wants MySpace and other similar services to “get parents’ permission before children can join.” He also calls for parents to have greater control/oversight over what their children posts. As a parent who still has a few years to go before my oldest starts posting anything to the Internet, I appreciate the intent, but I wonder about the enforceability.

• Cooper also called for making lying to an SBI agent a felony. How he pitched it Monday:

  Making lying to an SBI Agent a felony would provide a critical incentive for sex offenders to tell investigators where the child is so that the SBI can rescue the child and prevent further exploitation.

  SBI agents know witnesses withhold information or lie outright. When an FBI agent is present, a dishonest witness can be charged with a crime, since federal law makes it a felony to lie to federal agents.

  This is not the first time that Cooper has called for the General Assembly to grant SBI agents that power. He did it last year under the banner of fighting public corruption. It was part of a package of legislation he sent to the General Assembly during the height of the furor surrounding then-House Speaker Jim Black.

Following up on yesterday’s post re: Richard Moore:

• Laura updates her dealings with the Treasurer’s office.

• Charlotte’s David Ingram includes the “pen-and-pad” scuffle in his follow-up story today.

So, just to set the stage: A bunch of media types are going to show up at Moore’s 11 a.m. news conference today. From those I’ve talked to, they plan to largely ignore the instruction to leave cameras, recorders and what not behind. So we wind up with one of two things happening