Paging David Price One of the outcomes of the recent changeover in control of the House of Representatives is that Fourth District U.S. Congressman David Price (D-Chapel Hill) now holds the purse strings for the Department of Homeland Security. Well, sort of. Price is the chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees the DHS…
Category: Opinion
Thinking ahead requires looking back
By Chris Fitzsimon The stage is being set behind the scenes for a special legislative session on transportation. Gov. Mike Easley and legislative leaders have been meeting to figure out how to build a consensus on how to raise new revenue for road improvements. And unless something changes dramatically in the near future, roads are…
Exile on Jones Street: 8/16/07
Is it that time already? I hope you’re ready, because the Southern primary season is right around the corner thanks to the South Carolina GOP’s recent bid to maintain its first-in-South status. Responding to Florida’s decision to change its primary date, Palmetto State Republicans moved their primary up to January 19. (That’s less than 160…
Letters to the editor: 8/16/07
Breaking bread together I was pleased to see that The Carrboro Citizen is covering the conflict over the “issue†of food at our town’s really really free markets. This seems to be part of a larger conflict over public space occuring at other locations such as Weaver St.’s lawn and the Carrboro Greenspace.
For the Record: 8/09/07
Why not every night? Progress is slow, but there is progress. If you’ve any recollection of what things were like when they were at their worst, then a walk through Northside today will make that evident. Houses have been reclaimed, refurbished and the whole place has a tidier feel. But the ghosts of the past…
Exile on Jones Street: 8/9/07
By Kirk Ross This year there proved to be at least one great advantage to having been denied membership to the 2007 edition of the Capital Press Corps: I didn’t have to write about what a regular guy Don Beason is and how I was either shocked or knew all along that he was the…
Letters to the editor: 8/09/07
Wrong on campaign funding Chris Fitzsimon once again thinks taxpayers should be forced to fund a plan simply because he and his elitist buddies think it is a good idea (“The forgotten lesson from Jim Black,†August 2). He believes that if only the public campaign finance genie could sprinkle her magic dust upon the…
Taking Stock of the 2007 legislative session
By Rob Schofield While it will take some time for analysts and observers to generate all of the post-mortems on the 2007 legislative session, a couple of things are already clear. First and foremost, this was not, as some naysayers have claimed, a “do nothing†session. To the contrary, 2007 was a year of solid,…
Hackney’s House
By Chris Fitzsimon House Speaker Joe Hackney and his leadership team met with reporters Thursday afternoon to talk about the legislative session, what was accomplished, what wasn’t and how the legislative process worked this year. The message was much different than the talking points from the anti-everything right that have seeped into columns and interviewers’…
For the Record: 8/02/07
(Good) drivers wanted Where did you learn how to drive? Yeah, you, the guy in the black Camero that skidded around two lanes of traffic, veered left and cut everyone off, then sped up the N.C. 54 on-ramp scraping the curb along the way. And you in that gray, beat–up Tercel — what the heck…
Campus needs an early-voting site
Eve Carson and Mike Tarrant The Orange County Board of Elections may present UNC students with two alternatives for early voting in this fall’s municipal elections: Hitch a ride to the closest poll, or simply don’t vote. In an email last Monday, Orange County elections director Barry Garner informed UNC-Chapel Hill administrators that he had…
A disreputable process, a public groundswell
 Jim Warren North Carolina has been harmed by a disreputable process that gives powerful corporations even more control over our energy and environmental future – at the worst possible time for our climate. It’s deplorable that a $10,000 per legislator investment by the power companies – and far more to their key supporters – could…
Why community capacity building really matters in economic development
William Schweke Strong and intelligent leadership can turn economies around. Economic developers that neglect this important but intangible asset do so at their peril. Indeed, most mainstream economic developers seem to still believe that economic development is the “art of the deal.†I disagree. Instead, it is more about “the art of collaborative problem solving. 
The forgotten lesson from Jim Black
Chris Fitzsimon Early in the sentencing hearing of former House Speaker Jim Black Tuesday morning, the disgraced former lawmaker was explaining how in 2003 he promised to help two Republican legislators raise money if they agreed to cross party lines and support him for speaker. Black testified that he told the lawmakers that the period…
For the record
Editor’s Note: Chris Fitzsimon, director of N.C. Policy Watch and a supporter of allowing counties to vote on a land transfer tax, has found himself the subject of radio ads by those opposed to the tax. Here’s his response: New levels of distortion The realtors and homebuilders continue their attacks in the now desperate effort…