
{"id":638,"date":"2007-07-25T12:20:13","date_gmt":"2007-07-25T20:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/07\/25\/exile-on-jones-street-13\/"},"modified":"2007-07-26T05:24:34","modified_gmt":"2007-07-26T13:24:34","slug":"exile-on-jones-street-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/07\/25\/exile-on-jones-street-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Exile on Jones Street"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Kirk Ross<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not a stalemate, but not exactly a sprint to the finish either.<\/p>\n<p>The state budget is close to done, but with a few major items \u00e2\u20ac\u201d mostly on the revenue side \u00e2\u20ac\u201d yet to be ironed out. So, how long before the deal is struck?<\/p>\n<p>The president pro tem of the Senate says it could be a good be a long discussion. The governor says get on with it. And the speaker of the NC House says predictions are pretty useless.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The revenue hang-ups are significant and interwoven \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a sales tax, a top-tier tax rate, Medicaid relief to counties and a land transfer tax are all in play.<\/p>\n<p>Over the weekend, Gov. Mike Easley reminded everyone that a few years ago his office was granted veto power. He cut loose some funds for his chief education priorities and chided the Senate for sucking up to the developer and homebuilders lobby.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent interview, Speaker Joe Hackney was his usual matter-of\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfact self when it comes to discussing the negotiations. He points to some progress, with the capital spending plan being nailed down and most of the special budget provisions \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which the House disdains but the Senate still, uh, deigns \u00e2\u20ac\u201d worked out.<\/p>\n<p>But the finance piece is still the big hang-up and Hackney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not fond of the Senate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest offer on Medicaid relief to counties, saying it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help high-growth areas. For Chatham County, 707 square miles of the speaker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s district, the deal, he says, is a wash.<\/p>\n<p>A wash does a county like Chatham, where development is fueling high school and infrastructure costs, no good.<\/p>\n<p>And the speaker, who almost a decade ago first proposed a real estate transfer tax as a necessary tool in the growth-management toolbox, says he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s serious about keeping the transfer tax as part of the budget.<\/p>\n<p>He said that the counties who have the tax (thanks to an effort years ago by the president pro tem himself) have used it to keep property taxes low.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The tax rate in Dare County,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he noted, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is 25 cents.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the state, the speaker said, ought to have the same option.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Grand Old Pantaloons<\/strong><br \/>\nWhile Democrats are slugging it out over tedious matters of policy, Republicans are staging one of the oddest sideshows since Gov. Jim Martin slugged too much cold medicine ahead of a press conference.<\/p>\n<p>Cabarrus County Commissioner Coy Privette, who aspired to Cotton Mather status during his years in the N.C. House, was arrested for aiding and abetting prostitution. A sad case, yes, but hardly a private matter since Privette was a former president of the Southern Baptists Convention of N.C. and, until late last week, president of the Christian Action League \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s highly active champions of godliness and protectors of marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Joe Boylan, who in a GOP grudge match defeated former House Speaker Richard Morgan in the \u00e2\u20ac\u212206 primary. At first, Boylan was accused of fondling a female representative whist in his cups at a Raleigh nightspot. But in his vehement denial of the incident to the Southern Pines Pilot, Boylan apparently went too far and committed the cardinal sin of putting words in Minority Leader Rep. Skip Stam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mouth. That, Rep. Boylan, is Skip Stam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s job.<\/p>\n<p>A retraction followed, which also included Boylan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s admission that he kinda overstated how OK the female representative he allegedly groped, Rep. Tricia Cotham (D-Mecklenberg), was with his behavior.<\/p>\n<p>Then, shortly after getting what she called hate mail from a Boylan supporter, Rep. Debbie Clary (R-Cleveland) said she was going to break what appeared to be an agreement among the elephants to keep quiet about the incident and dished the goods on Boylan.<\/p>\n<p>Should be a right interesting \u00e2\u20ac\u212208 primary ahead down to Moore County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kirk Ross Not a stalemate, but not exactly a sprint to the finish either. The state budget is close to done, but with a few major items \u00e2\u20ac\u201d mostly on the revenue side \u00e2\u20ac\u201d yet to be ironed out. So, how long before the deal is struck? The president pro tem of the Senate&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}