As the first meeting of the “new” Wake County Board of Education ended last night, more than five hours after it began, I listened in as former board member Carol Parker and former candidate Curt Stangler were discussing what they’d just seen. Parker said she was furious [...]
Perhaps that reader was you? In any event, the complete text of the bill, H.R. 3962 is available for your perusal on Congressman David Price’s website (h/t Lenice Williams), should you care to attempt it. Also, links to an overview of the bill, section-by-section summaries, and [...]
Take a minute to check out this website — Doc Hendley, NCSU Class of ‘04, is the founder/leader of an organization, Wine to Water, that’s doing great work in the Third World using money raised courtesy of good old American drinking.
Doc’s one of 10 finalists in [...]
No surprise in the District 2 school board runoff: John Tedesco, who finished first with almost 50 percent of the vote in the five-way race on October 6, defeated Cathy Truitt by a 3-to-1 margin tonight. Election results are here. Truitt called for the runoff, then [...]
By a 5-0 vote, the State Board of Elections this morning sent the issue of who’s lying, former Gov. Mike Easley or his friend McQueen Campbell, to the Wake County District Attorney for review. The Board’s resolution referred to evidence heard during its four days of hearings this week that, [...]
The State Board of Elections just concluded four days of hearings into former Gov. Mike Easley’s political campaigns and their relationship to the N.C. Democratic Party, with Chairman Larry Leake saying they’ll meet in closed session tomorrow morning at 9 to figure out what they’re supposed to [...]
Former Gov. Mike Easley, at the outset of hearings into possible violations of the state’s campaign finance laws, stands accused — by a friend — of being a petty grifter.
The accusation is that Easley took $11,000 in campaign funds to pay for repairs to the house he owned on East [...]
The American political system is resistant to change, and it undertakes reform — progressive reforms, I mean — incrementally if at all. So no one should be foolish enough to think that the health care reform legislation coming out of Congress this year, or perhaps early next [...]
Raleigh City Council just voted 5-3 to increase water rates by 13.5 percent while also postponing the effective date of tiered water rates — a major conservation initiative that would’ve resulted in a rate cut for low-usage residential customers — by another seven months.
(Update: Raleigh’s rules require [...]
Cathy Truitt ended her campaign for the District 2 Wake school board seat this morning with a stinging declaration that there is a middle ground between forced busing for diversity and resegregating the school system via “neighborhood schools” — but nobody was listening to her when she spoke up for [...]
Cathy Truitt will hold a press conference Monday to make a “major statement” about her campaign. The statement is that she’s out of the race against John Tedesco for the District 2 school board seat in Wake County because, as campaign adviser Brad Crone just told me, it’s not a [...]
The question of the hour is, does Cathy Truitt have a chance against John Tedesco in the District 2 Wake school board runoff? Because if she doesn’t, if it’s a lock for Tedesco, then there may be no stopping the Republican right from rolling their wrecking ball [...]
Raleigh Wide Open 4 will be the first time all of Fayetteville Street really is wide open all the way from the Capitol to Memorial Auditorium.
For previous RWOs, only the four blocks closest to the Capitol were open. The rest were under construction some way of other. [...]
There’s gonna be ice skating on Fayetteville Street this winter — from December 4 to the end of January. Did you know that Winterfest is a Raleigh tradition? Me neither. But it’s going to be, says the newly re-elected Mayor Meeker. It’s all in the press release [...]
Paul Coble
If I have the math right, John Tedesco was within 50 votes of finishing off a Republican takeover of the Wake school system last night. GOP-backed candidates won three seats outright; their fourth candidate, Tedesco, got 3,247 votes out of 6,576 cast in the five-way District [...]
Incumbent Jennifer Robinson squeaked by challenger Lori Bush by 247 votes in District A, but it may not be enough to thwart a runoff. According to unofficial results from the Wake County Board of Elections, with all 11 precincts reporting, Robinson received 49.47 percent of the [...]
The “Meeker Majority” is no more. Mayor Charles Meeker was re-elected, as expected, but if goes looking for four progressive City Council members to make a 5-3 majority, he’ll have trouble finding them now that District B Councilor Rodger Koopman’s not on hand. Koopman was beaten rather [...]
“Neighborhood schools” candidates went 4 for 4 in the Wake school board elections. Actually, it was 3.99 for 4. One could be facing a runoff, but he got 49.4 percent of the vote, and the runner-up less than half that amount — and the runner-up is for neighborhood schools too. [...]
Results are coming in — and they’re not close. In Raleigh, Meeker, Baldwin, Stephenson, McFarlane, Crowder, West re-elected; Bonner Gaylord in, John Odom back, Rodger Koopman out. Cary: Robinson-Bush not over (quite), but Robinson ahead; Smith in, and Robeson.
School board: Malone, Tedesco, Goldman, Prickett in; diversity out.
[...]Wake Commissioners Chair Harold Webb was taken to Rex Hospital Tuesday afternoon after suffering a stroke, according to WRAL.
(Update: Rex reported Webb in serious condition on Wednesday morning — but not critical, fortunately.)
The former Tuskegee airman’s always been one fit man — and as nice a guy as [...]
The Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and a tour company named Citslinc International have put together one sweet sightseeing deal this fall — a 9-day trip “to experience the wonders of China” for just $1,999. (Non-chamber members pay $100 more.)
Among the 300 folks signed up so far: [...]
District D challenger Ted Van Dyk, running as “A Positive Voice for Raleigh,” went the negative route again over the weekend with an attack postcard aimed at, of all things, incumbent Councilor Thomas Crowder’s good work with neighborhood leaders on the comprehensive plan.
Think of it as a kind of [...]
Our story this week about ACORN’s work in North Carolina contrasted its tiny budget (in this state, between $400,000 and $450,000 a year, according to state director Pat McCoy) with the “crime of the century” treatment ACORN’s national operations have been getting from Fox News, [...]
Wake Democratic Party Chair Jack Nichols updated us this evening on the list of folks interested in replacing ex-state Rep. Ty Harrell, who resigned his District 41 seat this week. There are nine thus far. They include, as we reported earlier, Cary Town Council member Gale Adcock [...]
Chris Mintz, who worked as a financial advisor and broker’s representative, pleaded guilty to a federal charge of embezzling more than $1 million from accounts he controlled for two elderly clients.
Mintz, you may recall, was the ex-pat Republican who ran against Ty Harrell in the [...]
From Funny or Die (Will Ferrell et al) and MoveOn.org, a plea on behalf of your friends in the health insurance industry:
Protect [...]
The ink on Ty Harrell’s resignation letter is barely dry, but Wake Democrats today were focused on finding a replacement for him who can hold his District 41 seat in the 2010 elections. As of about 5 p.m., Wake Democratic Chair Jack Nichols said he’d already fielded [...]
City staffers will no doubt be armed with colored dots and paper rolls — the stuff of your basic planning charrette.
Be there or be unaware of what’s coming next around the key Five Points intersection.
Do RSVP, y’all.
***
Details from the city are below:
CITY OF RALEIGH TO HOST CHARRETTE
FOR [...]
Meteoric rise. Knocked off Russell Capps and his future was all in from of him … but clearly he went at things too fast. Like my dad used to say, pride goes before the fall.
His resignation, though, gives Democrats a chance to appoint [...]
LWVs/WakeUP Wake County forum
WakeUP Wake County and the League of Women Voters combined to put on a candidates forum Thursday — City Council candidates only. Last night, the four mayoral candidates joined in at the University Park Homeowner Association’s forum. Goodness, these were genteel [...]
(Cross-posted from Triangle Offense.)
Your (our) Carolina Rollergirls put on a great show this weekend, playing host to the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association’s Eastern Regional tournament at Dorton Arena in Raleigh. The home team, unfortunately, was upset in the opening round' [...]
One of the little-noted details of all the health care reform bills floating out of congressional committees everywhere is they don’t take full effect until 2013. The state-level insurance exchanges — basically, a list of the private insurance products available to small businesses and individuals, plus (perhaps) [...]
Excellent turnout in downtown Raleigh for the pro-health care reform rally put together by President Obama’s Organizing for America bunch — easily 1,000. (Update: DNC says 1,500, which I wouldn’t dispute; I’ve copied their press release below the fold. Amazing how the local media just about [...]
Updated Friday, September 4 and again Tuesday, September 8.
Times are tough, I know. And yes, we all deplore the sway of big money in politics. But c’mon, if you can’t raise any money from anybody, isn’t that kind of an indication that you, uh, don’t have any [...]
The big pro-Obama health care reform rally you’re going to read about in the printed Indy today when it hits a coffee shop near you — the Let’s Get It Done: Raleigh National Bus Tour Stop (Health Insurance Reform Now) rally that was scheduled for Thursday [...]
After the fifth or sixth person asked me if I knew who was behind the push poll in District D (Southwest Raleigh) last week, I started calling it “the push poll” myself. But since push poll is such a dirty term in politics, let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. There [...]
The Sierra Club’s endorsements are out in the Raleigh and Cary elections.
In Raleigh, no surprise that the environmental group is backing Charles Meeker for mayor, Thomas Crowder in District D and Rodger Koopman in District B — all incumbents. (It also endorsed Nancy McFarlane, an incumbent, [...]
Triangle Transit buses carried 1.1 million riders in the fiscal year that ended June 30, up 19%. It’s the first year TT’s been over the million mark.
Is it worth it? The reported farebox recovery rate (money in versus operating costs out) was up [...]
Ted Kennedy thought that every American deserved health care coverage as good as what our members of Congress provide for themselves. He didn’t live long enough to see it happen.
MoveOn.org is sending this clip around to its supporters.
[...]
You’re looking for glamorous places to sell your high-end goods — furniture, for example. When Ethan Allen went looking, according to Furniture Today, its corporate eye fell on Dubai, perfect for a new “flagship store in the Middle East,” and on Raleigh, N.C., also perfect for, [...]
HCAN is holding rallies around the country, including in Raleigh.
Can HCAN’s North Carolina organizers turn out the troops?
How many equals “big”? (Or, “huge”?)
[...]It’s a party/fundraiser to get an LGBT Center for Raleigh off the ground. More on this as we get closer to the date, hopefully; for now, we have this “Save the Date” note from the organizers:
Saturday, October 17, 2009 is the day RALEIGH COMES OUT!
That’s right. The LGBT Center of [...]
Wait a minute! I recognize a few of these billionaires, and I’ll bet the lot of them aren’t worth $100 million. They’re making a mockery of our democratic process on a critical policy issue. “Let them eat Advil” indeed:
[...]Probably the biggest problem with keeping the “public option” as part of health care reform is that people don’t know what “public option” means. Is it an “option” that would be available to folks who can’t get insurance any other way? I can imagine that many people think that’s exactly [...]
Bob Hensley
I just read about Bob Hensley’s death this morning. Bob, who represented Raleigh and Wake County in the legislature for 12 years, was a battler who was never afraid to stand up for progressive causes, but who also never forgot to smile while he [...]
When does an insurance coop equal a public insurance option? Let’s see, what if we — uh — create a public insurance option and — oh, goodness — let the federal government run it but — by golly, this is hard — make it so that the [...]
The public option is already a compromise. Giving it away is a cave-in. So says former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. What he doesn’t mention, btw, is that the public options (they differ in form a bit) contained in the four different bills coming from the three [...]
Our friend Chris Kromm has an excellent analyis up on Facing South, entitled “Why the reformers are losing the health care debate — and how to win it back.” It’s especially strong on the “why losing” side — reform is getting Swift Boated, plain and simple, as [...]
Here’s a question: Should we keep our focus on the actual details of the health care reform debate (public plan vs. coops, etcetera) and ignore the protesters, who insist that Obama is Hitler and out to kill grannie? Or, alternatively, should we give air time to folks like this?
H/t [...]
If you don’t think we need health care reform, or can’t afford it, or should put it off yet again, I ask that you read the stories of the two women who spoke at Congressman Brad Miller’s office in Raleigh this morning. They’re not long. But they’re [...]
President Obama in Raleigh July 29. Photo by Jenny Warburg
Just got back from President Obama’s talk at Broughton HS about health care reform. Actually, it was a two-parter, with Obama focused at the outset on defending his economic [...]
Over at the General Assembly, there’s a deal on tap — or so we read — to raise about $1 billion in new taxes and finish up the state budget. The key ingredient? One guess … and if you say making the income tax more progressive, [...]
Isn’t the Wake County Board of Education supposed to be non-partisan — meaning, above (outside of?) politics? Well, if you believe that….
Anyway, and as promised, the Wake Republicans met last night and endorsed a slate of four candidates, one each in the District 1.2,7 and [...]
One week down, one week to go in candidate filings for City Council. The race for the two at-large Council seats is shaping up. Mayor? Not so much.
In the at-large race, Lee Sartain’s been making it clear that if he wins a seat, he’d like it to be the one [...]
As we surmised a couple of weeks ago, House Bill 148 — allowing Triangle counties to levy a 1/2-cent sales tax for transit — isn’t sailing through the Senate quite the way its proponents hoped it would. The bill is in the Senate Finance Committee, [...]
What’s the Raleigh angle? Me. I love Al Franken.
He’ll soon be Minnesota’s junior senator.
Which makes 60 Democratic senators, a supposedly filibuster-proof number — but only if they all hang together.
[...]
From Q-Notes:
“I’m not particularly keen on being called the ‘gay candidate,’” Lee Sartain, a 2009 city council candidate in Raleigh, told Q-Notes.
In today’s time, Sartain said, gay and lesbian people actually have a chance to run for office and make a difference on a range of [...]
If you’re in doubt about the wisdom of Senate Bill 526, the School Violence Prevention Act — also known as the anti-bullying bill — and especially about the provisions in it enumerating the kinds of kids who’re most likely to be bullied (autistic, gay, perceived [...]
When the Raleigh City Council adopted its ‘09-10 budget Tuesday, Wake County’s new Republican chair saw his opening. Today, speaking to the Wake Republican Women’s Club, he ran through it. Claude Pope Jr. chided the Council, with its 7-1 Democratic majority, for failing to cut City [...]
Gov. Bev Perdue jumped into the budget talks at the General Assembly today in a big way, calling for enough new revenues to protect school aid, keep class sizes at current levels and avoid laying off teachers and teacher assistants. Perdue “walked over” to the General Assembly [...]
The good news out of yesterday’s Wake Commissioners meeting: The Athens Drive community library, unique for its location in Athens Drive High School, will survive as the county’s only shared community-school library. Amazing that this good idea, which I extolled in the Indy last week, [...]
House passage of an $18.6 billion budget over the weekend, with higher income tax levies on the well-off and a 1/4-cent sales tax hike on everybody, sets the stage for final budget negotiations among House Democrats, Senate Democrats and Gov. Bev Perdue’s Democrats. But does the [...]
Former Raleigh Mayor Tom Fetzer, who left public office a decade ago, is back. In a close contest, delegates to the state Republican Convention today chose Fetzer over Chad Adams as their new party leader. Some 1,600 delegates attended. By a weighted voting process, they [...]
The state Republicans choose a new party chair today. Did some reconnaissance at the GOP convention last night: Chad Adams‘ backers liken their man’s quest to the showdown four years ago in the Democratic party, when Gov. Mike Easley tapped Ed Turlington to be the Dems’ [...]
Rosa Gill, a 10-year veteran of the Wake Board of Education and its current chair, was chosen tonight to fill the state House seat in District 33. The House seat was vacated when Dan Blue was chosen to replace the late Sen. Vernon Malone [...]
Equality North Carolina and its allies are in the home stretch with the School Violence Prevention Act. The bill passed the Senate. It’s expected to pass the House, and become law. Just in case you’re in any doubt about why the bill should be specific about bullying, [...]
Fans of affordable housing may recall the recommendations of the City Council-appointed task force on the issue. (See the full report here.) A key recommendation: Adopt inclusionary zoning policies. Another: Turn the temporary Affordable Housing Task Force into a permanent advisory commission — [...]
He’s running for Raleigh City Council at-large.
Good-looking website.
He’ll tweet you if you let him.
The mayor and two council seats are elected at-large; the other five council members are elected from districts. The at-large incumbents are Russ Stephenson and Mary-Ann Baldwin, both Democrats. They’re both [...]
If they’ve got them at UNC and Duke, can N.C. State be far behind?
(OK — stop it.)
Better question: Is the Triangle’s big city big enough for car-sharing a la zipcars?
(Update: Per the comment below, there’s more than one car-sharing vendor in the land, not [...]
We’ve had bad plans for Moore Square before that, mercifully, came to naught. So when the city announced yet another Moore Square renewal effort, suspicious minds went immediately to Defcon Uh-O. But let’s approach this from the other direction: If the participatory, juried & [...]
If you like a good attack ad, Tom Fetzer learned at the foot of the master. In other words, it’ll be like old times not forgotten if the GOP will just choose our former mayor, the so-not-gay alternative, as state Republican party chair.
[...](6/2 Update: Fetzer wants his day in court.)
From TomFetzer.com, the latest on former Raleigh Mayor Tom Fetzer’s campaign for state Republican party chair:
Members of the Fetzer for NCGOP Chairman Steering Committee fought back against the baseless smear campaign which alleges that Tom Fetzer is gay. “The dirty tricksters [...]
The N&O reports on the ex-Raleigh mayor’s outburst.
He wants to be state GOP chair.
Pam’s House Blend asks all the questions you’re asking.
[...]
I’m not sure why I expected the other side to come last night to challenge Syracuse University’s Gerald Grant, whose new book posits that urban schools are a disaster in America with few very exceptions … and posits that the one great exception, the “hope” in [...]
“Resilience” is the title of the book. The common metaphor used – and it’s used by Elizabeth Edwards in a passage quoted on the dust jacket – is getting back on your feet after you’ve been knocked down. After a hard hit, though, it’s best to take [...]
Dan Blue
The outcome was never in doubt at last night’s meeting of Democratic party officials to choose a replacement for the late Sen. Vernon Malone. Dan Blue wanted it — the “it” being the state Senate District 14 seat representing Southeast Raleigh and the eastern part [...]
Groundbreaking on the Hillsborough Street revamp (phase 1) is in three weeks. There’s an open house tomorrow, from 4 to 7 p.m., for folks to catch up on what’s planned, when, the effect of construction on traffic, etcetera. It’s in the Hillsborough Street Partnership’s new headquarters, which is in the [...]
The unanimous City Council vote today in favor of having a public competition to redesign Moore Square put me in mind of the last time city officials wanted to mess with Moore — back in ‘01 — and how that came to naught. A big issue then was that [...]
The announcement by Mayor Charles Meeker a week ago that he will seek a fifth two-year term in October shut down any possibility that the other seven seats on the City Council would be shuffled. No Philip Isley versus one of the Democrats for Meeker’s job, [...]
Sen. Burr may be a Democratic target in 2010? No, he is a target — a point BlueNC made on Sunday and continues to pound on. PPP’s survey, out today, shows the Republican Burr trailing potential Democratic challenger Roy Cooper by 4 points. Comparisons to [...]
In the long-running battle to unlock some local funding for a regional transportation network, two big tumblers fell into place this morning in the House Finance committee. State Reps. Paul Luebke, D-Durham, and Jennifer Weiss, D-Wake, both co-chairs of the panel, voted in favor of [...]
Earlier this year, Charles Meeker was giving off an “I’m out of here soon” vibe that indicated his current, fourth term as mayor would be his last. He certainly thought about it, telling friends that he’d like to concentrate more time on his law practice and [...]
When last heard from (or about), the 1/2-cent sales tax for transit bill was breezing through the friendly confines of the House Transportation Committee, headed for the tougher terrain of the House Finance Committee. With the latter committee scheduled to take up the bill next Wednesday, [...]
Richard Kahlenberg was in town last week for a conference Thursday at UNC-Chapel Hill and for presentations to civic groups in Raleigh the day before. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation in Washington and formerly a law professor at George Washington University, is one of the leading [...]
Almost since the advent of the Raleigh-Wake schools merger in the mid-70s, the combined Wake County school system has followed a policy of managing student populations so as to achieve, first, racial balance, and later, “socio-economic” balance in all of its schools. That is, there should be no “high-poverty schools” [...]
Title: Comp Plan discussion
Location: Raleigh City Hall
Description: Planning Commisssion meets in \”committee of the whole\” session
Start Time: 09:00 am
Date: 2009-03-31
The official public hearing on the draft comprehensive plan (revised) is tonight –
Thursday, 6:30 p.m. at City Hall. It’s previewed in the Indy this week, mainly on the question of whether the plan is too promiscuous with its “growth centers” to actually produce any that [...]
The City Council yesterday approved a $9.9 million contract for the reconstruction of Hillsborough Street (Phase I) between Oberlin Road and Gardner Street. It only took … how many years?
(A: Here’s a story from 2002, three years after the first plan was hatched and the Hillsborough Street Partnership created.)
[...]
Chris Leinberger, urban developer and Brookings Institution wonk, is the latest guy with a suitcase (the latest expert, in other words) to visit Raleigh and tell us to get with it transit-wise or else be left in the 21 Century-Knowledge Economy dust. He added one new note not heard [...]
In the interest of plugging this thing, the first Hillsborough Street Renaissance Festival is tomorrow — Saturday, 12 noon to 10 pm — the information is here. It’s rain or shine, organizers say, which means rain, apparently … but the Redress Raleigh Eco-fashion Show is executing its Plan [...]
Not to put too much pressure on the guy, but at least three people have told me that Chris Leinberger, a planning geek at the Brookings Institute who’s also a developer, is brilliant. He’s speaking in Raleigh Wednesday evening, 6:30-8:30 pm, at the Progress Energy Center (Fletcher [...]
Very interesting meeting at Raleigh City Hall last night on regional transit and the so-called “Mayor’s Plan” for the Raleigh-Wake portion of the region. I will say, this thing has a lot of moving parts, some of which are picking up speed — but enough to run a regional railroad [...]
The television news program “Now on PBS” this week looks at whether transportation funds contained in the federal stimulus package will help mass transit or be sucked up for roads. Case study: North Carolina.
The program is an excellent review (about 24:00 long; the last 2:00 is [...]
Note, first, that Raleigh adopted its current comprehensive plan in 1989, after the regional rail transit plan was hatched. The ’89 comp plan, in theory, should’ve stemmed the rampant sprawl and prompted dense developments to occur in close proximity to the planned station stops along the rail line, thus supplying [...]
Nah. Bad idea.
But let’s not let the mayor down, jingle writers.
“I’m waiting for people to write the music to the R-Line,” Meeker said.
The launch of the R-Line this morning is a reminder that Raleigh still has no song to sing. No Chattanooga Choo-Choo.
Update: Nice post at New Raleigh [...]
The R-Line
In between rants about regional transit and why it’s not here yet (and why it won’t be any time soon), let’s pause to celebrate a notable, if small, step forward for Mankind/Raleigh division.
It will take place Friday morning, 8:30 am in front of the Convention [...]
I’ve told this story before, but not here, I don’t believe. When my wife and I moved to the Triangle 20-plus years ago now, we saw something in the local press about growing traffic congestion and we just laughed — we were from NJ, after all, where they invented congestion. [...]
What was it that Mayor Meeker said about Raleigh’s new comprehensive plan? It’s only a first draft, of course, and the Planning Department staff is busy considering the comments on it that came in by the Jan. 31 deadline … a revised draft will go to public hearing in [...]
