Road chief's hometown gets millions

Other N.C. cities protest the $270 million going to Fayetteville for its highway loop. A $270 million allocation to complete the Fayetteville Loop is protested by other N.C. cities

From the Raleigh News and Observer:

RALEIGH - The N.C. Board of Transportation is pumping $270 million in road money into Fayetteville, the hometown of Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett and of a key legislative ally, weeks before Tippett leaves office.

At meetings in October and November, the board approved the money for work on a highway loop around Fayetteville, as road money has been drying up and cash for loops around the state's other cities has been delayed.

The funding comes in the waning weeks of the terms of Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat, and Tippett, his appointee. Tippett is also a close friend of Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat who pushed for the loop money.

The move has officials in other cities up in arms. "I don't know what their personal roles are," Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker said, "but I know what the end result is."
Meeker, also a Democrat, said highway money has flowed to Fayetteville in recent years as most large cities in the state have received little.

Rep. Becky Carney, a Charlotte Democrat and a co-chairwoman of a legislative committee that oversees transportation, said approval of the Fayetteville project leapfrogs the state's larger cities and drains a large portion of the money available for the entire state.

"That would be a travesty," Carney said, "if the bulk of our loop money went for one project."

Tippett shrugged off the criticism, saying whoever doesn't get money is bound to complain. The Fayetteville project has been in the works for years, he said, and it's more important now that the Army's Fort Bragg is expanding.

"Those people who are going to the front lines are entitled to a safe commute," Tippett said, "as much as those going to their banking and industrial jobs."

Nina Szlosberg, a member of the transportation board from Raleigh, said Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue and her administration will have a depleted bank account for transportation projects when they take office in January.

"It's important for the new administration to have the opportunity to determine where best to put our transportation dollars," she said.

Perdue campaigned on a pledge to change the board of transportation into a policy-making group instead of one that approves specific road projects.

"Governor-elect Perdue's goal is to prevent these types of disputes," said Perdue spokesman David Kochman, "by transforming the Department of Transportation, including prohibiting DOT board members from voting on specific projects."

Local officials across the state point out that the general pot of road money follows a set -- though much-criticized -- formula designed to make sure every region gets a fair share. But no such equation determines where loop money is spent. Those decisions are made by transportation officials in Raleigh.

Allocation rules needed

Nancy Dunn, a transportation board member from Winston-Salem, said clear decision-making steps should be established. "There should be some known process on how the money is allocated on loops," she said.

Construction was supposed to start this year on a 12-mile section of Raleigh's Outer Loop, I-540, in western Wake County. In 2005, the transportation department postponed construction by at least four years and said it might take until 2030 to finish the entire loop.

Last year, Charlotte's unfinished I-485 loop was pushed back by two years and now isn't expected to be completed for a decade.

But Fayetteville's loop was kept on schedule. The first leg opened three years ago and is handling about 9,000 cars a day. The southern leg of Charlotte's loop handles 120,000 cars a day.

When the state created a separate pot of money for urban loop projects in 1989, most of the money initially went to Charlotte.

The state has spent nearly $1 billion on Charlotte's Outer Loop, I-485, since 1990. Mecklenburg County's share of the state loop money has diminished in recent years as Raleigh, Greensboro and other cities have built or expanded loops.

"You've got the same amount of money with far more competition for the funding," Tippett said. "Nine communities would like their loops finished now."

Fayetteville was not included in the original list of cities for loops, but was added in 2003. Officials from other cities and some board members complain that it has now jumped to the head of the line.

Rand, the Senate majority leader, said Fayetteville was at the end of the line and the money has finally reached there. "It's our turn now," Rand said.

Tippett argued that the military base closing and realignment process in 2005 shifted a major new command to Fort Bragg and the likelihood of additional jobs. Base commanders asked for various road improvements.

At the same time, the state was paying hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to companies such as Dell and Google to move to the state and create new jobs. "Spending $200 or $300 million in Fort Bragg infrastructure improvements seemed to be a deal at the time," Tippett said.

Sewell resigns NCDOT Board under a cloud

Per Greensboro News and Record:

With political pressure mounting, Lewis W. Sewell Jr. had no other choice than to resign from the state Department of Transportation board. Funneling $375,000 for improvements to a highway abutting property he and business partners owned in Jacksonville was a clear, self-serving conflict of interest, not the protocol oversight he claimed.

Caught up in the fallout is Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bev Perdue, who early last week hadn't decided whether to attend a fund-raiser Sewell had planned for her. It ended up being canceled.

Even so, Republican opponent Pat McCrory seized on the controversy to again paint Perdue as being part of the state's entrenched political establishment.

The latest DOT flap should be reason enough to elicit pledges from both candidates to rid the board of partisan political shenanigans.

http://www.news-record.com/content/2008/09/26/article/short_stack_food_for_thought_quick_and_over_easy

Perdue ID's DOT fundraisers

From the Raleigh News and Observer:

Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue followed through on her pledge earlier today and identified Board of Transportation members who are fundraisers for her campaign.

They are Lanny Wilson of Wilmington, Louis Sewell of Jacksonville and Marvin Blount of Greenville. Thomas Betts Jr. of Rocky Mount was previously a board member, but he stepped down last month after a fundraising scandal, Dan Kane reports.

Perdue's campaign also challenged state Treasurer Richard Moore to disclose more than the name of his fundraisers on the board. She wants him to disclose his Wall Street fundraisers, and support a ban on fundraising by those who have business with the treasurer's office.

"Richard Moore says we should ban contributions from DOT board members, but not from people who do business with the Treasurer's office—maybe that's because he’s raised more than $1.5 million from them," said Perdue spokesman David Kochman. "Richard Moore's attacks are the height of hypocrisy."

Moore has said that board members should not be fundraising for the governor.

But his campaign said today that doesn't apply to those who have raised money for Moore in the current campaign—including board members Alan Thornburg and D.M. "Mac" Campbell. Moore could reward them and other fundraisers with board seats, said Moore's campaign manager Jay Reiff, but once on the board they would have to stop fundraising.

"He was going to break that cycle," Reiff said.

Kochman found that stand just as hypocritical. "It's another example of do as I say not as I do," he said.

NC DOT board member resigns over Perdue fundraising

From the Charlotte Observer:

By GARY D. ROBERTSON, Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. - A state Board of Transportation member resigned Friday after his boss questioned his effort to raise campaign money for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beverly Perdue from people connected to a high-profile commercial project in Roanoke Rapids.

Thomas Betts Jr. of Rocky Mount, who represented six northeast Piedmont counties on the board, submitted his resignation to Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett. "I have enjoyed my tenure and take much pride in the DOT crew in my division and the good things we have accomplished," Betts wrote in the three-sentence e-mail to Tippett.

Tippett said he talked to Betts about whether Betts had been raising money for Perdue in Roanoke Rapids from people connected to Carolina Crossroads, a new entertainment and retail complex along Interstate 95. The cornerstone of the complex is a theater previously managed by Randy Parton, the brother of Dolly Parton.

Tippett said he was concerned that Carolina Crossroads officials would feel obliged to give to Perdue because the board had approved economic development money for the project. "I told him that it would probably be in the best interest of the state" to step down, Tippett said. "Board members are held to the highest ethical standards. ... we weren't going to accept anything less." Betts didn't return messages left Friday on his cell phone or at his home. Perdue's campaign acknowledged that Betts was helping with a Nov. 13 fundraiser in Rocky Mount but wasn't aware of the efforts to attract Roanoke Rapids donors at this event until Friday.

Betts' resignation embarrasses Perdue, who has made the troubles at the former Randy Parton Theatre a campaign issue in her primary race against State Treasurer Richard Moore, her leading opponent. Last week, Moore said if elected he would seek legislation banning Transportation Board members from donating to any candidates or collecting donations on behalf of a candidate to reduce political influence on the board. Betts' resignation confirms that Perdue doesn't want to change the system, Moore's campaign said.

Tatum steps down as DMV chief

From the Raleigh News and Observer

Dan Kane, Staff Writer

N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles Commissioner George Tatum resigned Wednesday, after documents and interviews with an agency staffer suggested that Tatum helped a friend get a replica of a 1937 Ford truck titled as the real thing. Tatum could not be reached for comment, and a state Department of Transportation spokesman would say only that the resignation involved a personnel matter.

Gov. Mike Easley, who appointed Tatum commissioner in April 2003, said in a short statement that Tatum needed to resign. "I believe it was appropriate," Easley said.

Mark Foster, the DOT's chief financial officer, will be interim DMV commissioner.

The DMV, which issues driver's licenses and vehicle registrations and conducts safety and emissions inspections, has been long known as an agency with numerous controversies and scandals. Tatum is not the first commissioner to resign following allegations that he misused his office. Alexander Killens quit in 1996 after an audit showed he used staff as drivers and personal security. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor obstruction of justice for impeding an investigation into whether a DMV employee misused a state car.

Cruise Smells Fishy

From the Burlington Times-News

Barry Smith - Burlington Times-News

Sometimes I have to wonder why red flags don’t go up in people’s minds. This is supposed to be the year of ethics reform in the North Carolina legislature. A special committee has studied ways to change the state’s lobbying, ethics and campaign finance laws to make the operation of government and decision-making more transparent and free of undue influence.

Gov. Mike Easley has taken on the issue by appointing a new head of the state’s ethics board. The House has passed out, and the Senate is considering, a series of bills aimed at addressing some of the scandals in state government that have come to the forefront over the past year. Yet, episodes of lapses in judgment continue to occur. A few weeks ago, when the Carolina Hurricanes were making their run that led to the Stanley Cup, some lawmakers fessed-up to accepting free tickets from lobbyists for high-dollar seats at the RBC Center.

But over the Independence Day weekend, they were outdone. The State Ports Authority organized a cruise for more than 200 invited guests, mainly state and local officials, during the festival of tall ships in Beaufort. As reported by the Raleigh News & Observer, the Ports Authority had a ferry diverted from its normal run to wine and dine the officials during the holiday festival. On the menu were shrimp, scallops, sandwich wraps, fruit, pasta salad, desserts, beer and wine. A steel band provided entertainment. State House members, Cabinet members and local officials were among the guests who sent in an RSVP.

The Ports Authority has apologized for the lavish July 1 excursion, which gave guests a close-up view of the tall ships. And Easley, recognizing the bad smell, has called for a full report from the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Ports Authority on the cruise. The cruise appears inappropriate from nearly every angle.

To begin with, why is the DOT allowing the ferry, named the Floyd Lupton, to be used for such an event? Its purpose is transportation, not to be used as a high-dollar party boat. You have to wonder what the Ports Authority hoped to gain from hosting such a lavish party for people in high places. Might they want to curry favor in the future for proposals that come from the authority?

And then there are the state and local officials involved. Didn’t they wonder if such a fancy event would at least give an impression that something is a bit out of order? I guess not. There’s supposed to be an air of reform in the state capital. Reform certainly wasn’t in the air for state officials when the tall ships were along the coast.

Currituck dredging deadline disputed

From the Raleigh News and Observer:

Former ferry chief expected to testify

RALEIGH - Jerry Gaskill, former head of the state ferry service, had to get a ferry operating from Currituck to Corolla by June 15, 2004, and federal prosecutors say he had employees dredge an illegal channel to meet that deadline.Gaskill, who oversaw the ferry service from 1993 until he was indicted in January, is charged with conspiring with employees to dredge the channel without the proper state and federal permits. Permit requests had been denied in the past because of the sensitive habitat nearby, prosecutors say.

"They knew when they were doing it, it was wrong," Assistant U.S. Attorney Banu Rangarajan told a jury Monday during her opening statement.

Gaskill, who denies wrongdoing, also is charged with lying to federal investigators and violating environmental laws. His trial might end as soon as Wednesday. He is expected to testify.

Prosecutors say that on May 6 and 7, 2004, seven ferry service employees used two boats to do "prop washing" or "kicking" -- using the boats' propellers to cut a channel in, in this case, Currituck Sound. The channel that was 6-feet-deep and 30 feet wide by 730 feet violated the Clean Water Act and another federal environmental law, prosecutors say.

The ferry was to carry passengers and schoolchildren to and from mainland Currituck to the remote town of Corolla on the northern Outer Banks. After the dredging was discovered, the state Department of Transportation agreed to fill in the channel. The ferry is not running at this time.

Gaskill's defense lawyer, Tommy Manning of Raleigh, told jurors that Gaskill had nothing to do with the dredging.

Manning disputed the idea that Gaskill was under any deadline pressure since on May 5, 2004 -- the day before the channel was illegally created -- Gaskill told the state transportation board that problems had delayed the ferry's start until August 2004.

Manning laid the blame for the dredging on one of Gaskill's underlings, Billy R. Moore, one of four state Department of Transportation employees who have pleaded guilty to federal charges. He is expected to testify. It was not Gaskill but Moore, the ferry service's dredging superintendent, who instructed his employees to create the channel, Manning said.

"You will not hear any evidence that Jerry Gaskill directed any of these men to do what happened," Manning said.

As state and federal officials questioned the illegal dredging, Manning says, Moore denied "prop washing" and kept telling Gaskill and others that his employees had only measured the depth of the water. Not until two months later did Moore admit to Gaskill what he had done and then implicated Gaskill when talking to investigators, Manning said.