One thing you can’t take away from the City of Raleigh’s PR group – they sure are prolific. They claim to disseminate more than 600 press releases each year. While I don’t actually count them, I do try to scan them all, so I can attest that it is a metric tonne.

This little tidbit caught my eye last week - The Raleigh City Council has approved the selection of New City Design to provide design services for renovations to the Jaycee and Carolina Pines Community Centers. Wow, that’s big money for two City parks that definitely are showing their age.  And the architecture firm – New City Design – has a good reputation – they recently designed this place (though I’ve never been inside it, as I can’t pass the dress code).

I’m thinking it’s all good, and then it struck me.  New City Design is owned by Ted Van Dyke.  Ted Van Dyke is challenging incumbent Thomas Crowder for the District D City Council seat.

 I had thought that City Councilors are prohibited from profiting from business with the City:

City law (warning, world’s longest sentence) - No member of the City Council, official, or employee of the City of Raleigh shall be financially interested, or have any personal beneficial interest, either directly or indirectly, as agent, representative, or otherwise, in the purchase of, or contract for, or in furnishing any materials, equipment or supplies to the City of Raleigh, nor shall any official or employee of the City of Raleigh accept or receive, or agree to accept or receive, directly or indirectly, from any person, firm or corporation to whom any contract may be awarded or from whom any materials, equipment or supplies may be purchased by the City of Raleigh, by rebate, gift, or otherwise, any money or anything of value whatsoever, or any promise, obligation or contract for future reward or compensation, for recommending or procuring the use of any such materials, equipment or supplies by the City of Raleigh; no member of the City Council, official or employee of the City of Raleigh shall for his own personal benefit operate, directly or indirectly, any concession in any building or on any lands of the City of Raleigh, nor shall any official or employee of the City of Raleigh bid for or be awarded any contract granting concessionary rights of any nature or kind from the City of Raleigh; it shall be unlawful for any member of the City Council, official or employee of the City of Raleigh to bid for or to purchase or to contract to purchase from the City of Raleigh any real estate, equipment, materials, or supplies of any nature or kind whatsoever, either directly or indirectly, at either public or private sale, either singly or through, or jointly with any other person. Any member of the City Council, official, or employee of the City of Raleigh, who shall violate any provision of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction, shall be punished as provided by statute in such cases. If the City Council shall find that any official or employee has violated any provision of this section, such official or employee may be forthwith discharged by the City Council or by the City Manager from the service of the City of Raleigh.

Lots of legal mumbo jumbo in there about “materials, equipment, or supplies.”  So is it not illegal for a Councilor to sell “services” to the City?

Suppose for the moment it is illegal and Ted Van Dyke wins the District D seat.  What would the City Attorney say? That New City Design hand over a partially-finished design job to the City so they can find some other firm to complete it?

Suppose for the moment that it is legal for a City Councilor to sell design services to the City. What would your philosophy professor say? Is it ethical?

Inquiring minds want to know.

THE WHITE AND COLORED PEOPLE OF THE CITY OF RALEIGH.

I desire to speak a word concerning our white people in the city of Raleigh, as to their attitude towards the colored people. I must say it is of the very kindest nature. In reality, there has not been a conflict between the two races in the city of Raleigh for twenty-five or thirty years. We have had no lynching in the city of Raleigh. Neither race would submit to it. We feel proud of the white people in the city of Raleigh, and the white people feel proud of us as a race.

I have heard the white people say on several occasions, when colored people come from other towns and act unbecoming, that “They are not our colored people, for they are well behaved, as a rule. We think well of the colored people who live here.”

The trouble that they have with each other is very little; it does not amount to anything worth speaking of. In a few days you would never know that they ever had any trouble between themselves.

The city of Raleigh is a city that I feel proud of. I have been here almost twenty years. I have visited every town and city in the United States. During my visits to the various cities and towns, I noticed carefully the relationship between the white and colored people. I scrutinized very closely, and I found the relationship in the city of Raleigh superior to any in the United States. Raleigh sets a good example for all of the Southern cities to follow.

I often get down on my knees and pray that such a spirit that has prevailed over the city of Raleigh will continue for centuries to come.

The ministers in the city of Raleigh, white and colored, and the Christian people, have had a great deal to do with the true spirit that has prevailed over Raleigh for over a quarter of a century.

Raleigh contains about fifteen thousand inhabitants within the corporate limits; the city in reality contains about thirty thousand inhabitants. The two races are just about equal in population.

Raleigh is an inland city. It is quite beautifully located. It is also a very healthy city. It is six miles from Neuse River. Railroad system is very good; you can leave the city about six times every day and night for all points north, west and east.

In former years there was not very much manufacturing done here, but lately it has become quite a manufacturing city. It is also quite an enterprising city. It is increasing its number of enterprises every year. The people in the city of Raleigh, as a rule, have become very wealthy, especially the white people. It has not been as enterprising as some other cities in the State, but the people have seen the great necessity of having enterprises in the community, and they have determined to make the city of Raleigh second to none.

We have six banks in our city–the Raleigh National Bank, the Citizens National Bank, the Raleigh Savings Bank, the Dime Savings Bank, the Farmers’ and Commercial Bank, and the North Carolina Trust Company. This is evidence that we have a plenty of money in our city, but it is hard to get.

Walter Raleigh, for whom the city was named, was a great man, according to history.

The city is improving very rapidly. It has many beautiful mansions, and fine, wide streets,

We have a Governor that we all feel proud of–a high-toned Christian gentleman. He is in favor of educating both races alike; he believes in the money being divided equally between the two races for educational purposes. He is a Governor for the people, regardless of races or sex. Gov. Aycock has given us a wise and excellent administration. When he made his inaugural speech, he said: “I am a Governor for the people. I intend to see that the law is administered to every man alike.” He showed in one of the greatest speeches that ever was delivered on such an occasion that he was in favor of protecting the weak man and the ignorant man, as well as those who were well up in life. No man in the State of North Carolina can justly find fault with his administration, for he has been wise and liberal in all of his acts. His intention has been, from beginning to end, to animate the State during his administration.

His people feel proud of him as a Governor of North Carolina. The colored race feels proud of him as their Governor. He is a man of patriotism.

I have been acquainted with the Governor whom I speak of over ten years. I found him to be a gentleman in the highest degree. I regret and sincerely believe that the State of North Carolina regrets, that his time is almost expired as the Chief Executive of the State.

We have six colleges in the city of Raleigh. Four white colleges–the Baptist Female University, St. Mary’s, Peace Institute, and A. and M. College. We also have three colored colleges–Shaw University, St. Augustine’s, and Latta University. This is sufficient to show that we believe in educating our people. Yet I believe in compulsory education; I believe that we should make our State compulsory, as the Northern and New England States are. It will decrease crime and extend virtue in our beloved State. I truly hope that the men who are engaged in making laws for the State will force this measure sufficiently to make it a law, and place it upon our statute books, as a living monument through all ages to come. I admit without any hesitation that the other Southern States, like North Carolina, are becoming deeply interested in education. I mean the leading educators for the people at large have not been interested in education. I am glad to know that the people are calling meetings all over the State of North Carolina to show that the proper interest is being taken along educational lines. I believe that the General Assembly of North Carolina will be asked next session to make education compulsory. If the measure falls to be presented to the General Assembly this session, I am positive it will be presented the ensuing session.

The Industrial Training Department, Latta University, Raleigh

Faculty and Students of Latta University, Raleigh

excerpted from The History of My Life and Work. Autobiography by Rev. M. L. Latta, A.M., D.D., courtesy of UNC Libraries

Yesterday, the Raleigh City Council passed the budget for fiscal year 2009-10. At $697,595,799 split up between approximately 386,000 of us souls, that’s about $1,800 a person. Considering all the service – police and fire protection, road maintenance, parks, water and sewer and trash and recycling pickup, even a spiffy new convention center - that is delivered to me every day for less than the price of a thickburger combo at Hardee’s, that’s such a deal (see the graphic in my post just prior to this one).

But that doesn’t mean that the City Council should act as if the citizens aren’t facing economic challenges. To its credit, the Council did not give its 3,000 or so employees a cost-of-living raise. But as City Manager Russell Allen told the Councilors last Monday, the cost of living did not go up over the last year. So that is a moot point. The Council did preserve the 5% raise that it had previously approved for Allen. And in order to do that, it also provided merit raises for all other city employees, though it lowered the maximum possible increases by 1%.

Compare that to us tax-paying citizens. 8.3% are officially unemployed, you know those folks have got to be hurting.

Best expert guess is that another 15% or so are underemployed. Underemployed is better than unemployed, but the belt is still pretty tight for these folk.

Although it is difficult to get an accurate accounting, let’s say about 10-12% of us work for the State of North Carolina. Frist consider we are the Capital City, we are home to the State’s flagship university, and our public school teachers are state employees, then add up the employees of each that work in Raleigh, and then account for many of them not being Raleigh residents, and 10-12% is still a conservative estimate. All of these folks will earn less this year than last.

Just these three groups alone account for over 1/3 of the working families in Raleigh. Work for Wake County?  No pay raise for you either.  And we all know plenty in the private sector who are squeezed hard as well. It is all of these hurting folks who will pay the taxes and fees that will allow city employees to completely escape the pain of the second-worst recession in the history of this country.  State workers are facing large increases in health insurance premiums, but the City Council agreed not raise insurance premiums for City workers, even though the cost to the City is rising.  The City Council also agreed not to lay anyone off.  True, the City eliminated 85 jobs that were already vacant.  State agencies have done the same, but state workers still have mandatory furloughs, and many are sure to lose their jobs - the university alone is preparing to eliminate hundreds of positions.

I’m not one to denigrate our public employees – on the whole I think they deserve more for work almost always well done and almost always under-appreciated. I particularly feel for public school teachers – even in the best of schools it’s a mean job. But there comes a time when as a public servant you have to recognize that it is necessary to share the pain.

I argued a couple of weeks ago that City Manager Russell Allen alienated the rank and file when he accepted a pay raise larger than any under him could receive. Now he has alienated the rank and file citizen.

At the time Allen’s raise was offered by the City Council, only District D Councilor Thomas Crowder objected. It is likely that his working-class origins sensitized him to the pain ordinary people feel when the economy tanks. At-large Councilor Russ Stephenson later argued that it would be best to delay raises for city employees until there are signs of economic recovery. It was a good idea – recognize merit now, but reward it later when the rest of us can afford it. Mayor Meeker quickly pooh-poohed that idea, with the bogus assertion that since city employees are reviewed throughout the fiscal year, those that were reviewed early in the year would miss out.

The rest of the Council was apparently incapable of empathy for the commoner.

So don’t be surprised if BTB pushes for both Crowder and Stephenson, as it has in the past, for this fall’s municipal elections.

———

Juneteenth 2009 - this just in.

Graphic from City of Raleigh’s Budget & Management Intern Kelly Pasour and Budget & Management Analyst Jamie Brown.

Last night, the City Council held its annual budget hearing. It’s typically a predictable affair, dozens with their hands out pleading for their respective charities, tempered by one or two naysayers scolding the city ‘rents to cease all spending and privatize everything. I don’t mind all the supplication, we’re a wealthy town even in these bad economic times, surely we can do a little to help the less fortunate.

But last night’s show got off script, with a few guest stars taking center stage. City employees, who don’t want the city budget balanced on their backs, crowded the room. Their singular (rhetorical) question: how can City Manager Russell Allen take a 5% raise, then turn right around and recommend considerably less for every one of his thousands of employees?

Mayor Meeker says that in this economic climate city employees should be thankful to have good jobs that are secure. True dat, lucky for me that the Lane household is holding on if not moving ahead, but I see real pain all around me. You truly don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.

So what in tarnation was the Mayor thinking when he baked cake for the city manager? Have the Board of Directors give the CEO a big bonus, then stiff the rank and file? The political backlash that was bound to ensue was 110% predictable. That all but one of the members of the City Council can be so blind is alarming. Do they not have kitchen cabinets of ordinary folk that they can run this stuff by for a reality check before they vote?

Okay, politicians are notoriously boneheaded, so be it. But what was the City Manager smoking? Manage for just one minute , move some cheese, tip over a cow for cryin’ out loud - every one of the 100 gazillion books on management is gonna tell you that you lead by example. Allen knew the Council was going offer up a fat raise. He should have headed it off at the pass. Sure he wanted more, don’t we all. Maybe he deserves more, I don’t know. But a single man in a leadership position earning over 200K a year should be savvy enough to turn down an extra 10 thou now so he can parlay that into good will and bigger rewards in a couple of years when the economy recovers, as it surely will. That would have been the smart thing to do

Instead, the City Manager chucked the confidence of his employees. Once that happens, it’s a downhill slide that can’t be stopped. The line worker knows who’s got his his back. Now he will work against Allen, at best in spite of him, but never again for him.

Twenty-four months max before Allen is unable to manage effectively.

Maybe by that time Dempsey Benton will be feeling understimulated and consider coming back to the City.

Or maybe offer the post to District D City Councilor Thomas Crowder, as he seems to be showing apparently uncommon common sense lately.

UPDATE ON FEB. 3: The City Council passed this ordinance today, with only Isley, Baldwin, and West voting against.  Isley I expected.  Baldwin said the ordinance is redundant and the protections already provided for.  If that’s true, how come we keep getting pawn shops in sensitive neighborhoods, du uhh?  This vote will work against her bid for Mayor this fall.  West, well we can never figure out what makes West tick, he’s constantly harping on needs of sensitive neighborhoods, but will vote against them at least as often as for them.  Go figure.
_______________

Waaaay back in September of 2006, the Comprehensive Planning Committee of the Raleigh City Council began considering a new law that would limit where pawn shops could be located.  Two-and-a-half years later, the City Council is finally thinking about taking action.

Any new pawn shops would only be allowed to be located in areas zoned Business, Thoroughfare, or Industrial.  Currently pawn shops can operate in any area zoned Shopping Center, Buffer Commercial, Neighborhood Business, Business, Thoroughfare, Industrial-1, or Industrial-2 zoning districts. According to the City, based on Raleigh’s typical zoning patterns, this reduces the likelihood that a new pawn shop will locate immediately adjacent to an existing neighborhood, allowing new pawn shops to locate within the downtown central business district and along the City’s major highway corridors.

The basic operating principle is that pawnshops bring down neighborhoods, so it is a valid police function of the city to limit both the number and locations of pawn shops.

I tend to agree with the notion that pawnshops are bad news, but I wanted to get some quantitative verification (or refutation) of that.  I am a pretty good amateur researcher if I may say so myself (I can use Google AND Google Scholar!) so I was really beginning to feel inadequate when I couldn’t find hardly any independent studies of the pawn industry.

When I finally stumbled across an article in the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency titled “Where have all the hot goods gone? The role of pawnshops,” I learned that:

“public knowledge of [the] market [for stolen goods] and its dynamics . . . is so impoverished as to border on the scandalous. Good policy cannot be developed on the foundations of ignorance.”

A glaring sign of this poverty is scarcity of research on pawnshops…” (1)

Amen to that brother (and thanks for validating my researching abilities).

To confound matters more, much of what is known comes from work done in a handful of British Commonwealth countries.  Nevertheless, several characteristics of both pawnshops and petty thieves are clear. First the pawnshops:

“The business has almost always been associated with exorbitant interest rates and with facilitation of traffic in stolen goods. As a result, pawnshops are everywhere subject to specific state and local regulation. Some laws set maximum limits, or ceilings, on nominal (i.e., official) interest rates and on storage and other administrative fees that brokers use to push effective rates that customers pay to levels higher than nominal rates. In addition to licensing, bond, land use zoning and like requirements, other regulations focus mainly on identifying stolen goods and limiting their flow through shops.” (2)

“In general, research by scholars and journalists suggests three things. First, pawnbrokers do have some role in recycling stolen goods. Second, frequent pawners present the highest likelihood of acting as main agents through which pawnshops acquire hot goods. Third, the volume and value of these goods may be substantially greater than the tiny fractions that have been proposed.” (2)

As for the thieves, while they might not be the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, for the most part they do act rationally.  They particularly value six traits of most items they consider absconding with: concealability, removability, availability, value, enjoyableness (this “may reflect the pleasure-loving lifestyle of many thieves and the people who buy from them”), and disposability.  “… although all six elements will determine whether a product is a suitable theft target, the relative disposability of an item is critical in determining how frequently it will be stolen… as goods tend to be sold on very quickly after they are stolen, the speed and ease with which an offender can dispose of certain goods is likely to play a vital role in target choice.” (3)

There are other studies which also indicate that thieves are in a big rush to get rid of whatever they’ve just jacked ASAP, not only because they might want the next hit of crank ASAP, but also because they understand that the longer they hold onto something they more likely they are to get caught with it in their paws.  So they tend to make a beeline to the nearest point of disposal.

“Apprehension by the authorities while the goods are in one’s possession greatly increases the odds of conviction. If a pawnshop deals in stolen goods, that risk is reduced for criminals operating in its vicinity, and the consequent increase in expected rewards should encourage criminal activity in locations with pawnshops. This incentive may be most powerful in densely populated environments. The closer proximity of the pawnshop to targets of theft together with the anonymity of the city may conspire to make the pawnshop a convenient destination for the urban criminal’s stolen goods.” (4)

That’s why when a pawn shop finally opens two blocks down from your crib, home burglary in the hood goes up. You don’t have to go to the library to understand that pawn shops attract criminals, you just gotta watch the local news on a semi-regular basis:

Dec. 23, 2008 - Pawn shop employees charged in stolen goods probe

Aug. 21, 2008 – Brothers, father arrested in pawn shop raid

Aug. 16, 2005 - Build it, and they will take the tools

Jun 4, 2001 - Hundreds Of Dollars In Merchandise Recovered In Pawn Shop Sting

Dec 26, 2000 - Thieves Are Cashing In At Pawn Shops With Stolen Gifts

According to the Christian Science Monitor, Raleigh wants to keep its pawnshop-to-resident ratio to 1:19,000 or less (that was certainly news to me) (5).  There were relatively few pawnshops during the first half of the 20th century, owing in large part to highly restrictive laws.  The business exploded in the second half of the century with changes in laws that allowed higher interests rates.  The number today is hard to pin down exactly, but there would seem to be about as many pawnshops in the U.S. as there are McDonald’s restaurants.  And like so many other service industries, the trend over the last twenty years has been away from independent shops to outlets of regional and national firms. (2)

So the genie is already out of the bottle, and the pawnbrokers will hire high-priced attorneys to trot out individuals who if not for the pawnbroker would have lost his or her home and car and anything else that could have been repossessed.  And they will pooh-pooh the crime stats, reminding us that pawnbrokers report all transactions to the police.

In this case, it is local planning attorney Tom Worth who has appeared at the public hearings on this proposed law.  What he and other advocates forget to mention is that while the brokers do report all items to police, they only have to hold an item for two days before selling it.  It often takes more than two days for the forms to get completed, mailed, and received and then processed by the police, by which time that chopsaw your neighbor bought just six months ago and you were really looking forward to borrowing this weekend to start that new deck may be long gone (and do you believe the property taxes collected on the buildings housing pawn shops even begin to pay for this police service?).  If it is even reported as stolen, as most thefts of small items are not reported.  Most of these stolen items do not have unique features like serial numbers that can be used to identify them as yours.  And like the criminal didn’t show the pawnbroker a fake ID.  Do you know if that Bosch saw and Makita hammer drill out in your garage have serial numbers?  If they do, do you have any clue what they are?

I certainly don’t.

———–

1. Aire Frieberg. Regulating Markets For Stolen Property (1997)
2. Mike Sutton. Supply By Theft: Does The Market For Second-Hand Goods Play A Role In Keeping Crime Figures High? The British Journal of Criminology 35:400-416 (1995)
3. Melanie Wellsmith and Amy Burrell.  The Influence of Purchase Price and Ownership Levels on Theft Targets. The British Journal of Criminology 45:741-764 (2005)
4. Thomas J. Miles. Markets for Stolen Property: Pawnshops and Crime. The University of Chicago Law School
5. Patrik Jonsson.  US Cities Act to Curb Growth of Pawnshops.  Christian Science Monitor April 9, 2007

————

Tidbits from #4 above:

Texas law bars pawnshops from displaying dirks, daggers, blackjacks, hand chains, sword canes, switch blades, and brass knuckles.

Delaware law forbids pawnbrokers from accepting prosthetic limbs and workman’s tools.

Minnesota law prohibits the location of a pawnshop within 10 miles of a casino.

Michigan law prevents pawnbrokers from conducting business with a person who “is of unsound mind, or neglects all lawful business, or that he habitually spends his time frequenting houses of ill-fame, gambling houses or tippling houses, or that from drinking, gaming, idleness or debauchery of any kind he is squandering his earnings or wasting his estate, or that he is likely to bring himself or his family to want, or to render himself or his family a public charge, or that he is suspected of thievery.”

Waaay back in the stone age (2005), we told you how once City Councilor, then State Senator, now soon to be Treasurer Janet Cowell stiffed her home tribe on enabling legislation that would allow our fair city to deal with abandoned houses more quickly.  In Raleigh, a house has be boarded up for at least 12 months before the City can condemn it.

Legislators from other cities were successful at getting the General Assembly to reduce that time from 12 to 6 months for their hometowns.  Yet for the Capital City, Cowell only asked the General Assembly to study the idea of such a change, and then did nothing to get even that dinosaur egg, so it fizzled.

Tuesday afternoon at the Raleigh City Council meeting, District D Councilor Thomas Crowder asked his fellow councilors to consider asking our new senate delegation to finally get us that legislation.

Later in the meeting, a citizen petitioned the City Council to extend the time allowed to repair a wrecked house in West Raleigh before the City demolished it.  It is common for folks to do this - at the same meeting, the Council granted extensions for three other houses, two of which have been uninhabitable for about two years and had already been given multiple extensions.

But this house has been abandoned for a decade, and the City FINALLY issued a demolition order about a year ago.  It is a magnet for criminals, and the Council heard compelling evidence of how the nearby residents have been terrorized.  The attorney for the homeowner asked for 90 more days to bring the house into compliance, but could not assure the Council that the owner of this house had either the finances or the will to repair it.

Crowder made a motion to affirm the demolition order that was promptly seconded, much to the chagrin of the Mayor.  The Mayor wanted to give more time, so he made a substitute motion that was immediately seconded by At-Large Councilor Mary-Ann Baldwin.  District B Councilor Koopman, District C Councilor West, and At-Large Councilor Stephenson all expressed concern about allowing the house to remain.  But at the end of the discussion, all of the Councilors except Crowder voted to grant a 90-day extension.

Check this out to get an idea of how bad the neighbors of this hovel have it.  After more than a decade of intentional neglect, anyone with the brain of a neanderthal would know to throw the neighbors a mastadon bone.  But that ain’t how it works with our Cro-Mag Mayor and Council.  With the exception of Cro-wder, these cavefolk grunt out a good story about being for the ordinary anthropoid, but when it comes time to choose between law-abiding hominids and a scofflaw absentee bonepicker, nine times out of ten they throw the poor citizens off the cliff.  During their election campaigns, Koopman, Stephenson, and District A Councilor McFarlane all sat around the campfire telling stories about being cavehood friendly.  But all consistently vote to let inappropriate developments overrun sensitive neighborhoods, to relieve chronically bad landlords from the PROP, even to allow landlords to literally terrorize neighborhoods.

Janet Cowell proved that this political strategy of saying one thing while simultaneously doing the opposite can be a successful in local politics.  It ain’t right, but it works.  Unfortunately, much of the current City Council is now wearing the same sheepskin.

Ugh.

When Sigmund Freud analyzed this joke over 100 years ago, he labeled this technique in humor of displacing the psychical emphasis in a joke onto a topic other than the opening one “displacement.” Change the train of thought.

Speaking of trains of thought, when it comes to light rail in the Triangle, our local politicians have perfected the art of displacement.

We covet a train, indeed the draft of the new comprehensive plan (from now on known as the Comprehensive SCAM, but more about that at another date, and BTW, you heard it hear first, some folks predict that as soon as the Comp Plan gets the seal of approval - or maybe sooner - Planning Director Mitch Silver will be off to his next promotion - bet it has a DC address)…anyway, indeed the draft of the new comprehensive plan for the City of Raleigh proposes an impressive network of regional rail lines and associated transit stops, fully integrated with a connecting conventional bus system.

Ostensibly, we don’t have a train because we haven’t been able to afford it. $700-800 million for a regional system, around 2.5 billion for a full-blown Triangle-wide system.

But what if we had a partner with deeper pockets? President-elect Obama’s economic team is contemplating a 2-year economic stimulus plan that would cost somewhere between $675 billion and $775 billion over two years, mostly for construction of infrastructure.

Local pols wasted no time in compiling lists of local projects to spend our “share” of the money on. Mayor Meeker wants about a half-billion for 44 projects that he claims will turn Raleigh “green.”

But a quick glance at the plan reveals a different shade of gray. About half of the money would be used to build a new police headquarters downtown. Another couple hundred million for lots of other new buildings, and Meeker’s left with a few million for some park improvements, a few solar panels, and a handful of high efficiency light bulbs.

Not a penny for light rail.

Come on, Chucky Baby, that lame-o request is so 20th century. Sure, you want to get everything done, and the “green” moniker is supposed to wow folks, but the truth is that the Obama Train leaving the station is all about INFRASTRUCTURE to stimulate job growth, etc., not just one time expenditures.  Look for Raleigh to get stiffed on most of their request because they aren’t paying attention to the big picture. (BTW Charlotte is asking for dough to upgrade their light rail - those people get it, and they’re likely to get it).

When we don’t have money we can’t eat salmon mayonnaise, but when we fall into some extra case we mustn’t eat salmon mayonnaise. Meeker’s logic is doubly confounded - he sees the train as salmon mayonnaise - a luxury item that looks good and tastes even better, but has no necessity.

Meeker’s problem is that he can’t cut Big Real Estate loose. Their idea of “green” is roads and sewer lines out to the “greenfields.” Instead, the Mayor should plan and build a 30 mile light rail corridor, or the first leg of it from north Raleigh to the freakin’ AIRPORT, set up the planning along the route (that pesky comp plan again), and leave the developers to pick up the pieces of endless unplanned sprawl. Some will get on the train and make fortunes on transit-oriented development, the rest can be blood on the tracks. Talk about economic stimulus, there will be work for folks until they retire (rememeber: BTB is pro-development, period, and the 20th century notion of expaning subdivisions indefinitely into the countryside that require more roads and cars is just, well, so 20th century). Do a little research and see how much investment pops up along light rail corridors elsewhere. I’ll give you the answer: billions of dollars.

So how about the Mayor asks President Obama to put a half-billion to our portion of a new light rail system? Governor Easley is pushing for another $5-6 billion from the Feds just for transportation projects. With the regional cities pooling resources with the state, a light rail system becomes more than just a Triangle-shaped slice of pie in the sky.

None of the projects on the Mayor’s list come close to adding the value that a light rail system would. Drop 80 million on a shiny new building on Mount Hermon Road, and that’s all you get.

Build a transit stop where the new Edwards Mill extension meets East Chatham, and watch the values of surrounding empty and under-utilized lands escalate. That’s increased property tax receipts, in perpetuity. That’s a real investment in the future.

Perhaps better yet, include a multi-modal station downtown where the light rail and Amtrak intersect and tell the feds you’re planning to max out rail usage (and bus and foot traffic) locally and statewide. That’ll get their attention.

No bout adout it, 2.5 bil is a boatload of dough. Why, for that many bills we can get another week of war in Iraq.

Just think, if we all hadn’t followed Curious George on his grand scavenger hunt for make-believe WMDs hidden in bananas in Iraq, more than 250 American cities could have had built brand new light rail systems since the war began.

Even 800 mil for a regional system is a boatload of money. We don’t have to build the system to capacity all at once. A clever architect can surely design small stations that can easily be expanded as demand increases. Light cars are cheaper to purchase and operate than standard heavy cars. You get the idea…

Much of the rail corridor is already acquired. Much of the track has been laid. This is the one project that could be started immediately, immediately provide economic stimulus, and build long-term value.

Now is the time to THINK BIG, and this is the question that has to be answered in light of whatever request is made to the feds: how should a capital city approach 21st century energy usage and its carbon footprint regarding a multi-modal transportation system that maximizes options and health benefits while minimizing environmental impact and energy consumption? Or something like that…

Instead, Mayor Meeker is asking President Obama for money to widen roads.

Prediction for 2009: Meeker will spend this year like he’s spent the previous 7 years - aboard the wrong train of thought, choking on his salmon mayonnaise in the dining car with the green-tinted windows.

Developer Scales Back Soleil Center
News and Observer, December 10, 2008

The Soleil Center, the ambitious 43-story tower that was to be the icon of Crabtree Valley, is being redesigned…

The developers hope that by spring they will be able to begin building a 14- to 16-story hotel…

Mayor Charles Meeker overcame his reservations by getting a guarantee that the same high-quality tower shown in pictures would actually turn up on Glenwood Avenue.

Should Mundra and Walia want to change the height, the location or the design, the city must sign off first.

This’ll be a joke too, Crowder said.

Mayor Meeker stated he would like to make sure the project is built in accordance to the exhibits dated October 25 and suggested the following friendly amendment:

“This project will be built in accordance with the project exhibits dated October 25, 2005. Any changes, as determined by the Planning Director, to the project exhibits dated October 25, 2005 as they relate to building design, location, mass, façades, elevation and the mixture of land uses shall be presented to the Planning Commission and the City Council for consideration in accordance with Code Section 2132.2(c)”….

The motion as amended was put to a roll call vote which resulted in all members voting in the affirmative except Mr. Crowder who voted in the negative. The Mayor ruled the motion adopted on a 7-1 vote. The audience gave the Council a standing ovation.