It took the ghost of Jessie Taliaferro to bring me back to the boards.  After my post last week, I got to thinking if my interpretation of what went down at that first council meeting was tangible or rather just maniacal thinking arising from my long-held disdain for former Councilor Taliaferro.  Turns out I wasn’t the only one who noticed the sinister, cynical mien of Mary-Anne. Independent thinkers noticed, as did the MSM.  It’s reassuring to know that paranoia the destroyer hasn’t got the best of me yet.  Stop. Hold on. Stay in control.

Perhaps a new council is just what I need to get posting again.  That UDO is getting close to done; there are some real stinkers in it, and the new Mayor appointed a weak comprehensive planning committee to review it.  The new convention center downtown is turning into a big money pit.  And the new City Council actually believes that the state legislature is going to exempt the State Capital from new laws regulating the carrying of concealed handguns???

Earth to City Council: Speaker of the NC House Thom Tillis pays his NRA dues from his campaign funds.

Clearly it is not LL Cool Lane who is in need of brain salad surgery.  Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends.

Mayor McFarlane moved to appoint At-Large City Councilor Russ Stephenson for the position. Traditionally, the Mayors have enjoyed the privilege of making the selections, and the Councilors have graciously confirmed those selections.  But Mary-Anne Baldwin, the other of the two at-large councilors, immediately piped up that’s not my fancy, Nancy, I make a substitute motion that District C Councilor Eugene Weeks be given that honor. Asserted with an air of confidence that signaled that she already had the votes to stop appointment of Stephenson.

Forget that Stephenson has six years experience on the Council and was elected at-large, while Weeks has served just over a year for District C. Baldwin went on about commitment to diversity (Weeks is African-American), which of course is hooey. When Weeks was appointed in 2010, District D City Councilor Thomas Crowder nominated the Rev. Sheila Jones to replace the departing James West. Jones was every bit as qualified as Weeks, maybe more, and Crowder made the case that it was time to have the first African-American woman on the Council.

Baldwin wasn’t the least lil’ bit interested in having an African-American woman on the Council.

As a compromise, Crowder proffered that Stephenson and Weeks share the position, as McFarlane and Baldwin did for the last year under Mayor Meeker. Baldwin said she would agree to that, provided that Weeks approved. He did (though he didn’t seem thrilled about it).

Baldwin was clearly channeling Jessie Taliaferro – you may be Mayor, Chuckie Baby Nance, but that doesn’t mean you run the show around here.

Such is the fate of the unaffiliated politician – neither Democrats nor Republicans have any obligation to stand by you. The honeymoon’s over, Mayor McFarlane, you just got boinked by the big dog in the pound.

Cullen Browder, Reporter/Anchor
WRAL-TV News, Capitol Broadcasting Company Inc.
2619 Western Boulevard
Raleigh, NC  27606

Dear Mr. Browder:

Thank you for your interest in interviewing me for your upcoming story on Lent C. Carr.  I am flattered that you are impressed with the detail of my recent research on Carr.

However, if you read just a bit more of my blog, you will understand that anonymity is integral to the success of my research and commentary.  I seldom answer email, seldom reveal my sources, seldom report inaccurate information (though I am far from infallible), and never reveal my identity.

My simple goal is to improve local governance; I do not need recognition or acclaim.  This story is not about Lunsford Lane, it is about Carr and perhaps the City Council.  If you would like to acknowledge BelowTheBeltline.org in your story, that would be nice.  If you choose not to, that is fine.  I just ask that you produce an insightful and complete report.  You are a highly decorated reporter, WRAL is second to none in local news reporting in the Triangle.  I am certain that you can produce an enlightening exposé without my participation.

Best Regards,

LL Cool Lane

———-

added May 25, 2011:

This guy is right, I should do more. UDO hidden agendas, campaign season about to start, new city budget being hammered out; not a shortage of material but of time.

———-

added even later on May 25, 2011:

Excellent piece, Mr. Browder.

And at last Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Mayor Meeker spit on every one of those diplomas.

Lent Carr appeared before the City Council on Tuesday, this time pretending to represent taxi  drivers, as president of the North Carolina Taxi Workers Alliance, Inc. (a member of the International Taxi Workers Alliance).

Mayor Meeker addressed him as Dr. Carr. 

Carr introduced himself as Dr. Lent Carr, but as all readers of this blog know Carr is a fraud.  He does not have a doctorate of any kind, nor a college degree of any kind, and no thoughtful person should refer to him as Doctor.  Last time I reported on Carr, he had plagiarized a report to make it appear that it described a ficticious Raleigh Youth Summit.  Since then, he’s done it again – this time releasing a report that’s supposedly about poverty in City Council District C.  It’s actually an abridged copy of a report on poverty prepared for the City Council of Dundee, Scotland.  Place names were changed, but references to “pensioners” were retained.

Carr claims that his taxi drivers group has over 600 members.  Yet the group did not exist until yesterday, when Carr registered it with the Secretary of State.  Carr made himself president, and his wife treasurer.  About ten folks identified by Carr as cabbies stood up with him at the Council meeting.

Carr bitterly and over-dramatically complained that the City Council has not acted on cab driver requests that others made at an April City Council meeting, and threatened that a taxi strike is imminent.  City Manager Russell Allen noted that the City did follow up with the cabbies, but he has not heard back from them.  Allen said that if the taxi drivers will just follow through, the city will work with them.

Carr is still running for City Council in District C.  But he’s moved out of District C (if he ever lived there).  He’s currently living just seven blocks down the road from the Honorable Thomas G. Crowder, District D City Councilor.  It looks as if Carr fully intends to live in his rent-subsidized apartment in District D and represent District C.  One of his few equals in fraud, Jerome Goldberg, can tell him all about how that works.

Mayor Meeker, your wife is a doctor, by every account an excellent physician.  She deserves the respect she has earned, and should never being equated with the likes of Lent Carr.

Tradition and manners, the glue that binds the South.  So it should surprise no one that Yanks and Canucks praised the southern hospitality showered upon the NHL and its Allstars last weekend (though a Hostess Eating Contest (come again?) is much too New South for Old Guard like me).   

Saturday night four neighboring families, five adults and nine kids, piled into two minivans and made a beeline for Fayetteville Street Mall (what I still call it, since it seems the City is always closing it so folks can take nostalgic walks down the center of the road, like they used to do…go figure).  As the van whipped out the drive, I whipped out my official Nancy McFarlane City Councilor Music Food Skating Puppets Art Fireworks Big Hockey Game NHL All-Star Wide Open Schedule of Events.   

The neighbors roared.  Everybody got one in the mail, but apparently I was the only one not to immediately toss it into the recycle bin.    

Hey, I say, the morning paper said that McFarlane was surprised at how few people knew what was going on.   

More howling.  It seems that everyone who hasn’t been napping for the last year or so knows that you get your schedule in real time, on Fayetteville Street Mall, on your smart phone.  The hitch for me is that I’m not smart enough to operate a smart phone.  “Mee-dee-yuh-sah-chu-ray-shun,” my neighbor the ad-man with the thick slow southern drawl declares.  He says that in his house there’s a minimum of two televisions, three computers, and three smart phones operating at all times, except when everyone is sleeping, when just one computer whirrs, just in case (of what he didn’t say).  And every family member is plugged into a Droid phone whenever they leave the confines of the home. (Truth be told, I think his youngest might be an actual Android).   

For what seemed like an eternity before the big game, you couldn’t turn on local news or pick up the paper without seeing something All-Star.  Google NHL All-Star Raleigh, about 1.5 million hits.  A 7-story tall sign on the side of the RBC Tower since last summer.   

Yet the folks McFarlane chats with had no idea what was going on?   

I told you at the start of the year that McFarlane is running for Mayor.  Now the proof is in the postcard (as if I would tell you something that I didn’t know to be true).   

You don’t launch your official campaign by implying that the local news rags, the TV and radio stations, the National Hockey League, the Carolina Hurricanes Communications Department, and especially the City of Raleigh Public Affairs Department are so incompetent that you, a pol who represents only about 1/5^th of the City, have to take it upon yourself to handle the publicity for the local sporting event of the decade.   

I’ve not yet made up my mind on the merits of this postcard strategy for introducing a candidate to the public.  But I do know that it is an amateur’s mistake to insult institutions that have done their job well, particularly when they are holding the microphone. McFarlane probably talked to an N&O reporter for ten minutes at least, probably had lots to say about why she sent out that postcard.  But she should have known that only one or two sentences would actually make it to print, and that those would undoubtedly be the most provocative sentences she uttered.   

All of this leads to two obvious questions.   

Numero Uno:  Where did McFarlane get the money to send out a City-wide mailing?   

District Councilors usually don’t scrape together much money.  Best I can tell (because campaign disclosure reports are so darned hard to read and interpret), McFarlane has raised just shy of $75,000 since she first ran for office, which is verging on big money.  At the start of this year, she had just over $6,000 in cash on hand, not near enough to cover her All-Star postcard.  A closer look reveals that $47,000 (about 65%) of what she has raised is actually a personal loan from herself, reported on her campaign disclosures as a debt still outstanding.   

McFarlane has dough – a pharmacist by training, she built a very successful medical services company.  This allows her to bankroll various political causes including her own campaigns.  We won’t know for some time yet how this latest mailer was paid for, but dollars to donuts it came out of her own deep pockets.   

Pregunta Dos: Does McFarlane have a kitchen cabinet?    

Cuz if she does, it ain’t a very good one. I’m not talking about hired political hacks like Perry Woods, to whom McFarlane has given a boatload of money.  Those pros have their place (maybe, I have my doubts about their value in local elections, just ask Ted Van Dyk), what I am talking about is three to six supersmart, preferably politically savvy, very trusted close personal associates who have good ears and good eyes and good critical thinking skills and most importantly an abundance of common sense.  Folks who at first glance discriminate between hubris and humility, theory and reality, folly and force. These are the people who scrutinize your every campaign move.  

“Guys, the political consultant says I should announce my candidacy by sending out a postcard that looks like it came from the Chamber of Commerce – how will real people react to that?”   

“When the reporters call (as they inevitably will), what is my message?”  

“What can I say, and more importantly what must I not say under any circumstance?“ 

You practice your schtick in front of them, over and over again until you can get it right every time without even thinking about it.   

No kitchen cabinet worth the coffee and cake it consumes would ever let its candidate tell the news media that it was failing to inform the public about what happens to be the most publicized event of the last five or ten years.   

Political memory is short, the campaign season is months away – by the time it really gets rolling no one in Raleigh will remember McFarlane’s postcard or her slighting remarks.  That is good.  Well, good if she learns from this mistake. McFarlane is smart enough; slouches don’t get through pharmacy schools to become CEOs. 

Likely she will quickly figure out that slapshots are notoriously inaccurate and difficult to execute, and when the clock strikes noon on July 25, amateur hour is over and every missed goal is going to sting, bad.   

But this is just too funny (bizarre? sad? you choose) to let go by.

Even after I posted my exposé on him, Carr posted a report “compiled by volunteers of “Organizing for Southeast Raleigh,” and under the direct Leadership of Dr. Lent Carr… [of] findings from a qualitative study conducted from October 7, 2010 to December 17, 2010,” in Southeast Raleigh of youth participation in local government (about halfway down at this webpage).

There is no study, gentle readers, but you knew that already.

Carr plagiarizes directly from this report of a study conducted by the Department for Transport, Local Government and Regions and the National Centre for Social Research in London, England!  Carr even posts photos labeled Southeast Raleigh’s Youth Summit 2010 that were taken at a meeting sponsored by the English newsweekly NewStatesman.

Carr substitutes “Raleigh” in place of “England” throughout the text, but isn’t even clever enough to change typically British spelling like colour.

Notwithstanding anything I said in my previous post, this man is unquestionably what one faithful BTBorg reader who did his own breakdown of Carr terms a  “liar of mammoth proportions.”

One of those fresh faces, Lent C. Carr II, was unremarkable and I quickly forgot him.  Then January 4, I saw him before the City Council.  First he told the Council that he is an announced candidate for the District C race this fall, then that he had been opposed to the elimination of a recently vacated Assistant City Manager position, finally that he had recently met with the City Manager and was now down with the position being cut (so why then were you killing time at a Council meeting???).      

Carr was subsequently nominated by District C Councilor Eugene Weeks (who got West’s seat) for appointment to the City’s Substance Abuse Advisory Commission.  He was to appear at the January 18 City Council meeting, ostensibly to advocate that the City stop barring felons from competing for City jobs and contracts (one of his campaign planks), but he didn’t show.  After Carr’s name came up three times in less than two weeks, curiosity got the best of this cat and I set out to learn who that cat is.  He has posted resumes and biographies on various web sites, so here is a compilation of his educational and professional experiences:     

High School Diploma, J.H. Rose High School, Greenville, NC
Business Administration Degree, Cumberland County College
Advance Career Development Degree, Cumberland County College
Criminal Justice, ITT Technical Institute (currently enrolled)
Fayetteville State University (1996, I can’t determine the degree), with honors
MBA with honors, Duke University Fuqua School of Business
Master Divinity Degree in Biblical Studies, Amherst Theological Seminary, Summa Cum Laude
Doctorate Divinity Degree in Sacred Theology/Christian Education, Amherst Theological Seminary      

2009-Present: Pastor, Emmaus Puritan Apostolic Baptist Church, Raleigh  
2009-Present: President/CEO & Senior MLM Coach, Success Central Enterprises LLC, Raleigh
2008-2009: Executive Director/Fundraising & Outreach, Iraqi Homeless Veterans Foundation, Raleigh
2007-2008: Maintenance/Sanitation Supervisor, Hardin Construction Company, Raleigh
2006-2007: Chapel’s Operational Clerk, Federal Correctional Institute, Butner, N.C.
1996-2006: Law Clerk, Federal Correctional Institute, Fairton, N.J.
1992-1996: Senior Pastor, World Harvest Church, Greenville, N.C.
1989: Production Clerk/Computer Head Assembler, Fullerton Computer Industries, Winterville, N.C.   

On its face, that’s an impressive curriculum vitae.  A life of study and service.  A doctorate after not one but two masters degrees. Ministry to the disadvantaged, particularly the incarcerated, with a recent move into the business sector.  At 38 years old, just the type of young (enough) mover and shaker that District C needs to send up to the City Council.     

Carr writes that he started an on-line sales site in early 2008. By October of that year, he was doing $20,000 per month. Sales for 2009  grew to $666,249.31.  That’s impressive.   That on-line sales site link is currently broken.  Carr created the site in November, 2009.  It went offline in November 2010 because he  didn’t shell out the few bucks to renew it.  He did renew the web address on January 7, and the site is not back up yet. Hmmm…..      

Carr directed 58 employees at the Iraqi Homeless Veterans Foundation?  Iraqi Homeless Veterans Foundation is a tiny thrift store on Rock Quarry Road that couldn’t even hold 58 people.  Hmmm….      

Perhaps the business experience is a tad overstated.   But there is the ministry, currently as Pastor of Emmaus Puritan Apostolic Baptist Church here in Raleigh, and formerly Senior Pastor of World Harvest Church in Greenville.  Emmaus Church is this tiny house on Poole Road.  World Harvest Church in Greenville was also a tiny house.  I can’t show you a picture of that one, because it burned down in 1998.  And Carr said grace over the Chapel at the federal prison in Butner. 

What Carr neglects saying is that he got a free ride to that correctional institute (and that his dates are a bit off).      

In 1998, Carr bought a fire insurance policy for the mobile home in Greenville which served as both his residence and as the World Harvest Oasis Temple of Praise Church. Five days after that policy became effective, the mobile home burned. Investigators discovered that the fire was started by gasoline in the kitchen.      

Carr and his wife Davina then made insurance claims for several items, including some already repossessed, some never purchased, more obtained under false pretenses, and still others that were grossly overvalued. Carr ”met” with witnesses in order to “get their stories straight.”  Those who stuck with his version of events were to get a share of the insurance proceeds. Davina later admitted that she had lied to an investigating grand jury under pressure from her husband.      

Carr eventually pled guilty to one count each of arson, bank fraud, and mail fraud.   He was sentenced to 125 months of jail for the first two counts, and a concurrent 60 month sentence for the third.  Also to fork over more than 45 grand in restitution (which he didn’t have).  His fraud had cost Greentree Financial Servicing $18,113.39 and Nationwide Insurance another $20,547.36.      

Holy Accelerant, Matchman, that’s more than ten years in the cage.  The Court came down hard on Carr because of the ”substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury that could’ve occurred to the residents who lived with him in the burning home.“   Everyone knows that one year in the doggie house is equal to seven unincarcerated human years.  Carr was keenly aware of this, as he was already earned time in state prison for paper hanging, something both he and Davina had been convicted of before.      

So at his sentencing hearing for the arson case, Carr sought a reduced sentence, preferably home detention, because his life expectancy was only four to five years as a result of AIDS.  The Government told the Judge that if Carr was sick, the prison system could handle it.  The Court actually bought that claim (I certainly wouldn’t have), and Carr shipped out for his 125 months in a fed pen.      

Carr continued to fight for a shorter sentence, suing to have the arson charge thrown out. Carr said he pled guilty “while being under the influence of a copious number of psychotropic medications used to treat the… mental condition of dementia, dystymia with agoraphobia, severe recurrent anxiety disorder, and chronic depression, not to mention… serious medical conditions“ (like all those others weren’t serious?).   In 2001, the US Court of Appeals vacated the arson conviction – because Carr’s house/church/day care center was not used in interstate commerce, the Feds had no jurisdiction.  It would be a pyrrhic victory, as the lower court and subsequently appeals courts refused to reduce his sentence.      

So that’s how Carr became a “law clerk” in the federal penal system.  Seventy “pokey years” is a lot of time to pass, so Carr filled it by filing lawsuits.  He sued the City of Greenville, Mayor of Greenville, the Pitt County Sheriff Department, the former Sheriff, the Probation Office, and lots of individual LEOs.  Seems that when a probation officer went to track him down, Carr tried to run him over (while his mother was in the car with him).  That brought the predictable response – lots more cops.  Carr says they roughed him up – tackled him, put him in cuffs, which cut his wrist, spoke harshly to him, and dragged him away.      

You know the routine – Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? What you gonna do when dey come fo’ you?  Like on every single episode of Cops that’s ever aired.  Except that this perp wanted millions in compensation.  Carr said that the rough handling caused him to have an epileptic fit.      

The Courts laughed.      

Later, Carr sued the Federal Bureau of Prisons and a dozen employees for violating his rights as secured by the fifth, eighth, and fourteenth amendments of the US Constitution.  The document Carr submitted is truly a piece of outsider folk art, prison art.  Seventyish pages of hand-printed prose, which could only be produced by someone with a lot of time and determination – here’s the title page.  That folksy block print belies the horrors vividly recounted, horrible enough that I only posted that first page.  Remember that HBO show OZ from a few years ago?  Let’s just say Carr’s script has not been edited down even for cable.       

Carr had made his way to the federal prison in Allenwood, PA.  He said he had a hard time with other inmates, who sent him anonymous threats, including, “We know what your charge is, and we know that you burned down your home while your children was in it.  So be aware, we’re going to _ _ _ _ the _ _ _ _ out of you, and make you our _ _ _ _ _, and then we’re going to slice your little throat into tiny pieces for setting that house on fire while those kids were in there.”      

Sometime later, Carr was in his cell alone, napping, when one of his cellmates returned with a prison-made shank.  Carr describes a brutal rape during which he was severely injured. He was eventually put into solitary confinement until he was transferred to the prison in Schuylkill, PA, nominally for his own protection.      

At Schuykill, Carr quickly became the contrary courtesan of the notorious “D.C. Gangbangers.”  He was greatly distressed, but claimed he was warned at his arrival by prison officials that he was not to complain about his treatment, sexual or otherwise, in this prison.  Eventually he did protest, and wound up in solitary confinement again.  He sued after being in solitary for more than a year, again seeking millions in compensation.  He claimed that prison officials knew that his various mental and physical illnesses made him vulnerable, and that they had a duty to protect him.      

Carr claimed that a 1999 forensic evaluation by a prison psychologist found he “suffered socially, with a low intellect, with an IQ of 73 and a third grade reading level.  Psychologically, Carr suffers from dysthymia, a panic disorder with agoraphobia, severe and recurrent major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, conduct disorder, and cognitive disorder.  Physically, Carr has been diagnosed with seizure disorder, epilepsy, asthma, HIV, and AIDS.  Furthermore, medical staff at Central Prison in North Carolina and Rochester, Minnesota F.M.C., in whom (sic) performed Carr’s psychological and medical evaluation, stated that the HIV and AIDS were not in remission stage, but that Carr was symptomatic, indicating possibly a 4-5 year life span left for him.”      

Again, Courts laughed.  Carr went on to beat the odds on his lifespan and serve all of his time, and was released in January 2009.  

All of Carr’s assertions that he was abused at the hands of law enforcement are plausible.  I mean, really, if you were to intentionally set out to get worked over by cops, it would be hard to find a better way of effecting that than by trying to run one of them down with your car.  Sexual assault rampant in prison?  It’s the number one deterrent for many otherwise would-be scofflaws, particularly of the white-collar variety.  But plausible is not the same as true.  Carr never offered any court any evidence for any of his allegations.  

It does not appear that Carr has put aside his penchant for deception and exaggeration. He does not have an online business that earns him tens of thousands of dollars each month.  He is not a best-selling author.  He does not have two masters degrees, no Duke MBA, no PhD, though he insists on being called “Dr. Carr.”  Try googling Amherst Theological Seminary.  Carr did not leave World Harvest Church in Greenville when his “contractual tenure ended in 1996.”  The many ramblings Carr has posted online prove that while he is no Langston Hughes, he reads and writes at a level far above third grade.  An I.Q. of 73 indicates probable mental impairment, but after listening to and reading much Carr, I know that he is far from retarded.  The diseases, mental and physical, which if any of them were/are real? 

Is anything this man claims actually true?  Perhaps the truth is that Carr continues to suffer from the mental disorders he says plaqued him in the past.  Perhaps he doesn’t discriminate well between reality and fiction, right and wrong; I am not about to belittle mental illness.  None of this would be any of my business or yours if Carr were not running for City Council.      

The mere thought of Carr representing District C is repulsive.  Look at those who have held that seat in recent times.  Eugene Weeks is a retired Air Force Senior Master Sergeant who went on to teach ROTC at Broughton High.  His predecessor, Dr. James West, got his title of Dr. the old-fashioned way – he earned it (Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in adult and community college education from N.C. State, Bachelor’s in agricultural engineering from N.C. A&T).  Before West, Brad Thompson, another State grad.  Before Thompson, Ralph Campbell, whose too-young body lay in honor in the State Capitol Rotunda just a few days ago.  Four gentlemen that have served their community and their country with the highest character and integrity.  They studied hard and they worked honestly and thus distinguished themselves.  Carr, with his fake degrees and his multi-level marketing scams, has done neither, and does not deserve to stand in the shadows of those great men.      

The City Council is scheduled to vote on Carr’s nomination to the Substance Abuse Advisory Commission at its next meeting on February 1.    

Earth to Councilor Weeks: We get the “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” strategy, but nominating a poser like Carr is certifiably nuts.    

Earth to Rest of City Council: Anyone who votes to appoint Carr to any City board is certifiably nuts.  Don’t give your political opponents yet one more even minor thing to beat you over the head with when campaign season begins later this year.  

Sharing all of this with you, gentle reader, gives me no pleasure, indeed this is the most difficult blog entry I have ever posted.  This is filthy work, work Weeks had the responsibility to do before he nominated Carr.  But this is an important election year (yeah, yeah, they’re all important, but I am out on a limb that this will be of higher import), so I want to dispense with distractions like Carr now, before the real fun begins. 

Right now I need to go take a long, hot shower. 

Study-in at the Eckerd’s Drug Store lunch counter, Fayetteville St., February 12, 1960

But since Hunter and all of his drinking buddies are long dead, he no longer bothered to remove the pits from the small wild cherries before he soaked them in the hooch.  The ethanol extracts copious amounts of amygdalin from the pits.  A cyanogenic glycoside. Cyanide poisoning.  First headache. Followed by dizziness. Then the skin turns bluish due to a lack of oxygen in the blood.  As blood pressure drops, the upper eyelids droop. Fever sets in, resulting in first mental confusion, then coma.  Lucky me that sausage is high in cysteine, or I might have crossed over to the ghost side myself.

Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  By the end of 2010, I had fully awakened, and completely sworn off the pitted fruits.  At least I was fortunate enough to have spent my year of hebetube with one eye open.  As I brood over the fuzzy haze of months past, anxious to return to the blogosphere in 2011, I recall three events in city politics that seemed insignificant when they happened, but have profound consequences for the future of the City.

So this is my year in review, not things of note, but things that nevertheless should be noted.

EXCLUSIONARY GOVERNING

What It Was

First is the train wreck that is the Wake County School Board.  Yes, it is the strict policy of this blog to only talk City politics, and the school board is County bidness.  But the reorganization of the Wake County school system to neighborhood schools is very much a City issue.  For it’s the City, not the County, with its zoning powers and its Comprehensive Plans and its subsidies for low income housing, that has intimate control of the neighborhoods in its boundaries.  And the City very deliberately promotes the creation and maintenance of homogenous communities.  Drive me around North Raleigh and show me where its share of city-subsidized low- or even moderate-income housing is. 

The most complete and coherent description of the problem came from one whom I least expected to recognize it, a local land use attorney who has spent much of his years promoting the same development practices he now recognizes as the source of our current dysfunction.  But even if he is late to the table, he’s right on, and his message needs to be heard over and over again.

At least some City leaders acknowledge the dilemma.  At its May 4, 2010 meeting, the City Council was laying out its legislative agenda for the next year.  That is, what should the Council seek authority for from the NC General Assembly.  Cities in North Carolina can only regulate what the General Assembly directly allows them to regulate.  At-Large Councilor Russ Stephenson wanted the legislature to give the City of Raleigh authority to use inclusionary zoning (see that attorney’s explanation from the link above).  Mayor Meeker was not amused.  District D Councilor Thomas Crowder was sympathetic.  When District B Councilor John Odom showed some interest in the conversation, the Mayor intervened sharply,

“That’s what we’re talking about, John, is inclusionary zoning, mandatory inclusionary zoning.  He’s saying a developer who builds an apartment house must have X percentage of either affordable or low-income housing. That’s what we’re talking about.”

And that was the shot straight through the heart of the notion of any consideration for using the power and influence of the City to promote diverse neighborhoods. 

Yet the Mayor has not been silent on school assignments.  In fact, he has been so vocal in his opposition to neighborhood schools that many of his fellow Wake County mayors have chided him to cool his jets.

What It Means For Our Future

When you create diverse neighborhoods, a neighborhood school assignment plan becomes a reasonable proposition. You don’t have to bus the rugrats from one side of the Outer Loop to the other to achieve racial, social, economic, or cultural diversity in the classroom.  But many of the local power brokers, particularly in the development community, don’t want diverse neighborhoods.  They see them as bad for their business.

So we will be mired in this diversity mess for decades to come.  And the reputation of the City as one of the Best Places in America for Anything and Everything Good and Right will be spoiled.  And there will be plenty of blame to go around.

A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS AND NOT OF MEN

What It Was

The second notable non-event of 2010 comes from the fiasco that is the Lightner Center.  How does a City Council get to $23 million worth of design for a $225 million building before it learns that the design is fundamentally flawed for the intended uses of the structure? This could easily have been determined at the $2.3 million mark, probably even before the tab reached $230,000.  Not a single City Councilor, either for or against the project, has been able to answer this question.

The City Council finally decided to stop the bleeding last March, but the City Manager forged ahead with design work.  When the $455,000 bill came due, several of the Councilors balked.  The City Manager didn’t have a contract with the design firm for the work.  And that, gentle readers, is highly illegal.

In the ensuing melee, Councilor Thomas Crowder made a motion to direct City staff to follow the letter of the law on signing of contracts, change orders, and amendments.  Mayor Meeker and City Manager Russell Allen were not amused.  Newly appointed District C City Councilor Eugene Weeks said that requiring the City Manager to obey the law is “micromanaging” (I kid you not).  The motion passed, with only the Mayor, Weeks, and At-Large Councilor Mary-Ann Baldwin voting nay.

What It Means For Our Future

What is was was at once both a very crude and a very clever trap set by Crowder.

Every man, woman, and child in Raleigh has spent about $55 designing a structure that will never be built. Every sitting City Councilor except Weeks and Gaylord is vulnerable to the charge that they were complicit in this fleecing.  Crowder was looking for some cover, and he found it.  What is not known is if it will be enough.  The Tea Party may be a fleeting campaign, but Art Pope and his minions have been around a long time, and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.  They now have the school board, the City Council is theirs for the picking.  If they want it, they just have to find a young, mildly dashing, staunch conservative (male or female) and it’s 1993 déjà vu all over again. 

What kind of politician votes against following the law???  The vote isn’t likely to hurt either the Mayor (who is not running for re-election), or Weeks, but we here at BTBorg have long contended that Mary-Ann Baldwin wants to be Mayor.  So does District A Councilor Nancy McFarlane (who’s already quietly campaigning).  McFarlane refused to take Crowder’s bait, though I don’t know if she would use Baldwin’s vote against her (she is a not a pugnacious personality).  But you can bet that just about any other candidate will.  We’ve never thought much of Baldwin’s politics here, but we always thought her smarter than that.

BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?

What It Was

It is also the Lightner Center that brings us to my final observation of 2010.  The haggling over the tower, particularly how to pay for it, showed us what we are still refusing to admit: we are flat-out broke.

The original idea was to raise taxes to build the tower.  After the Council stopped work (or so it thought) in March, City Manager Allen devised a new funding plan that might not result in a tax increase.  It would take two $100 million loans, forgoing other public works projects, and hope and prayer that sales tax revenues pick up dramatically over the next few years. If the plan worked, and that’s a big if, it would have meant that the City could not have invested in any other projects for years to come without raising taxes.  It wasn’t enough to change the minds of any of the Councilors who oppose the project.

The City is already way more than a billion dollars in the red.   The county school system is broke, and needs to sell at least a billion dollars in bonds if it is to have any hope of catching up on capacity. 

Nevertheless, City leaders are considering a bond referendum this fall. $129.5 million for transportation projects. Another $214 million to finance the water, wastewater, and reuse water projects. At least $225 million for fire and police stations and supporting facilities.  More for parks, affordable housing, etc.  And hundreds of millions more in COPs rather than general obligation bonds.  And on top of all of that, a sales tax increase, for developing light rail.  And on top of even that, don’t even ask about your water bill.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, official unemployment in the City exceeds 8% and is still rising, with actual unemployment and underemployment much higher.  The State of North Carolina faces a huge budget shortfall, and will lay off thousands of employees, including many who live here in the State Capitol.  North Carolina State University expects to lay off hundreds more.  The county school system will shed thousands of warm bodies, many of them teachers.

What It Means For Our Future 

People are hurting, many pretty badly.  Most folks generally understand the value of education, and most are willing to tighten the belt another notch if it means keeping their kids in good schools. But any local politician who backs bonds for new skyscrapers and new rail cars and new parks and anything else not immediately essential is filling out his or her retirement papers.  A county-wide sales tax increase, now that is the politician’s kiss of death.

Art Pope and the John Locke Foundation and the Wake County Taxpayers Association and too many Tea Partiers to shake a stick at are drooling all over themselves.

The 2011 municipal elections will be the most exciting (and important) in the history of the City.

Happy New Year to you too.