Red Clay Citizen

They Put the Road Where?

Questions are being asked about Senator David Hoyle's involvement in the Garden Parkway in Gaston County and some land he owns along the way.  The Charlotte Observer has the run down with a quote from our friend Professor David Hartgen.

US Taxpayers Funding Acorn and El Pueblo

From OneNewsNow:

The housing package signed into law by President Bush extends an unlimited line of credit to troubled mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and rescues homeowners near or in foreclosure. The measure also increases the federal debt limit by another $800 billion -- and sends millions of dollars in aid to La Raza and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

See also this article on the ACORN slush fund in the new housing bill.

Who's the Most Powerful Person in N.C.?

In North Carolina, the Senate Majority Leader is more powerful than the Governor. That means, right now, Senator Tony Rand (D-Cumberland) is more powerful than Governor Easley (though most people don't know who Rand is. That's not good).

This article in Stateline should give us an idea why:

Rounding out Beyle’s list of states where the governor has little institutional power are Rhode Island, Alabama, Oklahoma, Indiana, Mississippi and North Carolina.

Most people also don't know that when you have control over which bills get heard and which bills get sent to purgatory, you've got more power to shape the direction of the state than any other person. That, folks, is Tony Rand. Our polling also confirms North Carolinians civic ignorance in general (click link, scroll down).
-Max Borders

Transparency: Spread a Little Sunshine

Sunlight being a good disinfectant (or so the saying goes), we are starting to see a lot of good transparency measures popping up all over the country:

-- Governor Matt Blunt of Missouri spearheaded the Missouri Accountability Portal (MAP), for which they've won awards.
-- A Virginia resident cooked up Richmond Sunshine on his own.
-- The federal-level site - Washington Watch - has been getting positive reviews for it's Congressional oversight.

In a state riddled with corruption, good-ole-boy networks, and mysterious back-room deals, the N.C. political candidates who are willing to be martyrs for transparency may not win two elections straight, but they will be remembered as the folks who cleaned up Raleigh for good. That, folks, is a legacy.
(PS: Do you know of any? Add to comments.)
-Max Borders

Transportation: A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

Credit to Kevin Siers who draws for the Charlotte Observer, which published this.

Sunlight as Disinfectant

If you haven't already, check out the Capitol Monitor -- a transparency project that keeps sunlight on North Carolina's politics, non-profits and interest groups. MSM: keep your eyes on this project.

(PS: I don't think they're supposed to use the "o" but rather the "a" in capitol -- only DC should use that. We'll forgive them the typo, considering what they're doing for transparency.)

(Update: maybe the Capitol Monitor is using metonymy (or is it synecdoche) here by referring to the capitol building.)
-Max Borders

Which One of These Men is Lying?

Looks like business as usual again in Raleigh as budget-makers stage behind closed door meetings to determine how to spend your tax money.

As this N&O article notes:

"House and Senate leaders held such a meeting on Thursday morning. But when a News & Observer reporter tried to enter, they barred him."

So much for government for the people, by the people. When a news reporter is kicked out of a budget negotiation meeting - what are we to infer from the dealings in that meeting? What are these lawmakers doing that they don't want reported to the public?

But then the plot thickens:

"Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, could not cite a reason under the public meetings law why a reporter would be excluded. But he said the meeting had nothing to do with the budget.

'Because we were just hearing a report from staff," Rand said. "It had nothing to do with negotiations.'"

And then there's this:

"Budget negotiators were the only ones attending. A glimpse into the meeting showed Dan Gerlach, senior budget adviser to Gov. Mike Easley, and legislative fiscal workers addressing the lawmakers.

Gerlach left several minutes later.

What were they meeting about?

"Talking about the budget," Gerlach said as he walked away."

So, either Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand or Governer Easley's top budget aide Dan Gerlach is lying about what was being discussed in that meeting. 

Why all the secrets and lying? And more important, why do liberals in this state want to entrust more of our money and power in the hands of these folks?

Poor City Attorney Burdened by Transparency

This poor, poor Charlotte city attorney, burdened by transparency, laments the types of information requests his department receives:

McCarley said Charlotte officials had no objection to requests like The Charlotte Observer's standing request for all e-mails and paper correspondence sent or received by Mayor Pat McCrory, City Manager Curt Walton and two city department heads. He then read a list of "the other kind" of public records requests: "Disgruntled, unsuccessful bidders wanting to know everything about a bid process and the other people in it, bloggers wanting information for their shots at the government, the alternative press who has no particular sense of reasonableness in what they ask for, the gadflies and the Libertarians who will admit to you they are looking to bog down government, potential litigants shopping for a claim, political opponents of current officials, and then the idly curious."

Hmm, are bidding processes closed (it's certainly not unusual for some N.C. contracts to be ol' boy relationships)? Are bloggers just a nuisance? What, pray tell, distinguishes the alternative press from the mainstream press--and what constitutes a reasonable request? Wouldn't more gadflies have prevented that abomination-on-tracks from being built in Charlotte at the expense of taxpayers who'll never, ever use it? Don't political opponents need information to make the case that they'd be better in the job? Is the curious citizen not an engaged rather than an idle one--or should civic life be left to our minders because they know what's best for us?

The above-quoted list may all seem like cases of annoyance to a bureaucrat who believes he and his pals raison d'etre is to dream up ways to spend your money and control your affairs. But if the government bureaucrat shirks his responsibility to be open because it is inconvenient, he has forgotten his real reason-to-exist: to serve the people who put him there. That service comes with all the inconvenience of dealing with the hoi polloi. Once you, gentle reader, wipe those crocodile tears from your face, remember that Mac McCarley is one of the many functionaries who earns a government paycheck to serve you -- not to ensure his work is hassle-free. Transparency is his duty.
-Max Borders

Government transparency: Beyond the e-mails

By now, you've all heard about the hot water Governor Easley's administration has gotten itself into regarding all those deleted e-mails.

Now that Easley & Co. have focused public attention on government transparency, this report comes out. As summarized in this Greensboro News-Record article:

"North Carolina scores only a hair's breadth above a C in the latest national report card on government management.
At least it isn't New Hampshire, which rated a D-plus. But it isn't Virginia, Utah or Washington, either, which scored the only A's (A-minuses) in the nation.
The less-than-stellar B-minus comes in a Pew Center evaluation of state governments."

More from the N-R article:

"'As things stand,' the report says, 'the governor's budget document is the place where the transparency ends. Some budget information published by the legislature can be difficult even for experts to follow,' the report adds, 'and public input in legislative hearings is in most cases severely limited.'

The study does not even mention perhaps the most irksome feature of the state budgeting process, where lawmakers slip additions into the final budget bill at the 11th hour, devoid of any meaningful debate or discussion."

Greater transparency on behalf of our state government is something I address in our recently released Budget Blueprint, with the following recommendations:

- Create a transparency Web site. Like the federal government and several other states, North Carolina should create a free, publicly searchable and user-friendly Web site that publishes every aspect of state government spending. The Web site should also provide information on tax credits and grants provided to businesses, nonprofits, community development projects, and other entities.

- Follow procedural rules when crafting the budget. The Legislature should be held publicly accountable by disclosing on the General Assembly Web site every item and provision that violates procedural rules. Unbeknownst to most voters, the General Assembly violated its own rules more than 100 times last session by including new budget items and provisions at the last minute (after both chambers passed a version of the budget); changing items that had already been agreed to in both chambers’ budgets; and providing more money for items than was proposed in either chamber’s budget.

The time is right for North Carolina state lawmakers to do the right thing and open up their books so that average taxpayers can easily see how their tax dollars are being spent.

Easley e-mail panel eclipses "Sunshine Week"

The e-mail panel Governor Easley has named is HEAVILY stacked to favor less transparency in government. Just one of the members, Ned Cline, is not a current employee of government at one level or another. Four of them could be considered to work directly for the governor in the executive branch. That would be a majority of the panel for math challenged individuals. The advisor to the panel also works for the state.

Does anyone think eight individuals, drawing taxpayer funded salaries, are going to make any dramatic changes that might make government more open and transparent - including their own job?

Who is representing the press? Who is representing groups advocating for open government? Who is representing the taxpayer who pays for all of this? Oh yeah, Sunshine Week was last week, we don't need to worry about any of that anymore.

I can't wait until next March to once again celebrate "Sunshine Week" followed by a total eclipse of the sun!