RALEIGH, N.C.  – The North Carolina House has tentatively approved reforms to the 50-year-old state law governing how cities and towns expand by annexing adjoining property.

The House voted 89-27 on Wednesday in favor of the package, which is slated for a final House vote on Thursday.

The reforms add an opportunity for residents to vote. Opponents must collect signatures from 15 percent of voters in the city and the area to be annexed to trigger a referendum. Lawmakers approved an amendment extending the time to collect signatures.

North Carolina is one of fewer than a half-dozen states which allow cities to expand against property owners’ wishes.

Critics have complained state law now gives residents no choice in an annexation.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – Reformers at the General Assembly finally get their chance to change North Carolina’s 50-year-old land annexation laws, which can force landowners into communities and taxes they didn’t want.

A House judiciary committee on Tuesday is expected to consider more than two dozen amendments as they shape a measure that can pass this summer.

The measure doesn’t allow affected residents to vote on whether to accept annexation, something sought by protest groups. Municipal officials say that would block expansion because residents would reject paying higher taxes that support services.

Supporters say involuntary annexation has allowed municipalities to avoid being drained of taxes as businesses move to stay outside their taxing reach.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – Longstanding complaints that North Carolina’s annexation laws force landowners into communities and taxes they didn’t want land in lawmakers’ laps this week.

A state House committee starts hearings Tuesday on reforms to the 5-decade-old laws that allow cities and towns to expand against the will of affected homeowners.

Protests have increased from residents who saw property taxes increase, then waited sometimes for years before getting water, sewer or other benefits. Proponents of reform want to be able to vote on whether to become part of a city or town.

Municipal officials want legislators to make some reforms, but without opening annexation plans to local referenda.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Hundreds of opponents of annexation converged on the Legislature to tell lawmakers they want changes in existing laws.

Those opponents complained on Wednesday that residents who live outside of cities or towns get no vote on whether they are included. Objections have mounted in recent years after some municipalities failed to deliver promised water and sewer services long after collecting property taxes.

Senate leader Marc Basnight scolded city leaders who didn’t deliver on their annexations promises. He told mayors also lobbying the Legislature Wednesday those failures made people demand changes to a law Basnight said has served the state well for 50 years.

A majority of North Carolinians favor laws to ban cell phone use while driving, even though more than half of mobile phone users report doing this regularly, according to the latest Elon University Poll. Respondents to the poll also supported a statewide ban on smoking in public places. The poll, conducted Feb. 22-26, surveyed 758 North Carolina residents and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. 

Driving and cell phones
Cell phones are ubiquitous; 88 percent of the people surveyed own one. Eighty percent of residents believe the use of cell phones while driving decreases highway safety, but at the same time 54 percent of those cell phone users use a phone while they’re behind the wheel. Of the people who drive while on the phone, 56 percent do not use a hands-free device. Two out of three (65 percent) people say driving while on the phone should be illegal except in the case of an emergency.

“Though they recognize that it is dangerous and confess to doing it, citizens apparently won’t stop driving and talking unless a change in the law forces them to do so,” said Hunter Bacot, director of the Elon University Poll.

Anti-smoking laws
The poll asked respondents a series of questions related to laws that limit smoking in public places and the workplace. Eighty-seven percent agreed that employees have the right to work in a smoke-free environment and 82 percent believe that second-hand smoke is a health threat. A strong majority support local or state laws that ban smoking in all public places, including public buildings, offices, restaurants and bars. Seventy percent support local laws and 67 percent support state laws.

But when asked specifically whether all restaurants and bars should ban smoking, only 51 percent were in favor. And for all places of business, respondents expressed a preference for business action, over government regulation. Sixty-one percent said it should be the individual business owner, not the government, who decides whether smoking should be allowed in a place of business. But 63 percent of those people also believed that business owners have a responsibility to provide a smoke-free workplace.

“As the health implications of tobacco become more salient among citizens, support for anti-smoking policies continues to intensify,” noted Bacot. “I suspect this may be the year that we see North Carolina go smokeless,” Bacot said.

Other issues: Transportation
While 51 percent of North Carolinians oppose collecting tolls to fund statewide transportation projects, 77 percent would like to see commuter railways developed in urban areas and 69 percent of citizens support regional rail systems. Sixty-seven percent of respondents support a state-wide bond referendum to raise money for transportation projects, while 57 percent of residents support giving local governments the option of using a half-cent sales tax to finance local projects. Residents oppose a fee based on the number of miles they drive annually (74%) and increasing the cost of the driver’s license renewal fee (55%).

Other issues: Death penalty
When surveyed about their opinions on the death penalty, residents gravitated toward options other than execution. In an open-ended question about the most appropriate punishment for first-degree murder, 48 percent of respondents identified the death penalty as the most appropriate punishment, while 39 percent reported life in prison a more fitting punishment. Across two questions asking about punishments for people found guilty of first-degree murder, 72 percent of North Carolinians supported life in prison without the possibility of parole and, in a separate question, 58 percent of respondents indicated that they supported the death penalty. When queried about the current moratorium on executions in North Carolina, residents were mixed in their evaluations as 45 percent disagreed with the death penalty moratorium, while 47 percent of North Carolinians agreed with the moratorium.

Other issues: Annexation
Though 41 percent of residents opposed the issue of annexation, indicating they disagreed or strongly disagreed with city councils expanding their city limits by bringing in nearby areas or residents, a similar number (40%) had not given the annexation process much consideration. On questions about whether there should be a waiting period for annexation and to gauge support for citizen initiation of the annexation process, there was similar lack of familiarity as nearly 40 percent of people had not given the process much consideration.
In regard to other statewide issues:
Healthcare:
56 percent support a national health insurance plan
52 percent are satisfied with their current healthcare
50 percent prefer a universal health insurance program
 
Oil Drilling:
66 percent support drilling for oil off the North Carolina coast

From the Winston-Salem Journal
The 2009 General Assembly convenes today in Raleigh amid what may be North Carolina’s biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. If ever North Carolinians needed wisdom and good judgment from their legislators, this is the time.

Various estimates put the current year budget shortfall in the range of $1.2 billion to $3 billion. But this budget is no longer the responsibility of legislators. It is up to Gov. Bev Perdue, the manager of the budget, to make sure that spending and income balance by June 30, the end of the budget year.

The challenge for legislators is to craft a 2009-11 budget, which will take effect July 1, that is balanced despite the economic downturn. North Carolinians must demand that the top priorities of public education, essential medical care for our most vulnerable citizens and public safety are protected.

But the budget is not the only challenge facing legislators. The year opens with a wide-ranging legislative agenda.

The health-insurance plan for state employees and teachers is in serious trouble, possibly hundreds of millions of dollars in the red. Legislators can patch that hole with reserve funds, but they must redesign the system to fix the underlying problems at hand or else the problem will recur.

Similarly, the state’s mental-health system is so severely deficient that the federal government has refused to pay for some patients at state hospitals. While the fix is primarily a job for Perdue’s administration, legislators must assure that necessary changes to law are made.

The same holds true for the state’s troubled probation and parole system. It needs revamping in aspects ranging from technology upgrades to management practices. The legislature cannot allow such poor management of this system because public safety is very much at risk.

Many North Carolinians complain that the state’s city-annexation laws need changes. They are right to a degree. The state’s municipalities have offered a reasonable and practical series of reforms that will deal with some citizen concerns without abandoning the state’s very successful approach to urban sprawl.

Although a reform plan for insuring beach property may not sound of importance this far inland, it is. North Carolina’s beach-insurance plan is, in the words of the state insurance commissioner, “a ticking time bomb.” If it explodes, insurance companies and customers will be harmed statewide. Legislators must deal with this highly politicized issue so that the next coastal hurricane doesn’t send everyone’s insurance premiums skyward.

Finally, Perdue has fulfilled a promise at the N.C. Department of Transportation. She has told her board members that they can’t decide which projects get built. But now the legislature needs to encode that policy in state law. Otherwise, the next governor can go back to the bad old practices.

Each of these issues poses major challenges to our state legislators. If there is ever a year the people need them to meet those challenges, this is it.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Opponents of annexation scored a victory last week, but it may turn out to be a mostly hollow one.

After months of combative hearings, a divided legislative committee recommended 14-to-6 that the N.C. General Assembly overhaul North Carolina’s annexation law.

The current law, one of the least restrictive in the nation, gives wide latitude to cities and towns in adding new residents against their will.

Among the changes that the committee recommended is one that many residents see as a matter of basic fairness: cities shouldn’t be allowed to annex unincorporated areas unless a majority of the people living in those areas vote in favor of annexation.

“If the cities have really got the need to annex people and really show that they can provide services, you will get a number of people willing to be annexed,” said state Rep. Larry Brown, R-Forsyth, an outspoken critic of forced annexation. “If the city’s got something to sell, they’ll go out there and sell, instead of just saying, ‘We want your tax money.’”

Advocates for cities dispute that. Requiring a referendum before annexations, they say, would effectively block most annexations that cities need in order to grow.

“When an area beside a city develops and needs urban services, it’s fair and reasonable for the residents to come into the city,” said Ellis Hankins, the executive director of the N.C. League of Municipalities.

“In the view of many municipal officials and current residents of our municipalities, it would be unfair of the residents of those areas – that are adjacent to cities and have become developed – to stay outside the city forever.”

But frustrated residents of annexed areas, who have built a large grassroots movement pressuring the General Assembly, say they lack a choice – or even a voice – when cities decide to engage in forced annexation. They filled the audience at Thursday’s meeting of the legislative committee, cheering loudly when the committee approved its recommendations.

The problem for them now is actually getting the most controversial recommendations passed into law.

Despite some momentum behind their cause, that appears unlikely this year.

Joe Hackney, the speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives, said Friday that he opposes any change to the law that would require cities to have a referendum in areas targeted for annexation.

“I do not support a vote prior to annexation,” said Hackney, D-Orange. “I think that’s a recipe for weakening our cities, and that’s not what I had in mind when I started this study.”

The Democratic leadership in the N.C. Senate has shown even less willingness to support major changes to the annexation law.

Last year, for instance, the House approved a moratorium on forced annexations, but the Senate never took it up. A moratorium was another one of the recommendations approved Thursday by the study committee.

Annexation opponents say that a moratorium would give the legislature time to make permanent changes to the law.

A number of other recommendations from the committee are less controversial and stand a better chance of becoming law this year. They include proposals for more oversight of cities’ annexation plans and more detailed public notices of planned annexations.

But opponents are unlikely to be satisfied without a provision that gives residents a formal vote in advance of annexations.

In the city of Lexington, a referendum would have surely defeated the city’s controversial annexation plans, said Lexington mayor John Walser. Lexington is currently undergoing annexations of three areas in Davidson
County that take in about 1,600 people. The annexations have prompted a lawsuit from residents who do not want to be added to the city.

“The reality of the thing is people just won’t vote to be annexed,” Walser said. Requiring referendums, he said, would be “tantamount to no annexation – and that’s not a compromise, that’s a cave-in.”

Cities and towns shouldn’t be allowed to annex unincorporated areas unless targeted residents first are allowed to vote on the matter, a legislative study committee agreed Thursday despite opposition from a powerful lobbying group and state senator.

The special panel examining changes to North Carolina’s municipal annexation laws voted in favor of requiring referenda as a prerequisite for involuntary annexations.

Audience members, many of whom have complained in earlier public hearings that they had little recourse to challenge annexations or get public services in a timely fashion, cheered and clapped after the vote.

“The citizens have no rights in this process,” said Doug Aitken with the Fair Annexation Coalition and a committee member following the 14-6 vote by the panel. “The only right that they have right now is to go to court … The best way for them to have a voice is the right to vote.”

The proposal was one of several endorsed by the divided panel, including a moratorium on new involuntary annexations until these and other changes to the laws are enacted. The changes now go to the full Legislature, which may be less willing to go along with the dramatic proposals.

The North Carolina League of Municipalities, which has many allies at the General Assembly, adamantly opposes referenda, saying the current annexation law approved in 1959 has generally helped cities and towns manage the state’s rapid growth in an orderly fashion.

Municipalities must hold two public meetings, agree to provide emergency and street services to the new citizens and have the money to expand water and sewer mains for hookups. New residents can take sue if promised services don’t arrive on time but they have a small window to do so.

The league has offered 20 changes to the current laws that it says would give citizens more input and time to respond to an annexation proposal. It intends to keep lobbying for them during the session that begins next week, league lobbyist Kelli Kukura said.

“This bill ultimately comes down to a fairness issue between in-town residents and near-town residents,” Kukura said. “There are some select concerns in certain communities across the state, and our 20-point proposal has addressed those.” Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, said he doesn’t want to see a referendum procedure approved by the Legislature. He said few annexations would be successful because few people want to vote upon themselves additional municipal taxes.

“It materially damages urban areas,” said Rand, who is also chairman of the powerful Senate Rules Committee. “The cities wouldn’t grow.”

At least 28 of the 43 states that have annexation statutes require some kind of election, according to a 2002 University of Georgia study. Although panelists at Thursday’s meeting were split about equally between legislators and non-legislators, there was support from both chambers, said Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, a committee member.

“It’s a fundamental issue when government is set to do something with your home and you realize you have no say in the process,” Dollar said.

The House approved a nine-month moratorium last summer. The Senate didn’t go along with it but agreed to study annexations issues with the House in advance of the new session.

The panel also agreed in principal Thursday to proposals that would:

- direct the state’s Local Government Commission to oversee annexations to ensure cities and towns are fiscally able to provide services.

- give new residents up to five years to pay assessments for water and sewer services to reach their property.

- make it easier for areas where many low-income families live to petition a local government requesting that they be annexed.

- raise development density standards before a municipality can begin the annexation process.

RALEIGH, N.C. –  For months, the candidates for governor have argued, often treading the same territory over and over.

Offshore drilling.

Community college tuition.

School vouchers.

How to deal with the economy, and how to clean up government corruption.

But amid the stump speeches, press releases and televised debates, some other issues have gotten lost in the shuffle.

They may not be quite as urgent as the major themes that have dominated the campaign, but these issues still have the potential to affect people’s lives and wallets during the next four years. Several are particularly relevant in Winston-Salem and Northwest North Carolina.

Here’s a look at three of these smaller issues and the positions that the two major candidates for governor, Democrat Bev Perdue and Republican Pat McCrory, are taking toward them.

Forced Annexation.
Municipal annexation has often caused controversy across North Carolina – including in Winston-Salem – especially when residents are annexed into a city or town against their will.

Advocates for cities support the state law that allows forced annexation, saying that it promotes healthy urban growth. Opponents say that some cities have abused the law by not providing full city services to newly annexed residents even though the new residents must pay municipal taxes.

Both McCrory and Perdue said they support the state’s current annexation law, but they said that cities should act responsibly when using forced annexation. They both said that residents of areas slated for annexation should be given plenty of advance notice.

“I do believe that involuntary annexation -if the people are included in the discussion and the press is included in the discussion – has helped build North Carolina,” said Perdue, who is currently the lieutenant governor.

McCrory has overseen annexations in his seven terms as mayor of Charlotte. He said most of them have been non-controversial, and he recently threatened to veto a proposed annexation because he did not think the residents had enough warning.

He said that the state’s annexation law should be amended to prevent cities from abusing it.

For instance, he said, the state should “make sure that the annexation is occurring in areas in which the growth was directly the result of that metropolitan center, and that the infrastructure is in place and was invested to get to that new area, as opposed to an older, established neighborhood that was always there all along.”

Economic incentives.
Four years ago, Dell Inc. landed a deal worth $267 million in state and local incentives in return for building a large computer-assembly plant in Forsyth County.

Dell became the signal example in a long line of companies getting tax breaks and other incentives from state and local governments.

Earlier this year, the state legislature passed incentive packages for two major tire companies – Bridgestone Firestone and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. – that could set a new precedent, because the companies do not have to create any new jobs in order to get the incentives.

Perdue and McCrory both said that incentives are a necessary evil, because without them, the state would be at a competitive disadvantage for recruiting new companies.

“I would believe that none of the 50 governors actually like incentives, but it is what it is,” Perdue said. “North Carolina can’t unilaterally disarm, and as long as 49 other states have incentives, North Carolina’s got to have them.”

Perdue said she supported both the Dell incentives and the bill that gave incentives to Bridgestone and Goodyear. However, she said that if she had been governor, she would have handled the negotiations over Bridgestone and Goodyear differently from the beginning.

McCrory said he was not familiar enough with the details of either of those packages to say whether he supports them.

But he said that incentive deals should be used to target manufacturing companies, and he stressed that any tax breaks given to a company should be outweighed by the new tax revenue that the company is bringing in by relocating here.

“There should always be some sort of net gain for the taxpayers of the region in addition to the job gain for the taxpayers,” McCrory said.

Sterilization reparations.
Starting in 1929 and continuing into the 1970s, the state of North Carolina operated a little-known eugenics program in which 7,600 people were medically sterilized.

In theory, the program was targeted at people with epilepsy, “feeblemindedness” and other disabilities. But in practice, most of the victims were women and minorities, mainly because they were considered promiscuous, even if they were the victims of rape.

After the program was revealed to the public in 2002 in a series of articles in the Winston-Salem Journal, some advocates began calling for the state to pay compensation to living victims who were sterilized. One of the foremost supporters of reparations is state Rep. Larry Womble, a Winston-Salem Democrat. Bills to establish reparations have gotten little traction in the legislature.

Perdue has promised to provide financial reparations to the victims, although she has not said how much they would cost.

However, the prospect of reparations in the immediate future seems dim, because the state is projecting a large economic shortfall next year. A spokesman for Perdue said last week that, because of the shortfall, many new proposals – including compensation for sterilization victims – may need to be delayed.

McCrory, when first asked about the issue, said he was not prepared to take a position.

Later, his campaign said that he pledges to meet with victims if he becomes governor, but that now is not the time to begin paying reparations.

“Pat’s heart goes out to the people negatively impacted by the state’s sterilization program,” McCrory’s spokeswoman, Amy Auth, wrote in an e-mail. “We appreciate the Journal’s in-depth investigation which brought the subject to light.

“The time to discuss new spending was when the state budget was growing by up to $2 billion. Now we’re in a billion dollar deficit and some have projected a $2 billion deficit due to the slowing economy. We need to meet our current budget commitments and expenses before taking on new financial obligations.”