Carolina News

(Charlotte Observer) Charlotte’s largest billboard company has requested permission to clear hundreds of trees along city interstates under a controversial new law opponents say could blight the landscape. Adams Outdoor Advertising has submitted 21 applications to remove trees – the first test of a law that went into effect March 1 and gives companies more leeway to clear vegetation that obscures roadside signs. Some requests are small and would remove a handful of trees. Other applications could have greater impact.

Read the full story HERE.

(via Winston Salem Journal) More than a year into its federally funded Race to the Top program, North Carolina has fallen behind on its plans, according to a U.S. Department of Education report released this month.

But some of the delays came because it takes time to win federal approval for changes in the program’s $400 million grant plan, according to Adam Levinson, who oversees the program for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. Also, the department has taken longer than planned to hire the 118 people it wants to implement the program.

“Some is just the challenge of going from a proposal … and actually turning that into a detailed operational plan,” Levinson said. “We’re still going to deliver what we said. Some of the things are just going to be a little delayed.”

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(via Raleigh News-Observer) North Carolina’s employers are paying more in federal unemployment taxes because the state hasn’t paid back the $2.7 billion it borrowed from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits that soared during the recession and its slow-growth aftermath.

The cost for 2011 is an additional $7 per worker. But that’s just the beginning.

The tax increases accelerate going forward.

Read the rest HERE!

(Carolina Journal) Public records show that while former Gov. Mike Easley’s campaign organization has paid only $5,335 toward a $100,000 election law fine issued in October 2009, he has paid off a $494,000 mortgage loan for a Carteret County waterfront lot and borrowed several hundred thousand dollars against his Raleigh home since the fine was levied.

State law did not require Easley to pay the State Board of Elections fine from personal funds, but he publicly has accepted responsibility for filing false campaign reports. He eventually took a felony plea for failure to report aircraft travel donated by his friend, Raleigh businessman McQueen Campbell, and was forced to surrender his law license temporarily.

Read the rest HERE!

(via Raleigh News-Observer) The state primary should be held May 8 as scheduled, a three-judge panel ruled Friday after a hearing in a lawsuit challenging new legislative and congressional voting districts.

The unanimous ruling denying the request to push the primary to July 10 was a blow to registered Democrats and advocacy groups who proposed the change so the courts could consider their challenge to Republican-drawn districts. The judges’ decision increases the likelihood that the new districts approved by the legislature will be used in this year’s elections.

A delay could have had an immediate impact on candidates and campaigns. Candidate filing is scheduled to begin Feb. 13 at noon.

Read more HERE!

(Blue Ridge Now) County commissioners took control of the Sheriff’s Office’s purchasing card accounts Wednesday after an internal auditor found questionable travel and food purchases on Sheriff Rick Davis’ credit card.

Meanwhile, an external audit — presented Wednesday by audit manager Erica Brown with Martin Starnes and Associates — found no misuse of funds or items that weren’t being used for public safety purposes.

Read the rest HERE!

(Raleigh News-Observer) — Some health crises are better – and less expensively – handled without a trip to a hospital emergency department.

At least that’s the thought behind Wake County commissioners’ vote Tuesday to apply for a nearly $1 million federal grant designed to lower the county’s emergency medical costs. The three-year program is part of a $1 billion effort by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to lower costs through innovation.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/01/18/1786109/wake-seeks-federal-grant.html#storylink=cpy

(The State) GREENVILLE, S.C. — A couple is heading to the Greenville County courthouse knowing full well they won’t be able to get a marriage license.

Alyssa Weaver and Michel McIver expect their request to be denied Tuesday afternoon because they are both women. The couple is a part of the Campaign for Southern Equality, which backed about 20 same-sex couples in Asheville, N.C., who also sought marriage licenses knowing they would be denied.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/01/16/2115976/3-gay-couples-to-ask-for-marriage.html#storylink=cpy

(Mountain Xpress) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rejected a plan submitted by CTS to investigate the current extent of contamination at its former plant site on Mills Gap Road. The site is presently awaiting final approval to EPA’s National Priorities List, a move expected to place it among the other “Superfund” sites, the most contaminated on EPA’s national docket.

A Jan. 13 letter from EPA to the Elkhart, Ind.-based CTS rejects the company’s proposal for a series of soil tests at the site, on the basis that the plan does not include a sufficiently thorough group of sampling points and depths that were recommended in an independent sampling design developed by a third-party engineering firm.

Read the rest HERE!

(Asheville Citizen-Times by Joel Burgess) A deal to rename the Asheville Civic Center, criticized by some as a corporate sellout, will also require the city to pay for some of the sponsor’s new signs.

U.S. Cellular will pay $60,000 toward a new main sign “U.S. Cellular Center” on the building side facing Interstate 240. Any costs above that will be paid by the city, Civic Center Director Sam Powers said.

Workers have removed the words “Asheville Civic” from the former sign, leaving only the word “Center” on the side of the city’s main entertainment venue.
Read the rest HERE!