INC NEWS - ACTION TODAY: impending Scandal threatens Transportation, public input

Tue Aug 9 13:32:04 EDT 2005

INC has supported traffic calming and some other specific transportation
projects, in the interest of public safety and quality of life in Durham. 

Diverting $5 million from our regional transportation budget could very well
threaten the money for local priorities like these. (See below.)

Caleb

We need your immediate help - to prevent an impending scandal -- which
threatens to make an end run around our local transportation needs and our
public process! (See N&O article & Background below.). 

The General Assembly is considering legislation today that will divert $5
million to a special interest road in Wake County -- and away from local
transportation needs and priorities.

Please send a brief email to members of the NC General Assembly TODAY to
stop this - see sample below.

Thank you,

Caleb Southern

SAMPLE EMAIL

Subject:   OPPOSE 28.23b special provision

To:  (you can cut and paste these addresses into your email program)

Boba at ncleg.net; Jeannel at ncleg.net; Paull at ncleg.net; Mickeym at ncleg.net;
paulmi at ncleg.net; winkiew at ncleg.net; Nealh at ncleg.net; Vernonm at ncleg.net;
Richards at ncleg.net; Bernarda at ncleg.net; Russellc at ncleg.net;
lindac at ncleg.net; nelsond at ncleg.net; Ricke at ncleg.net; grierm at ncleg.net;
Deborahr at ncleg.net; Pauls at ncleg.net; Jenniferw at ncleg.net; Dougb at ncleg.net;
Jimcr at ncleg.net; michaelw at ncleg.net; Lucya at ncleg.net; Elliek at ncleg.net

Message: 

Honorable Members of the North Carolina General Assembly:

I am writing to strongly urge you to oppose special provision 28.23b in the
state budget. This legislation will fund a special interest highway project,
the Alexander Drive extension in Wake County.

This is an abuse of the public process for transportation plans. This road
is not currently in the state TIP, and is not a local priority. We already
do not have enough money in the TIP to meet our most pressing transportation
needs. This unfunded mandate would divert $5 million from urgent
transportation priorities in NCDOT Division 5. 

Which project that your constituents need will be the one that gets cut?

Citizens and local elected officials have followed the appropriate TIP
process, in order to get our needed transportation projects in the plan.
Special provision 28.23b is an end run around this process. This is not the
way we should build roads in North Carolina!

Please strike special provision 28.23b from the state budget.

Sincerely yours,

***

BACKGROUND

State Sen. Malone has slipped a "special provision" (28.23b) into the state
budget, at the last minute, which would push a new Alexander Drive extension
ahead of the rest of our regional transportation priorities in the state
TIP. The budget could pass as soon as TODAY - please act now.

This road will divert $5 million from our other local transportation needs -
and flies in the face of public input and local priorities!

Who will this road benefit? What projects will be cancelled in order to pay
for it? Why should this road jump ahead of all our local priorities?

The legislation calls for $5 million from taxpayers and the rest from the
private sector. Who is this private sector interest that wants us to pay for
their special interest road?

Transportation projects are determined by a federally mandated process,
which includes public input, in the TIP (Transportation Improvement
Program). The TIP is a seven-year blueprint for road construction and other
transportation projects, which is based on local priorities and citizen
input. Other transportation needs have gone through the appropriate public
comments and planning processes. The Alexander Drive extension has not.

NCDOT is not the problem here. They are following the process. The NC
General Assembly is the problem - with this end run around public input and
process.

Tell the NC General Assembly that legislators do not get to set road
priorities - with our tax dollars. We the people have a process in place to
determine what projects will get built and when.

***

[State Senator Vernon] Malone declined to identify the private interests
pushing for and offering to help pay for the Alexander project. "I'm not
going to get into who asked me to put it in there," Malone said. "It's a
good public proposal, and it stands on its own merit." [N&O, 8-9-05]

Budget slips in rural road
Transportation leaders say Alexander Drive Ext. bypassed road priorities set
locally

By BRUCE SICELOFF, Staff Writer

News & Observer

Legislative leaders want to build an extension of T.W. Alexander Drive in
northwest Wake County, and they propose to pay for the job by diverting
money from other Triangle projects.

The proposed state budget, released Monday night, included a provision to
extend Alexander from Glenwood Avenue to Leesville Road in a rapidly
developing area near Brier Creek. State Sen. Vernon Malone of Raleigh
requested the provision.

"I think it's a grand expenditure of dollars to help relieve traffic moving
across there, to encourage and expand development in that area, which will
serve us all well," Malone said. He said the state's investment would be
about $5 million, with property owners donating land and paying about half
the construction cost.

Local and state transportation leaders criticized the proposal as
circumventing the spending priorities set by the state Board of
Transportation and CAMPO, a local planning board that ranks Wake County's
transportation needs.

"The problem is that there are so few projects being funded in Wake County
by the state that people have to use other means, such as this end run,"
Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker said Monday night.

Joe Bryan, chairman of the Wake commissioners, noted that the county's top
transportation priority -- a computer-synchronized upgrade for Raleigh's
traffic signals -- was stalled this year because the state board had failed
to match city and federal dollars with $4.7 million in state funds.

The proposed budget specifies that the Alexander Drive extension be funded
under the equity formula devised by the legislature to allocate highway
dollars between rural and urban areas. The Department of Transportation
cited the formula early this year when it announced a cut of more than $300
million in funding that Wake and six other counties in DOT's Division Five
had expected.

"Which road in the seven counties, that correctly went through years of work
to get on the state list, will have to be sacrificed for this special road?"
Kenneth Spaulding of Durham, Division Five representative on the state
board, said Monday night.

Malone, who was interviewed before the proposed budget was released, said he
did not believe the project would take money from other priorities.

"We are not doing anything that CAMPO does not consider appropriate," Malone
said. "This is no end run on CAMPO."

CAMPO and the city council endorsed the Alexander Drive proposal this
summer, but only on the condition that it be built without taking money from
other local projects.

The proposed budget also included provisions for road projects in
Mecklenburg and Union counties, paying for them with a $6 million
appropriation rather than by taking money from other highway needs.

Meeker and Spaulding said the Alexander Drive project had been championed by
lobbyist Dennis Wicker, a former lieutenant governor, on behalf of property
owners. Malone declined to identify the private interests pushing for and
offering to help pay for the Alexander project.

"I'm not going to get into who asked me to put it in there," Malone said.
"It's a good public proposal, and it stands on its own merit."

Staff writer Bruce Siceloff can be reached at 829-4527 or
bruce.siceloff at newsobserver.com. <mailto:bruce.siceloff at newsobserver.com>  

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