Daily Journal

7.27.12
It's All About Incentives

CJ Ticker

• JLF's education expert raises concerns about Common Core-based English tests with no focus on spelling, grammar, mechanics, or usage.
• House Bill 274, TABOR, passes House Govt Cmte 22-14. On to Finance.
• Senate passes charter school board measure 32-17. On to House.
• Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx nominated as U.S. transportation secretary; U.S. Rep. Mel Watt, D-12th, picked to head federal housing finance agency.
• Perdue 'aircraft provider' participants Buzzy Stubbs, Robert Lee Caldwell, and Charles Michael Fulenwider plead guilty in campaign probe.
• Mooresville knocks Charlotte from the top spot in JLF's annual By The Numbers report ranking local government tax-and-fee burdens.
• JLF's Budget for Growth would spend $1 billion less than McCrory over two years, cut tax rates.
• JLF report details extra costs for N.C. taxpayers linked to debt lacking voter approval.

Other Opinions

7.27.12
State auditor

The Winston-Salem Journal says that the last thing North Carolina needs is an auditor who’s afraid of controversy.

7.27.12
Public records?

Scott Mooneyham says that two words ought to sufficiently explain why former UNC-CH football coach Butch Davis shouldn’t prevail in his attempt to keep secret his cellphone records: Mike Easley.

7.27.12
Cleaning up messes

The Asheville Citizen- Times says that local governments need some mechanism so taxpayers don’t foot the bill when developers go belly-up and leave hazards behind.

7.26.12
Lejeune victims

Last week, the U.S. Senate finally passed the Lejeune water contamination health care bill for which many in this area have spent countless years advocating. It’s about time says the Jacksonville Daily News.

7.26.12
Football sacked

The Greensboro News & Record says that as long as college sports programs are run by academic institutions, they should share the same values and objectives.

Media Mangle

3.21.12
Death of a narrative

The world's media found the neo-Nazi meme in stories about the school shooting in France just too enticing.

1.16.12
Anatomy of a Newspaper Hit Piece

In a Sunday piece, The Charlotte Observer employs all the steps used by the mainstream media to mislead readers.

1.03.12
A Pauline Kael Syndrome at The News & Observer?

When it comes to quoting blog sites in The News & Observer, the liberal Huffington Post seems to be a favorite.

Carolina Beat

7.26.12
The High-Poverty School Ruse

Lead Story

Treasurer Demands More Transparency For Pension Investments

July 24, 2012, By Barry Smith

Headlines

7.27.12 - State audit says DHHS efforts to curb fraud falling short

RALEIGH — Vaunted computer programs that the state Department of Health and Human Services and Gov. Bev Perdue promised would help expose Medicaid fraud and save the state money have fallen far short of expectations, according to a state auditor’s report released Thursday. The audit highlighted four contracts, including ones the state awarded to Cary-based SAS and IBM. Contracts with those companies, signed in 2010, have not yielded the promised returns.

7.27.12 - Adult care home plan for NC under way

RALEIGH — North Carolina’s state health agency is moving ahead with the first step of a multi-year plan to help move potentially thousands of mentally ill residents from adult care homes to affordable housing and less restrictive living conditions. The state Department of Health and Human Services publicized Thursday the action plan, which responds to allegations made a year ago by the U.S. Department of Justice that the state was failing to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

7.27.12 - Kissell touts money from health care act he opposes

CHARLOTTE — U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell, a two-term Democrat running for re-election in the Republican-leaning 8th Congressional District, has never ducked from his opposition to the Affordable Care Act. Earlier this month, he was one of five Democrats who sided with Republicans and voted to repeal the act. Yet two weeks before the vote, Kissell took credit for helping secure $379,167 in federal money for a new health care clinic near China Grove in Rowan County – money provided by the Affordable Care Act.

7.27.12 - Wade calls for investigation of ‘disreputable’ campaign calls

GREENSBORO — Trudy Wade is calling for an investigation into suspicious phone calls touting her record and slamming Myra Slone, her opponent in the N.C. State Senate race in District 27. In a letter to the State Board of Elections, Wade said anonymous “push polling” calls that wrongly disparage Slone are being made in the district, causing some to assume Wade’s campaign is behind the calls.

7.27.12 - N.C. wary of possible farm labor shortage

RALEIGH — North Carolina is a top producer of tobacco, sweet potatoes and other fruits and vegetables – but in the near future, farmers might not have enough workers to pick them. Across the nation, the number of seasonal agricultural workers is shrinking, costing billions. That’s largely the result of a diminishing number of migrant workers coming from Mexico.

7.27.12 - UNC-CH faculty calls for outside review of athletics

CHAPEL HILL — A report by a special faculty committee looking into the academic fraud scandal at UNC-Chapel Hill found an athletics program divorced from the faculty, academic counselors for athletes improperly helping them enroll in classes and poor oversight of faculty administrators who have wide latitude in running their departments.

7.27.12 - Teacher pay raises don't account for experience

WILMINGTON — Teachers across North Carolina will get their first raise in four years this fall. But that increase won’t reflect the years of experience they have in the classroom, something that’s been happening since their salaries were frozen four years ago. Teachers, like all state employees, will get a 1.2 percent salary increase for the 2012-13 school year. But that increase is based on the same salary teachers have had since the 2008-09 school year.

7.27.12 - Judge sides with Titan

WILMINGTON — A judge this week sided with the corporation behind a proposed cement plant in Castle Hayne, dropping roughly a quarter of the claims in a pending legal challenge against the facility’s air permit. Carolinas Cement, a local subsidiary of Titan America, last month requested that the court throw out four segments of the appeal, all related to the company’s plan for developing and mining a quarry adjacent to the proposed plant site.

7.27.12 - State probes Jubilee House

FAYETTEVILLE — State investigators are working to interview former residents of Jubilee House and others as part of a probe into whether the organization that operates the home is fulfilling its charitable mission. Barbara Marshall runs Steps & Stages Disabled Veterans Resource Agency, which received national attention a year ago when the TV show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” came to Fayetteville to build the 7,200-square-foot Jubilee House for homeless female veterans.

7.27.12 - Evidence room fixes a daunting task

ASHEVILLE — Creating a system to systematically dispose of unneeded evidence will be key to preventing the Police Department’s property room from again devolving into mess, according to a consultant who audited the facility. Mike Wright, director of BlueLine Systems, blames “lack of a consistent purging program” for the situation in which evidence was left piled on the floor and in doorways and stacked haphazardly on shelves, often with no identification.

7.27.12 - Charlotte short on cash for sidewalks

CHARLOTTE — After a recent string of traffic crashes involving pedestrians, including two fatalities, Mayor Anthony Foxx said Thursday that Charlotte needs to build more sidewalks and make other improvements to reduce dangers to walkers and bicyclists. But Foxx and other city officials acknowledged they don’t know when or if the city will have the money to pay for safety needs.