RALEIGH—Gov. Mike Easley and state Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight are locked in a fight over a small airport in Currituck County.
The fight involves all three branches of government—the legislature that makes laws; the governor, who executes the laws; and the judicial branch, which has been asked to settle a lawsuit filed by Currituck County. The case is scheduled for Feb. 8, but sources expect the losing side to appeal.
The 2004 state budget bill contained a provision that said, “The State of North Carolina shall convey to Currituck County, for consideration of one dollar ($1.00), title to the land on which the Currituck County airport is situated.” Currituck County has been leasing a site from the state since 1972 for $1 per year. The lease was to continue through the year 2028, but Currituck officials want to actually own the land so they could sell or lease some of it to private businesses. The lease documents describe the site as “400 acres, more or less,” and containing the Currituck County Airport.
Basnight, D-Dare, contends that the state was to transfer all the contiguous state- owned land around the airport, a 531-acre tract, to Currituck County for $1. He and Rep. Bill Owens, D-Pasquotank, inserted the land transfer into the 2004 state budget bill.
On Dec. 1, 2004, Easley quietly deeded the county 205 acres including the runway and land intended for proposed commercial development. He offered to sell the remaining 326 acres to the county for $1 million. Currituck County officials claim they were shortchanged and filed a lawsuit seeking to force Easley to transfer the entire tract.
The actual size of the airport site remains unclear, since it has been described in various documents as 160 acres, 205 acres, 400 acres, and 531 acres.
The airport history is also murky. An airport study commissioned by Currituck County officials in 2000 said that the airstrip was constructed by the federal government during World War II, abandoned after the war, and offered to Currituck County for $1, provided the county maintain the airport and surrounding property. That account then claims that the county declined the offer because it could not afford the upkeep, and that the state took over the facility. Several news sources have repeated a similar history.
While the federal government may have used the facility, research by Carolina Journal indicates a different history. The original tract of about 1,300 acres was purchased by the state in 1942 from a Dr. H. S. Willey and wife Mary for $10,350. A map that accompanied the deed indicated that a portion of an existing landing strip was part of that property. Since the property has apparently never changed owners as an airport, Easley may have some wiggle room in defining what makes up the airport.
Illegal deed?
While the issue is not specifically mentioned in the Currituck County complaint, some think that Easley may have violated state law when he transferred the 205 acres, because the Council of State had not approved the transaction. “The deed appears contrary to the statute. Going through the Council of State appears to be the sole mechanism for transferring land,” Currituck County attorney John Morrison said.
According to the state laws covering the transfer of real property, every proposed conveyance of state land, including conveyance by gift, shall be submitted to the governor and Council of State for their approval. The council is made up of the nine independently elected state officeholders — the lieutenant governor, state treasurer, state auditor, commissioner of labor, attorney general, secretary of state, commissioner of insurance, superintendent of public instruction, and commissioner of agriculture. The governor and the council meet monthly to approve state real estate matters and perform certain other statutory duties.
Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry said that she wrote Easley on Sept. 23 and asked him to put the airport matter on the agenda for the Oct. 5 council meeting, but she never received a response. She doesn’t understand how the governor could take action outside the law. “To transfer land without Council of State approval does not appear to be legal,” she said.
Currituck’s position
Currituck’s complaint was filed Dec. 7 in Wake County Superior Court. The case was assigned to Judge Howard E. Manning, Jr. The complaint seeks a declaratory judgment and asks the court to issue a writ of mandamus. The declaratory judgment involves a restatement of the facts, the relevant laws, and a clarification of the issues where the parties disagree.
A petition for writ of mandamus is essentially a request by Currituck County for the court to compel Easley and the Council of State members to perform their official duties — to properly convey the entire 531-acre tract to Currituck County after the required approval of the Council of State.
Manning issued an order Dec. 14 that requires Easley and the Council of State members to appear before him and show cause as to why a writ of mandamus should not be issued requiring them to transfer the entire tract.
Easley’s defense
CJ has asked the governor’s office for any documentation from the attorney general concerning the legality of the deed, and for any comments on the issue. Easley spokeswoman Cari Boyce said they had no documents and she offered no other comments.
When asked how the governor had determined the correct acreage, another Easley spokeswoman, Sheri Johnson, responded to the Elizabeth City Daily Advance. “We don’t comment on pending litigation,” the paper reported Jan. 5.
A day earlier an Associated Press reporter got Easley to talk about the issue. According to the news service story, Easley said the legislation wasn’t clear and officials in his administration decided the law required only the property on which the actual airport is situated. The governor also said he made the decision based on another provision in the state budget requiring the state to sell $40 million in surplus property to help balance the state budget. “So you’re sitting here trying to figure out exactly what they intended. You would assume that they intended to be restrictive, so you can meet the other obligations within that same document,” Easley said.
But the acreage Easley deeded to the county in December contains more than the official airport layout plan on file with the Federal Aviation Administration. That plan was prepared for and approved by Currituck County in November 2000. The airport acreage is not listed on the set of drawings, but CJ calculated the acreage from that drawing to be about 160 acres. News reports have said that Easley offered Currituck County 160 acres in November 2004.
Easley has yet to explain how the legislation that he has since labeled as “restrictive” gave him the authority to transfer an additional 45 acres for industrial sites.
As far as not sending the 205-acre deed through the Council of State, Easley told the AP that “the attorney general said they didn’t need to because (the sale ) was in the legislation. So I just signed the deed.”
Former State Supreme Court Chief Justice Burley B. Mitchell Jr., now in private practice is representing Easley. Attorney General Roy Cooper will represent the Council of State members. Currituck County has hired the Poyner & Spruill law firm to join Morrison.
Don Carrington is associate publisher of Carolina Journal.