News Reports (Page 655)

  • Taxpayer-Funded Gas Line Grows

    RALEIGH — Eastern NC Natural Gas is winding down its pipeline-construction project in 14 Northeastern counties with an ambitious underground crossing of Currituck Sound. But it is not clear how many Outer Banks customers are eager to convert from their present energy suppliers to natural gas. Demand for natural gas…

    by Paul Chesser

  • Process for Challenging Taxes Clarified

    RALEIGH — Taxpayers have a right to a remedy for any erroneous and unlawful tax collection. The legal requirement in challenging a tax collection, however, must be precisely followed. In a Nov. 16 decision, the N.C. Court of Appeals clarified how corporations may go about challenging taxes. The state has…

    by Michael Lowrey

  • Studies Question Incentives, Stadiums

    RALEIGH — Many cities use tax incentives and other gimmicks to attract large companies with the hope of spurring economic growth. However, a recent study indicates that these large firms may not boost growth, and in fact, may merely displace other businesses. Similarly, advocates of sports subsidies claim that tax-funded…

    by CJ Staff

  • Bad News is No News

    When Judge Howard Manning, Jr. questions how CMS uses its resources, that sounds interesting. The judge has only spent a decade working on the topic of public school spending in North Carolina.

    by Jeff A. Taylor

  • State Changes Road-Building Policy

    CHARLOTTE — Come perhaps a decade from now, virtually no new roads will be built on new sites in North Carolina. This was among the policy changes contained in the Statewide Transportation Plan, a radical revision of the Department of Transportation’s priorities recently approved by the Board of Transportation. “The…

    by Michael Lowrey

  • Burning of Student‘s Flag Praised

    CHAPEL HILL — On Oct. 6, UNC-Chapel Hill student Richard Bean heard a commotion. At first, Bean thought a fight had broken out, later discovering that Kevin Sellers, a 40-year-old homeless man, had taken an American flag owned by Bean and set it ablaze while criticizing the war in Iraq.

    by Shannon Blosser

  • Public Dollars Key to Downtown Plans

    RALEIGH — Civic leaders in Wake County are full of ideas about redeveloping downtown Raleigh, and these ideas are rapidly approaching reality. Hundreds of millions of tax dollars, much of it devoted to paying off new debts incurred without a public referendum, will finance a new convention center, a related…

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    Signs of the Times

    The new uptown arena plans signs of a size and type city regulations usually forbid. But with the city paying for the building how can Charlotte regulators turn the idea down?…

    by Jeff A. Taylor

  • NC Schools Achieve Top Distinction

    RALEIGH — Seven public schools and three private schools in North Carolina were recently named 2004 No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon Schools by Education Secretary Rod Paige. Those elementary schools were among 205 public and 50 private schools to achieve the honor. They included schools with at least 40 percent…

    by CJ Staff