RALEIGH – One of the most interesting stories in North Carolina politics this year is developing down in Wilmington, where a former mayor, Harper Peterson, is making a bid to return to office by repudiating some of his past actions and positions.
The current mayor, Bill Saffo, isn’t letting Peterson off easy for the turnabouts. When at a recent debate Peterson criticized a move to merge the City of Wilmington’s water and sewer system into a larger countywide authority, Saffo responded that the city’s notorious sewer-system woes were the result of years of inaction by city government when Peterson was a councilman and mayor. And when Peterson called Wilmington’s taxpayer-subsidized convention center project a “$60 million boondoggle” – which, of course, it is – Saffo pointed out that the project had begun life with Peterson’s support.
Like a number of other fast-growing communities in North Carolina and other Sunbelt states, Wilmington has experienced significant change in its local politics. Many newcomers are relatively affluent, professionals or retired folks with higher rates of electoral participation and knowledge. Other newcomers are young families with children, immigrants, and other groups who might not vote in big numbers in local elections but who are pushing up demand for the public services that have become a key topic of local campaigns.
It’s been my experience that folks in Wilmington and neighboring counties are among the most active and informed voters in North Carolina. The Wilmington radio market, for example, has by far the highest combined rating for news-talk programming in the state (supplied by WAAV on the AM dial and WLTT on FM) as well as a strong public-radio station in WHQR. New Hanover has become a swing county in many statewide elections, and the entire region boasts a burgeoning network of websites, blogs, and other discussion forums, offline as well as online.
On October 9, Wilmington voters will choose between Saffo, Peterson, and newcomer Justin LaNasa in the mayor’s race. One reason for North Carolinians outside of the area to pay attention is that the election is shaping up as somewhat of a referendum on the ability of local government to set firm priorities in a period of rapid growth and economic change. As the John Locke Foundation demonstrated in a report published two years ago, the growth of local-government spending in Wilmington has outpaced other major N.C. cities and can’t simply be attributed to growth in population and inflation. JLF Fiscal Policy Analyst Joe Coletti found that:
From the 1994 fiscal year to the 2004 fiscal year, city and county expenditures per person in Wilmington grew by 42 percent in inflation-adjusted terms, putting the coastal community tops in spending growth among the 10 largest cities studied.
By comparison, local-government spending grew by 32 percent in Raleigh, 28 percent in Charlotte, 22 percent in Greensboro, and only 5 percent in Asheville. Spending actually fell by 23 percent in Fayetteville during this 10-year period.
A more recent JLF release, our annual ranking of local-government costs in North Carolina cities and counties, even became a flashpoint in a recent mayoral debate, with the incumbent, Saffo, shrugging off a question about Wilmington’s relatively high local tax burden by citing the property-tax rate, which isn’t the same thing, and calling JLF “extreme right-wing,” which is not exactly a meaningful response to a straightforward question about hard numbers.
It’s interesting to note that two of the top issues in the race, the sewer system and the planned convention center, present a sharp contrast between what has become a core government service (sewerage) and what should never be considered one (subsidizing large corporations in the tourism industry). A third major issue, pay for local firefighters, also seems to have local residents wondering whether the higher taxes and fees they’re paying are truly addressing their highest-priority needs.
As I previously noted, Wilmington’s mayor race is among the local contests that North Carolina political observers ought to be watching this year. This is particularly true for politicians who might like to switch positions on controversial issues. Will voters buy a change of heart?
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.