Sorry there’s no fresh “Daily Journal” today. A houseful of boisterous Hoods and neighborhood chums intruded, along with the inevitable residue of broken, twisted, and chewed evidence strewn liberally throughout the war zone. But it also occurred to me that the latest scandal on Gov. Mike Easley’s Board of Transportation ought to be put in historical perspective. So here’s a column I wrote in 2004 about a previous episode.
RALEIGH – Should North Carolina communities have to raise money for a political candidate in order to get their roads paved?
The obvious, common-sense answer is “no,” perhaps even with a four-letter word as a prefix. The knowing, cynical answer is, “no, but that’s the way the game is played and there’s nothing we can do about it.” In this case, as in some many others, common sense turns out to be the more practical advice.
One of Gov. Mike Easley’s appointees to the state Board of Transportation, Frank Johnson of Iredell County, has resigned abruptly after media reports revealed an email he sent to members of the local Rotary Club asking them to contribute to Easley’s re-election campaign.
He suggested to the local business folks that if he didn’t meet his $50,000 fundraising goal, the county’s highway needs might continue to go unmet. His language was blunt and earthy. “I am the first DOT board member in 50 years and the quality of Iredell’s transportation infrastructure reflects that,” he said. “After this current term, I promise you that if no support comes from this county, you will again be sucking hind teat in terms of state support for Iredell.”
Within hours of the disclosure, the Easley administration had condemned Johnson’s remarks and accepted his resignation. Other DOT board members rallied to the governor’s defense, saying that Easley had never pressured them to contribute to his campaign and there was no quid pro quo involving campaign cash and highway projects.
The governor’s political rivals immediately pounced. Former Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot called for an investigation and dubbed the case the “Payment for Pavement” scandal. I agree with the need for a probe, though I am inclined to believe board members when they say Easley has never expressly demanded campaign help from them. That squares with previously widespread complaints among North Carolina Democrats that Easley is too disengaged and too unwilling to boost the party’s fortunes in the traditional ribbon-cutting, back-scratching, influence-peddling ways.
The problem with the administration’s defense is that even a chastened Johnson isn’t really playing along. “I implied that road projects were somehow tied to the amount of money raised by a particular county,” he said in a post-resignation statement. “Since most highways funding is determined by the equity formula, which is set by state statute, I know this is seldom the case.”
Seldom the case? It should never be the case. This particular case is egregious, but the real problem is that even after a serious set of scandals in the mid-1990s involving political favors in former Gov. Jim Hunt’s DOT, North Carolina continues to use an governance outdated model that invites such corruption. I refer to the existence of a large, 19-member “sub-legislature”, the Board of Transportation, appointed by the governor from among his political supporters to represent geographical regions.
Most states have either no transportation board at all or at least a much-smaller one confined essentially to an advisory role. North Carolina should follow suit. Highway projects should be based entirely on a statewide analysis of traffic counts, real-estate trends, and other objective data so that the system can best accommodate the demands of the state’s commuters and freight haulers. These decisions should be made by professionals accountable directly to the appointed executives of the Department of Transportation without any regional or partisan intermediaries trying to guide the decisions on the margins.
It is well past time for our state to get its transportation act together. Politicians and local officials spend far too much time bickering over the equity of transportation appropriations. I have yet to find a single community that does not claim that it is underfunded by the state. Eastern North Carolina thinks it’s been shafted. Western North Carolina guffaws at that. The urban areas point to their major traffic congestion along arteries such as I-85, I-77, I-40, and I-95 to prove that they aren’t funded commensurate with need. Rural areas point to the opposite condition they experience, a lack of growth, to prove that they are underserved by highway investment.
Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars collected from motorists are currently being spent each year on bike paths, pork projects, general government, and transit systems in the Triangle and Charlotte that have no reasonable connection to the transportation needs of the vast majority of their residents or of the state as a whole.
Transportation policy shouldn’t be based on party, fantasy, or a “pay to pave” rule. It should be based on the reality that North Carolina’s inadequate and crumbling highway system is harming our economy and endangering us.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.