Not sure if this is the best place for this but NC tax revenue is coming in much better than expected / feared.
https://abc11.com/politics/nc-to-collect-$65b-more-in-tax-revenue-than-expected/10796682/
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If only there was money to fund commuter rail around its second biggest metro area…
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Would be a very smart use of the money. I’m not completely sure the make up of the state senate but given the gerrymandering history of NC, I’m sure it’s majority Red right? Given that I can’t fathom giving money to transit. Someone correct me if I’m not assuming things right. Things could work different here than GA.
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You are spot-on. This legislature’s record is not just anti-transit, but anti-urban in general. I’m waiting for them to arbitrarily ban bus-only lanes right before the BRT gets started.
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Don’t jinx it. We never know, a lot of them might actually support the improvement of the transit system.
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My only hope is that they do give more money to NCDOT who seems to support multi-modal infrastructure 10 times more than GDOT.
I figure they’ll probably cut the corporate tax rate even further (because why should companies making billions pay taxes to help improve the state they make the money in?), and cut taxes for the rich, while giving us normal people a little taste. Because I know an extra 100 bucks in a tax refund is gonna make all the difference to me. Sigh…
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New research suggests that modern high-rise development creates “architectural oppression” for smaller buildings in the area, subconsciously hurting their self esteem.
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If you do not agree with our side on this we will “peacefully protest” inside the governors mansion by nightfall
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“Do you see the shadows created by my air quotes? That’s what tall buildings do too!”
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Seriously, some of this surplus should be gifted to cities based on population, for the shortfall they face in reduced business, hospitality, and tourism tax
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NCDOT is certainly doing a pretty good job with the recent updates to the Complete Streets Policy (if it’s in a city/regional plan, NCDOT has to pay for it if they’re doing a project - previously there was a cost-sharing agreement with the local municipality). Though now municipalities are just making comprehensive plans now that have sidewalks/bike lanes on every single road just in case and NCDOT is pushing back a little since it’s driving up the cost of projects. It’ll be interesting to see what amendments they make to the policy going forward.
(Not that it’s a bad thing but most NCDOT staff is still heavily roadway/vehicular-oriented so it doesn’t make sense to them and they have gotten more scrutiny as of late regarding funding)
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On the latest drama on City Council elections, Livable Raleigh held an event to play with the idea of holding a recall election against the current Council. The N&O covered it in this subscriber-only article, though I’m sure their announcement of this “emergency” event tells you all you need to know.
Click here if you want to see what they said (but don't want to give them SEO points)
If you wondered like I did, yup, Raleigh’s City Charter actually has a provision to recall elected officials.
Click here for a summary of the rules, as I understood them.
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Recall elections are triggered by sending a petition for each elected official sitting in office. For example, MAB, Corey Branch etc. would technically be subjected to their own recall petitions (though I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know how strict this rule is…).
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Each recall petition needs to be signed by 25%+ of the number of people who voted in the last general municipal election. According to Wake County’s results, 71,658 people voted in 2019; Livable Raleigh would need 17,915 or more signatures to trigger a recall election.
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Once the City Clerk receives a valid petition, recall elections are triggered in 60 days or less. Like in normal city elections, a winner needs a majority of the votes cast. The incumbent will automatically be on the ballot unless they explicitly ask not to be.
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If 3 or more candidates are in the ring and no one gets a majority for a particular position, a runoff takes place between the two top candidates in 20 days or less. Majority wins (duh).
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Whoever wins this recall election only gets to serve the remainder of the original term.
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If someone beats the incumbent in this election but the councilmember-elect fails to qualify for office in 10 days, then City Council can vote on who fills that seat, instead. The text didn’t put limits on who this may be except, obviously, for the two people who just lost/got disqualified from that seat.
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The City pays for this bullshit.
TL/DR: Livable Raleigh and/or whoever else really wants to see the current Council gone would have to gather about 18k signatures. Even if they do that and flip four seats, they’d still be subject to another election in November, anyways.
Plus, the voting district problem that triggered this whole mess in the first place would probably not be solved by March (or whenever they manage to do this election). So even their attempt at restoring transparent “democracy” is still sketchy, at best, since we’d almost certainly have to rely on the voting districts we have now.
EDIT: here’s a recording of their meeting.
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Crazy people be crazy
For EACH candidate that they want to recall??? LMAOOOOOO GOOD LUCK 
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I feel like this will give me what I want in terms of seeing what kind of clout this group has. Once the petition goes up, we can literally track the number is signatures and see what kind of response they get.
I predict a few thousand sign and then it quietly goes away but let’s see.
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That still seems like an absurdly low number to get a recall. It’s like 3 or 4% of the city population. Imagine if the whole country worked that way. We’d have elections every month…
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100% would show whether we are talking about 100 angry people or a real ground swell of people who want to kick out the council.
I am not sure if this is new or correct, but someone invited me to their event on facebook and I got a notification that it was canceled yesterday. So, maybe they couldn’t even get enough people to join a zoom, much less enough to do a recall election. Not sure if that info is correct though.
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Desperate “livable” Raleigh trying to waste our taxpayer money. No thanks. I wonder once another election is held and we confirm we want the same people in office if they’ll continue their antics? It’s really sad to read their newsletters. I only get them because I want to know what’s going on, but I consider unsubscribing every time I get one.
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I’m gonna laugh big time when each petition gets the same 40 or so votes aka the number of people directly involved with “Laughable” Raleigh lmaoooo
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