Post-election, Wake’s bills come due
Some thoughts on the Wake elections:
1) The $970 million school bond is just the down payment. (But thank goodness it passed.) Remember, the school board was testing numbers between $1.3 billion and $1.9 billion to meet current need, with a projected decade-long tab for new schools and renovations to old ones of more than $4 billion. We’re adding 7-8,000 students a year in Wake — that’s a bunch of new schools every year.
2) The school bond aside, the biggest news in the election was Russell Capps’ defeat; second biggest, Phil Jeffreys’ defeat. Think about the Republicans you’ve known and loved who dug the county into the huge fiscal hole we’re in today. Names like Fetzer, Pendleton, Converse, Tew, Odom, Ellis, Carrington, and the list goes on …. But the man with the megaphone, and the mission from above to smite any and all taxes, was Russell Capps, the president of the so-called Wake Taxpayers Association. These arch-conservatives are history now — with the exception of Jesse Helms’ nephew, Paul Coble — but their reckless disregard of the common good makes it tough for their successors: As far as the eye can see, nothing but tax increases are ahead for whoever’s on the county commission.
3) Ironically, the conservatives’ successors at the county level, where the school-construction rubber meets the General Assembly’s unbuilt roads (and transit services), are also Republicans. Jeffreys is out, with Coble in and bidding to fill his slot of the “don’t confuse me with the facts” anti-taxer. But the onus for raising revenues remains on his Republican colleagues, who — with him — still comprise a 4-3 majority of the Board of County Commissioners. Joe Bryan and Tony Gurley have done their time, and some good work, as board chairs the last two years. Next year, one presumes, the gavel will pass to Kenn (”I used to be a Barry-Goldwater conservative “) Gardner, and we’ll see how he does. But taxes are going up, up, up … and Gurley and Bryan, both just re-elected, made it clear that Wake voters can expect yet another whopping school bond referendum in, what, 2-3 years? And Gardner’s up for re-election in ‘08.
3) Here’s a question: Since the Republicans are in the majority, and by ‘08 the other three will have served as board chair, will they really make Coble their leader in that election year? Not if he’s been doing a Phil Jeffreys imitation his first year, I’d guess. Because let’s not forget …
4) Coble, while supposedly pro-bond (he didn’t fall into that trap, like Jeffreys), also said he wouldn’t support a tax increase to finance the bonds when they’re issued, because he thinks mythical hotel & meals taxes could be used instead. Let’s see if he sticks to that one.
5) Meanwhile, Bryan promised a $50 million open-space bond issue if he was re-elected, because they aren’t making any more of it (land), and development is eating up 27 acres of Wake’s dwindling farm and forestlands every day.
6) And we haven’t even gotten to the $6 billion, or is it $8 billion, that Wake needs in road-building money beyond what the state projects will be available — and that’s just to achieve the infamous 2030 “Tomato Map,” in which every major intersection in the county is shown in red because it’s fallen to an “F” level of service. Road money is a state issue, and on that we turn to Republicans like state Sen. Richard Stevens, who is the former Wake County manager, and say: What up, Richard? Don’t expect the Democratic General Assembly to hand Wake County more money unless our Republican legislators support tax increases to raise it. Russ Capps never would’ve.
7) Remember the “Blue Ribbon Commission,” a Gurley-Bryan creation? The bidness types who dominated couldn’t think of enough ways to spend the sales tax increase they were willing to support, but even a 1-cent hike only goes so far when you’ve got schools to build, roads to pave, transit to create, reservoirs to reserve and parkland to spare from the builders’ bulldozers. But the Home Builders and Realtors ran around the room and clapped everyone’s ears shut whenever the words “impact fees” or “real estate transfer taxes” were uttered. Will the Home Builders, and Coble, insist on pushing the county back into the ditch?
8) From “big real estate,” we hear that growth does pay for itself … no, really it does too! … if you count all the jobs it creats and the wages they pay, and the groceries and furniture and hedge-fund shares it helps people buy. I couldn’t agree more. But tax-wise, growth does not pay for itself if you’ve got your tax system set up to let the bulk of the wealth that growth creates avoid taxation. That’s how the American tax system functions, and it’s a little worse than average in North Carolina, which is why the hapless property-tax paying retiree is eating it around here while the high-rolling McMansion buyers still dine out at Second Empire. (Which, Paul Coble, might be an argument for a NEW restaurant meals tax for schools — but we’ll await your advocacy on that.)
9) Ah, to be Philip Isley, Republican on the Raleigh City Council, who can happily vote in favor of every development that comes along, driving the growth rate up … and vote no on every tax, because Democrats on the Council are in the majority there, and they do the heavy tax lifting for him. No so on the County Commission, though.