What are the “key attributes” of Greater Raleigh? The Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau is glad you asked. Because they’ve done a lot of market research aimed at “branding” Raleigh/Wake County as a desirable destination — complete with the new logo (above) they unveiled today.

(Update: Speaking of desirable, Chuck Berry will headline the opening of the new convention center September 5.)

Their answer to the above question is:

1) We’re dynamic. Lotta new stuff going up.
2) And unexpected. Not as uninteresting as you probably thought.
3) Also smart. University town.
4) And celebratory. The Cap city.

And by the way, visitors to Raleigh — the GRCVB reports — feel rewarded, surprised and worry-free. That’s right, Raleigh’s a nice safe choice for your meeting, as opposed to the competition in Charlotte, Winston-Salem or Richmond. Jeez, are you really going to risk it in Richmond?

Much to think about in the GRCVB’s materials, to which I will return asap. In the meantime, take a look at them yourself at the new visitRaleigh website.

Jesse Helms died early last Friday. When I heard the news, I suppressed the impulse to say here what I thought of him. Not the time, while his family and friends gathered to bury him. [And, I’d already had my say about him, which you can read here.]

Five days later, I’m still not comfortable speaking ill of the dead, but I do think it’s important that we remember — while the eulogies flood in — who Jesse Helms really was. He was a small-town police chief’s son with an ingrained notion that some folks in the world were better ‘n other folks, and that’s just the way God had set it up. Fortunately, his daddy and he were in the first group. The coloreds in his town were in the second, along with a sorry lot of whites. As soon as he could, Helms went to Raleigh and started associating with the moneyed class, money being an excellent indicator of God’s favor in these things, doing Willis Smith’s bidding in the 1950 U.S. Senate campaign (Smith was a white-shoe lawyer running against Frank Porter Graham, the liberal former UNC President) even while Helms was allegedly still a journalist covering the campaign. Not long after, Helms was made the N.C. Bankers Association’s paid executive in Raleigh, and he remained the bankers’ man throughout his public career as a Raleigh City Council member, WRAL-TV editorialist and U.S. Senator. He was anything but a man of the people, though of course he purported to be a man of the white people (and later, the straight people) with his regular blasts at “the bloc vote,” Martin Luther King and gay causes of every kind.

I missed Helms in his heyday of hate in the ’60s and ’70s. When I moved to Raleigh from New Jersey in 1986, I expected to see a great deal of him, since by reputation he was outspoken and a forceful advocate for his conservative causes. But, not so. I never saw Helms, on television or anywhere else, until I finally sought him out during the ‘96 Senate campaign, his last and the first year I wrote for the Indy. By then, he was a fragile old man who could barely manage to get up on the stage when presidential candidate Bob Dole came to Raleigh. His ill health might’ve cost him that election had the facts been known. They weren’t, because by then Helms was accomplished at keeping himself out of sight. Having barely survived the ‘84 Senate campaign against Jim Hunt, Helms knew full well that the world was passing him by, his views were distinctly out of favor, and if people really got a load of his act, they’d turn against him. So he picked his public spots very carefully from then on, coming out of the weeds as the ‘90 campaign approached to attack the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), of all things, because it helped support the work of controversial artists like Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Here’s my story about the impact Helms had on North Carolina. In 1989, I organized a seminar on First Amendment issues for high school social studies teachers — in connection with the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. It was held at the N.C. Center for the Advancement of Teaching, which is located on the campus of Western Carolina University. One of the sessions, on freedom of speech, focused on the NEA funding issue, among other things. So I planned to bring some books containing examples of the art to which Helms had objected, including Serrano’s “Piss Christ” image and Mapplethorp’s sexually charged gay-male photographs, just so they’d be available if the teachers wanted to view them. No requirement that they do so. I’m not stupid. This was raw, racy stuff — that’s why it was controversial — and many teachers, I knew, would just as soon not have to look at them. But in case any wanted to, they would be available on a bookshelf in the Center’s library.

Or they would’ve been available there, except that the director of the Center heard about it and he barred me from bringing those books onto his premises. Yeah, freedom of speech and all that, he said, but if Sen. Helms got wind that dirty pictures were being shown to teachers at the taxpayers’ expense, there could be hell to pay — and his budget cut. “There’s an election coming,” he whispered to me in some anguish. I was working for a state commission at the time, so I checked with one of the members, Dr. John Caldwell, the well-respected chancellor at N.C. State. Caldwell said, “You’re a guest of the university. It’s their call.”
If I remember correctly, the books stayed in my car. Ironically, all of them were available anyway in the WCU Library, which information I conveyed to the teachers, one of whom went and checked a couple of them out for the group’s perusal. (I did not put him up to it.) Anyway, that’s who Helms was, a man who sowed fear and was feared to the point that even on a university campus, the idea that people might see for themselves and think for themselves about the issues of artistic expression and public funding was thought to be a little too risky to chance it while Helms was on the scene.

I just got back from voting. Walked to the Wiley school, saving gas; walked back. When I got there, it was three poll workers, one other voter and me. What a ridiculous waste of money this was, a statewide runoff for the Democratic nomination for labor commissioner — the one and only runoff in Wake County (as in many other counties) — at a cost to the taxpayers of between $4 million and $5 million. Next time, let’s either have instant runoff voting as part of the first primary or, if the General Assembly won’t pass it, then insist that every candidate running in a primary for anything other than governor sign a pledge they they will NOT call for a runoff no matter how close the outcome is or how few votes the front-runner got … unless there’s also a runoff for something people will turn out to vote for, like governor or U.S. Senate.

**

First time around for labor commissioner, Mary Donnan won 27 percent of the votes and the other three candidates each got roughly 24 percent, which is pretty close statistically to what you’d get if four candidates nobody’d ever heard of ran for an office nobody cared about but most everybody voted nonetheless. Smith, Jones, Johnson and Thomas for dogcatcher: With 1.2 million people voting at random, all four would get approximately 300.000 votes, which is in fact what happened when Donnan, Brooks, Richardson and Anderson ran for labor commissioner in a primary where people came out first and foremost to choose between Obama and Clinton.

But good grief, 1.2 million folks DID vote, and Donnan DID come in first, and if it was only by 3 percent, so what? This time around, we’re maybe going to get a turnout of 80,000 statewide, and the winning total could be less than the margin by which Donnan defeated the runner-up Brooks … who’s nothing if not a stickler for the rules, and who decided he was entitled to a runoff and damn the cost or lack of sense. I mean, it’s not like the economy’s great and we’ve all got lots of extra cash to throw around, eh?

Which brings me to my main point: Raleigh’s budget. I wrote about it one week ago. Classic clash of pent-up capital needs in our fast-growing city versus lousy economy/revenues down/lousy time to raise taxes. A week ago, a 4-cent tax increase was on the table. Yesterday, a 4-cent tax increase was enacted. In fact, it was a 4.18-cent tax increase by the time Mayor Charles Meeker and his “Meeker Majority” was done. One “MM” member, Councilor Russ Stephenson, dissented, saying more economizing should’ve been done. So did Councilor Philip Isley, usually the lone “anti-MM” member, who said pretty much the same thing. That made the vote 5-2. Councilor Rodger Koopman was in California and absent, apparently unaware — this first time through the process — that unlike every other thing the Council votes on, where five affirmative votes or sometimes six are required for passage regardless of who’s absent, municipal budgets can be enacted by a majority vote of the members present. Koopman, who’d told one and all he planned to vote “no” on any 4-cent increase, actually greased approval of it by not showing up.

So what’d I think of the budget? the other voter at Wiley School asked me. I said I thought it might not be smart politically to jack up tax rates in a recession. My fellow democrat concurred. “Especially with the revaluation,” he added, proceeding to tell me how the county just doubled its assessment of what his house is worth. “I thought Charles had more political sense than that.”

I had this comment in mind as I walked home. Without going into the mayor’s political savvy further, I’ll say that it occurred to me en route that Meeker’s intransigent opposition to cutting the budget at all might well be the product of his wife Anne McLaurin’s position as the newest member of the Wake school board. The other day the Wake County Commissioners, spurred on by Meeker’s old rival, ex-mayor Paul Coble, slashed the school board’s budget in order to keep the county tax rate increase to “just” 2.5 cents. Was Meeker intent, perhaps, on showing Coble that even in tough economic times, elected officials must do the right thing by keeping up with critical investments in the public sphere?

Except there’s this difference: Coble’s cuts came from the school system’s operating funds, forcing such short-sighted economies as eliminating foreign-language courses in the elementary schools. How dumb, in a global economy, is that?

Meeker, though, was refusing to postpone (not eliminate) such things as construction of a new police station, which everyone says is needed, but with gas at $4 a gallon and folks in a snarly mood, is it really needed right now? Sure, if you put it off it’ll probably cost more. But if you put it off and the economy recovers, the city will have more revenues too — and a happier electorate providing them.

**
By pushing his “MM” to raise taxes in ‘08, the third tax increase in four years, Meeker may have put them in jeopardy — some of them anyway — come next year’s municipal elections. Whether they are will depend, in part, on whether Coble’s conservatives can get themselves organized to run some candidates, something they failed to do in the ‘07 elections. In ‘07, Meeker was himself unopposed for a fourth two-year term after he’d thought hard about not running. Will he try next year for a fifth? But if he doesn’t, he’ll be leaving his “MM” mates holding his tax-hike bag alone.

Tom Jensen, the bright young man who’s running the shop for Dean Debnam’s Public Policy Polling, commutes to Raleigh from Chapel Hill. On the Triangle Transit’s express bus, which is a big step up from the bad old days when there was no such bus, but not such a happy experience nonetheless — as Jensen explains in a heartfelt plea to our Triangle legislators. Read it and weep, and then come to WakeUP Wake County’s transit forum next Thursday, June 26, 7 p.m., at the McKimmon Center, NCSU (off Western Boulevard).

Dear Triangle Legislators,

The transit system in the Triangle is in critical condition due to the strain put on it by increased ridership in the last few months.

Tonight folks waiting at NC State to take a bus from Raleigh back home to Chapel Hill had to wait as long as 90 minutes to catch a ride. The 4:49 bus broke down. Then the 5:24 bus was so full of downtown commuters who would have been on the 4:49 bus that not only was every seat occupied but the aisles were completely full of folks standing for the 55 minute ride to Chapel Hill. Only about five of the 40 people who were waiting to get on the bus at State were able to board the bus since it was already filled well past capacity. Around 5:45 word came that the 5:49 bus was also packed to the gills from people who got on downtown and thus would not be stopping at State either. Finally a little after 6 TTA sent an extra bus to pick up people waiting at NCSU, some of whom had been waiting since 4:30, and take them home.

Most of these folks got home around 7 PM. In the time it took them to get a bus home tonight they could have just about driven to Charlotte, Richmond, or Wilmington.

Bus riders become a much more tightly knit group when things are going wrong. Many stories were told by those waiting of family dinners, meetings with professors, and community activities that were being missed for the evening because of this commuting disaster.

Most days it’s not this bad, but by no means was this an isolated occurrence. I don’t fault TTA, but they simply can not handle the massive increase in ridership with their current funding that has occurred in the last couple months due to gas prices. Their buses are old. They break down constantly. The air conditioning works less than half of the time. It is not pleasant to have to stand all the way back from Raleigh to Chapel Hill or be packed in like sardines when the temperature is 100 degrees and the air conditioning is not working. A few months ago a bus even caught fire and was almost completely destroyed in a Chapel Hill parking lot, just moments after three dozens commuters had stepped off of it. It was a miracle that no one was injured in that incident, but it’s an indication of what poor repair some of TTA’s fleet is in.

It will be very hard to consider the short session a success unless something major is done to help the transit situation both short and long term in the Triangle. Gas prices aren’t going down any time soon, and the demand is going to continue to spiral and put an increasingly heavy strain on our system.

We need to reward people for doing the right thing. If we want people to use public transportation, it needs to be reliable, comfortable, and convenient. The folks who live in Orange and Durham Counties and work in Raleigh are true residents of the Triangle. They spend their tax dollars in all three of our counties, and if they’re willing to sacrifice some time and take their cars off of our clogged roadways we need to make it worth their while.

It is my understanding that an important measure that could help us bring our transit system into the 21st century has been bottled up because of concern about the funding mechanism. I, too, am no fan of the sales tax. But I would prefer it to nothing. Every session that goes by without something significant being done to help the transit situation in the Triangle just causes the situation to get worse and worse. We are going to have to make sacrifices to deal with this problem.

It is critical that you all do not wait for the next session but act now.

Thank you for your conscientious service to North Carolina,

Tom Jensen

Ah, we’re simmering now, but the much-touted shimmer wall — on the backside of the new convention center (the McDowell Street side) — is expected to be finished along with the center itself in time for the scheduled September 5 opening, according to architect Steve Shuster of Clearscapes. It’s funded by Cree, the LED lighting folks, to the tune of $1 million; Cree is also installing a “hands-on” shimmer-wall exhibit inside the center so we can all see how the big one works.

From the city’s website: Comprised of 79,464 four-inch aluminum pixels, the Cree Shimmer Wall will measure 211-feet by 44-feet. To aid nighttime “shimmering,” 56 LED fixtures will backlight the wall, which will rise up over some of the city’s most highly trafficked streets.

Obama to Launch “Change that Works for You” Tour

Two-week swing will highlight key economic issues

CHICAGO, IL—The Obama campaign announced today that Senator Obama will launch a two-week economic swing—the “Change that Works for You” tour—on Monday, June 9. Obama will travel across the country, talking to Americans about how the economy affects their everyday lives. He’ll hold events with voters where they work and where they live, discussing the challenges we face and his plans to turn the economy around.

The tour will kick off on Monday with an economic speech in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Details below.

“The middle class has always been the engine of prosperity in this country—but for nearly eight years we’ve had an administration that tells working people ‘you’re on your own,’” Senator Obama said. “Not when I’m President. I’ll reform our tax code to benefit the middle class instead of the big corporations. I’ll make sure that quality health care is affordable and accessible for every American. And I’ll provide real relief from the housing crisis by creating a foreclosure prevention fund, providing a tax break for homeowners, and cracking down on fraudulent lenders. Those are the kind of solutions that will make a difference for working Americans—and that’s the kind of change we’ll be discussing on this tour.”

You can learn more about Barack Obama’s economic policies HERE. More details of the “Change that Works for You” tour will be released when they are available.

MONDAY, JUNE 9
Raleigh, NC

SPEECH ON “CHANGE THAT WORKS FOR YOU”
North Carolina State Fairgrounds
Exposition Center
1025 Blue Ridge Blvd
Raleigh NC 27607

Doors Open: 11:00 AM

The event is by invitation only.

Media Coverage: The event is open to the press. For credentials, please visit www.barackobama.com/mediarsvp.

***For security reasons, do not bring bags. Please limit personal items. No signs or banners allowed.***

Further details to be announced as they become available.

###

Read all about it in today’s Charlotte Observer: The new light-rail transit line there is going like gangbusters — to the point that even the (formerly) fiercest critics now say: Oops.

“I have to admit, they are doing better than I expected,” said former Mecklenburg County commissioner Jim Puckett, who helped lead a failed effort to repeal the half-cent sales tax for mass transit last fall. “Our concern was whether we would have a white elephant, and it doesn’t seem we do.”

OK, the part about “today” is a slight exaggeration. The city’s press release announcing a pair of two-hour workshops on the “downtown element” of the new comprehensive plan arrived this morning, including the note that RSVP’s are required and due tomorrow. The workshops are next Wednesday and the following Wednesday. As follows:

CITY OF RALEIGH TO HOLD PUBLIC WORKSHOPS ON DOWNTOWN ELEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE PLAN UPDATE; PARTICIPANTS MUST RSVP BY FRIDAY

The City of Raleigh will hold two workshops on the downtown element of the Comprehensive Plan update on Wednesday, June 4 and Wednesday, June 11. Both two-hour workshops will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Raleigh Urban Design Center, 133 Fayetteville Street at the Hargett Street intersection.

Citizens interested in attending either workshop should RSVP to Kristopher.larson@ci.raleigh.nc.us. by Friday, May 30. Citizens are encouraged to attend both workshops. Space is limited.

At the first workshop on June 4, participants will brainstorm the essential elements for a vision statement that defines Downtown Raleigh in 2030. This is a statement that documents and illustrates the communal aspirations for downtown. Following that exercise, participants will develop a list of ideas, concerns, and issues they may have relating to each of the new comprehensive plan’s 12 elements:

∑ Land use and development regulation;
∑ Transportation;
∑ Environmental resources;
∑ Economic development;
∑ Housing and neighborhoods;
∑ Parks, recreation and open space;
∑ Public Utilities and infrastructure;
∑ Community services and facilities;
∑ Urban design;
∑ Historic Preservation;
∑ Arts and culture; and,
∑ Regional and inter-jurisdictional coordination

**

At the second workshop on June 11, participants will work to develop a downtown action plan. This plan will summarize the key policies, programs and projects needed to implement the outcomes determined during the first workshop, including timing and priorities, responsible agencies, and necessary partnerships. The goals of the second workshop include finalizing the downtown vision statement and a prioritized list of the projects needed to help downtown achieve and exemplify the values and principles related to each element of the comprehensive plan.

For more information about the Comprehensive Plan update, contact the City of Raleigh Department of City Planning at 516-2626 or visit www.PlanningRaleigh2030.com.

At the center of all the fights: the controversial former city parks and rec director, Jack Duncan, who seemed perpetually to be warring with community groups from a bunker somewhere behind his department lines. But Duncan retired a few weeks ago, and the search is on for his replacement — someone able to work with the parks groups for a change?

***
Below is a message from Russell Allen, the city manager, inviting public input into the selection process. His email address is: Russell.Allen@ci.raleigh.nc.us

CITY OF RALEIGH

FROM: J. Russell Allen, City Manager

The search for Raleigh’s new Parks and Recreation Director is underway, with an application closing date of June 30. The Parks and Recreation Department provides vital services to our community, and the selection of the department’s Director is an important decision. As I proceed with the selection process, the community’s input will be important to me, and I am inviting and encouraging you to share your thoughts. Please complete this survey and return it to me by June 16, so your opinions arrive in plenty of time to play a role in shaping the selection of our next Parks and Recreation Director.

1. What are the most important challenges and objectives facing the Raleigh Parks and Recreation Department now and in the years ahead?

2. What skills and qualities will a Director need most to lead the Parks and Recreation department in meeting its challenges and objectives?

3. If you could ask the Parks and Recreation Director candidates two questions, what would they be?

4. Do you have other thoughts you like to share? If so, please add them below or on a separate sheet.

I appreciate your feedback. Please respond by mail to my attention at City of Raleigh, PO Box 590, Raleigh, NC 27602. If you prefer, you may complete this survey online at www.raleighnc.gov/parksandrecdirector .

Tonight. In time for the evening news, John Edwards will endorse Obama, according to ABC News.

***

You wondered if/when Edwards would endorse? Answer was: At the point when his endorsement would wrap it up for Obama (or, if things had gone much better for her, Hillary).

Clinton’s decision early on to defend PACs and special interests as people too, and not merely a necessary evil in the fundraising forest, aligned Edwards and Obama as the “Change” options to her “Billary Restoration” campaign, a point Edwards made forcefully in the New Hampshire debate when he tried his darndest to usher her out of the race. As it turned out, his attack on her backfired (remember the tears?) and three weeks later, he was out. Since then, however, Clinton’s been the candidate who worked harder at appealing to Edwards’ blue-collar constituency, and her universal health-care package is a faithful copy of Edwards’ plan, something Elizabeth Edwards has taken to pointing out. So Edwards has been content to bide his time and throw his support to one or the other of his ex-rivals only when he/she was on the verge of victory — key word, verge. If he’d waited any longer, Obama would’ve wrapped it up without him. As it is, Clinton’s lopsided victory in West Virginia last night made it seem like Obama was in need of a momentum-breaker. Enter Johnny.

Edwards, back when he was retracing Bobby Kennedy’s trip through Appalachian poverty, made a lot of friends in Kentucky. Look for him to join Obama there in the days before next Tuesday’s Kentucky primary, where Hillary is heavily favored, but anything short of West Virgina-order blowout will be seen as an Obama comeback. And if Obama, as expected, wins the Oregon primary that night, it should end this so-called “contest” once, for all and officially, with Clinton dropping out.