The Web site usaspending.gov tracks federal agencies and their expenditures with contractors. You can search the database by state, congressional district, contracting agency, contractor, product or service provided and level of competition for the bid.
The top federal contractor in District 4 is Research Triangle Institute, which conducts research on several topics, including health, technology, energy and economics. Morrisville-based defense contractor USfalcon, ranked second, followed by SRA International, which provides technical consulting and services for national security, federal agencies and global health; Chapel Hill biotech company Rho, Inc.; and UNC.
District 2, which includes most of Chatham and parts of six other counties, racked up $510 million in federal contracting dollars; it is represented by Bob Etheridge.
In an eyebrow-raising column this morning in The N&O, Barry Saunders ventures the suggestion that the startlingly vicious mugging of Martin Eakes, co-founder and CEO of Self-Help Credit Union, was not a garden-variety crime but a targeted attack.
Saunders notes that Eakes has certainly made adversaries over the years, and perhaps one of them is thuggish enough to order the kind of attack we normally associate with The Sopranos.
If you closed one eye and squinted real hard out of the other one — view the assault on Self-Help Credit Union co-founder Martin Eakes in the elevator of a downtown Durham parking garage Nov. 24 as a random attack. Perhaps Eakes was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And the fact that the four thugs who used his head as a punching bag coordinated their positioning — there was one dude on each stairwell blocking any potential escape route and two on the elevator — why, that’s what all street robbers do, right?
If you believe that, I’ve got a low-interest, subprime loan for you. Sign here.
Neither Eakes nor Durham police are saying he was targeted because of his work on behalf of poor people and against those lending organizations that prey on the poor.
But I am.
Saunders asked Eakes who might his enemies be, and Eakes replied:
“When we first started,” Eakes said, “the KKK used to threaten us. Then it was the drug dealers” who didn’t want his organization fixing up rundown neighborhoods. After that, he got on the bad side of predatory lenders with usurious rates who don’t like Eakes providing lending options for poor people.
“When Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi are your heroes,” Eakes said, “chances are you have enemies.”
Up on the NC Policy Watch website: Links to two new reports (PDFs) on the high cost and misguided aim, respectively, of our state and local corporate welfare (incentives) programs. The reports come from the NC office of CFED, a national nonprofit specializing in economic development, which will present them to a legislative oversight committee tomorrow morning. (Details below the fold.)
Local incentives cost a lot more than you think, the first report finds. According to the second, state incentives supposedly designed to attract business into our poorest (Tier 1) counties are instead subsidizing companies headed for affluent Tier 4 and 5 counties — Wake County, for example.
Summaries, by Rob Schofield of NC Policy Watch, follow below, along with contact information for CFED. Continue reading →
On Urban Planet’s TriangleNC forum, the post-mortems are coming in for the Soleil Center, the 42-story glass tower o’ condos atop a hotel at Crabtree Valley that some said would be the greatest thing to happen in Raleigh since Crabtree Valley itself was built in the middle of a flood plain, though others had their doubts.
Now, some say it’s the credit crunch that killed the Soleil (nee: Glen Tree). Others, however, note that this thing was approved three years ago, when life was good and credit easy — yet the condos couldn’t be sold. Must be the unwalkable suburban location, they say. Well then, comes the rejoinder, what about all the condos proposed to be built in and around the downtown — also in good times — that never happened either?
Just a thought, but what if Raleigh didn’t approve every high-rise condo proposal that the developers pitch, regardless where it is? What if, instead, the city insisted that high-rise buildings be located in close (i.e., within 1/4 mile) proximity to a future commuter-rail transit station?
The vote was close, but the third union election at the company’s huge packing plant in Bladen County (30,000-plus hogs killed per day) was the charm. It caps a nearly two decades long fight by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union to organize the plant, against bitter company resistance. Last year, Smithfield sued the union, alleging it had damaged the company’s reputation by sending press releases to the media and financial analysts about the treatment of workers at the plant. The next step will be bargaining for a contract. The union’s statement is below. Continue reading →
General Growth Properties, which owns Southpoint Mall in Durham and about 200 other malls throughout the U.S., has been downgraded by Fitch Ratings, reports the Florida Business Journal. That means a default may be imminent. On Dec. 1, the Journal reports, the company had received a two-week extension on $900 million in mortgage loans that came due Nov. 28.
Last month WRAL.com quoted Southpoint’s general manager as saying He said the shopping center is “very successful” and that stores there are safe.
From the Rialto’s website: MILK opens at RIALTO on Friday, December 12th! There will be a special premier showing on Thursday, December 11th at 8pm. Tickets for this show are $10.00 each, with proceeds going to the LGBT Center of Raleigh. Tickets for this show will go on sale at 6:30pm the day of the show at the Rialto box office. Remember, the Rialto is cash only!
Center organizers are in early stages, looking to grow. They have a rudimentary website up with a mission statement that’s copied below. Continue reading →
The McClatchy Co., debt-ridden owners of The News & Observer, are reportedly peddling The Miami Herald.
Heckuva history as a newspaper, but what’s the big selling point with the Herald? That’s right, it’s the beachfront property. (They’re not making any more of that.)
Is there anybody who doesn’t like WRAL sports anchor Tommy Suiter? After 37 years at the station, he’ll give up his anchor seat December 18, when he’ll do the 6 p.m. sports spot for the last time. Suiter will still host “Football Friday,” do the “Extra Effort Award” stories, and be on WRAL.com and 99.9 The Fan. Jeff Gravley, a Suiter protege, steps into the anchor position.
“The only thing I knew when I came here was how to turn the set on,” Suiter said, laughing.
To prepare for his first television interview, Suiter stayed up the night before, anxiously writing out questions in longhand and repeatedly rehearsing possible dialogue in his mind. He wore his best button-down shirt and put on the only necktie he owned.
“I was interviewing (basketball) Coach John Wooden from UCLA. As soon as the camera started rolling, I forgot everything. I held my notebook close to my face and read every question verbatim,” Suiter said.
“About five minutes into the interview, Coach Wooden patted me on the knee and said, ‘Son, just talk to me like we’re having a conversation.’”
“Sluggish job growth in North Carolina over the past eight years has exacted a heavy toll on working families,” a new report by the N.C. Budget & Tax Center’s John Quinterno finds. The Raleigh organization is part of the progressive N.C. Justice Center family.
In “What Happened to the Jobs? A Tale of Two Economic Cycles,” Quinterno describes how jobless was the so-called recovery from the previous recession in 2000 to the beginning of the current one at the end of 2007 — especially when compared to the rate of job creation between the ‘91 recession and 2000. North Carolina workers were sucking wind even before this year, in other words, despite economic growth and business profits.
Adds Quinterno, “[T]he economic consequences are likely to get worse … if state leaders respond to the current situation by enacting budget cuts that typically deepen and prolong recessions.”
Monday night, a sizable crowd turned out for the official ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Durham Performing Arts Center. Politicos mingled with the hoi polloi, who wandered through the facility, munching on crudités and sipping soda and hot cider.
The evening’s announced highlight, as it were, was the ignition of the “Sleep No More” light sculpture by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. Prior to flipping the switch, Capital Broadcasting CEO Jim Goodmon, who is a patron of Plensa and the bequeather of the art piece, told the crowd that he didn’t know why Plensa chose ominous passages from Macbeth to accompany his piece, but that he did know that the goings-on inside DPAC were so important that he wants to turn the light on every night the facility is open for business.
JP Trostle, a designer with the Indy production department, attended the event with his video camera. Here’s his video. That’s the voice of Raleigh theater stalwart Ira David Wood III leading the countdown, and Trostle’s own voiceover commentary at the end.
You have to dig deep in The N&O for this one, but it seems that last Friday night in Chapel Hill, there was a dust-up between the Chapel Hill po-po and revelers at a party organized by Internationalist Books.
Approximately 50 people were gathered to bury capitalism, a ritual that was to culminate with the placing of a mannequin labeled “Capitalism” into a coffin that had been doused with kerosene. But before the effigy could be set ablaze, Chapel Hill’s finest intervened and an altercation ensued.
Witnesses said they saw police use pepper spray and batons. Some complained about excessive force to break up what they thought was a dance party.
“They were very peaceful until the cop pushed one of the protesters down,” said UNC-Chapel Hill freshman Ariana Lucido, who witnessed the clash.
Police Chief Brian Curran said his officers dealt with the situation appropriately. He said police do not condone dancing in the street and had not issued a permit for the protest.
“Once you’re out there trying to get stuff out of the street, and people start physically manhandling you, you’ve got to defend yourself,” Curran said. “Usually when we have protests in Chapel Hill, people are at least civil to the point where they don’t attack you. I don’t think I can say that for this crowd.”
Given that it seems to have been two cops versus 50 demonstrators—and the law won—Chapel Hill’s young radicals aren’t quite in the same weight class as the Wobblies and the Spartacists.
Only one person, Internationalist manager Nick Shepard, was arrested—for assaulting a police officer. Shepard declined comment to The N&O.
(Note to N&O: It’s “Internationalist Books,” not “International Books.” Big difference.)
