I77 continues to stir the pot for local politicos

In the ongoing fallout of this month's election, Local politicos have continued to spin, react, position, and use the I77 HOT lanes issue to varying degrees of effectiveness.

In a press release last Monday where his pending toll road education trip to Texas along with Davidson Mayor John Woods was revealed, Cornelius Mayor Chuck Travis chose to take the "whistling past the graveyard" approach.  Considering what happened to his fellow pro-toller, Mayor Jill Swain in Huntersville, it seemed a bit tone deaf for Travis to say...

"First and foremost, I want to thank the residents of Cornelius for the vote of confidence to serve as the Mayor of our wonderful Town. On election day, even though I was unopposed, I received the highest number of votes of any candidate running for office in our Town. I appreciate the trust that you have placed in me to lead our Town for the next two years. I take the role of Mayor seriously and respect the responsibility to hold this office."

While the bubble was burst regarding the vote totals in the unopposed Davidson and Cornelius Mayoral races in this piece last week.  Cornelius Commissioner Dave Gilroy's said it more directly in his most recent newsletter in Sunday.

"Note to Davidson’s Mayor John Woods and Cornelius’s Mayor Chuck Travis who are both lovely gentlemen, but have been hand-in-hand for years with Swaine in supporting I-77 Tolls (which the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce recently stated would cause “irreparable damage to our region”). With no doubt whatsoever, both Woods and Travis would have similarly gone down in flames had they faced any viable opposition."

Then there is State Rep Charles Jeter.  Though, in Jeter's case, rather than his own statements, he was on the receiving end of multiple ads on the subject of the HOT lanes - ads that came from two completely different directions.

The first ad appearing in local papers said Jeter is the one with the power to stop the tolls...

The second appeared on a billboard along 77 saying Jeter is the one to blame for putting them in place...

In the aftermath of Monday's "summit" where the State once again kicked the can back to CRTPO and with candidate filing for the NCGA set to open December-1, we can likely expect the hard hitting comments on tolls to keep coming.

The topic was an effective one in our recent municipal elections and will likely be in the forefront for many elections to come.

Election 2015 Cornelius recommendations...

Election Day is upon us and it is time to head to the polls. Here are some suggestions for Cornelius based on the methodology outlined in my upcoming column from this week's Herald Weekly.  Be sure to check that out on Thursday.

Cornelius is fortunate to have a solid Board and a solid list of candidates.  With only six candidates and just one open seat on the Board, it is guaranteed there will be a number of familiar faces on the Board after Election Day.

Commissioner Dave Gilroy should be at the top of your list.  He has been a stalwart on the Board for years ensuring the town maintains low taxes and avoids bad decisions. (i.e. Mi-Connection, I77 HOT lanes).  More than maybe any other elected official in North Mecklenburg, Gilroy is unafraid to speak his mind, ask hard questions, and hold your government accountable at any level.

Also on your list should be Dr Mike Miltich.

Miltich narrowly missed making the Board last time falling just 138 votes short.

A few months later, Miltich should have been selected as the replacement for John Bradford when Bradford stepped down from the Board to run for the legislature.  That would have been the right thing to do, but unfortunately in a divided decision someone who did not even run for office was selected.

Dr Mike showing the fortitude to run again in the face of that kind of "politics" is admirable.  Plus, he is a committed opponent of the I77 toll project.

As for Mayor, voters should consider leaving this race blank or writing in someone else.  As a founding member of the HOT Lanes Bucket Brigade and appointee to the NC Turnpike Authority, Mayor Chuck Travis is fully committed to bringing tolls to the area.

That alone should make it hard for many in Cornelius to pull the lever for him in this uncontested race.

Just my 2 cents...

Towns Ask Feds at FCC to 'Preempt' NC State Law

In a case with potentially national repercussions, the Towns of Mooresville and Davidson have waded into the fray over municipal broadband network ownership.

On August 28th, both towns submitted comments supporting petitions to the Federal Communications Commission by Wilson, NC and Chattanooga, TN asking the FCC to 'preempt' North Carolina law governing municipal owned communications networks.  This State legislation passed in 2011 as H129 with strong bi-partisan support and commonly goes by the name - the 'Level Playing Field' law.  This law outlines the requirements municipalities must meet to operate their own retail communications networks.  It does not strictly prohibit them from doing so, but it does ensure that public coffers are not a limitless backstop for any funding shortfall.  Maybe most importantly for taxpayers it requires that any debt incurred for this type of operation be voter approved.  (In a bit of irony, Mi-Connection is actually exempted from most provisions of this law because it was created before the law passed.)

In their comments, the towns that own the money losing Mi-Connection cable operation "strongly support and encourage" the Federal Government to invalidate this State legislation and force North Carolina to allow municipalities unfettered access to make the same mistake they have made by entering the competitive telecommunications marketplace.  (See here and here for the Davidson and Mooresville submissions.)

Mi-Connection was formed without voter approval of the massive debt which now weighs down the operation.  For residents of these two towns there can be little doubt that the decision to form Mi-Connection is the most damaging financial decision in their towns' histories.  This is particularly true for tiny Davidson where at one point its annual subsidies to the cable company equaled nearly a quarter of the town's annual budget. 

This damage was caused by a lack of due diligence prior to getting into the business, a poor initial management team that needed to be replaced, and operational decisions that took years to reverse - all examples of exactly why local government should not be involved in a private sector business.  These are all examples of exactly why a law like H129 is needed.  Mi-Connection is the poster child for the Level Playing Field.  These things combined with a brutally competitive industry landscape have resulted in millions of dollars in annual subsidies from the towns.   However, in the towns' submissions one gets the impression a large part of the failure of Mi-Connection is actually due to the Level Playing Field law - a law that would not pass until four years after Mi-Connection was formed in 2007 and began wracking up deficits.

Here's what the towns told the FCC:

"Numerous plans that were in the works by various local North Carolina communities to build fiber networks for retail business and residential use ground to a halt with the passage of Section 160A-340 (known as “H129”).  The uncertainty caused by the proposed legislation was a major reason a collaborative effort by the towns of Cornelius, Davidson, Huntersville, Mooresville and Troutman and Mecklenburg County ended with 3 of the entities dropping out." 

Really???  An unpassed law was the reason for these town's dropping out and that's why Mooresville and Davidson were left holding the bag when a risky decision went south?  That seems a bit unlikely, so we checked with a couple of elected officials from towns that dropped out who were involved with this decision back in 2007.

When asked if the threat of Level Playing Field legislation impacted the decision-making process to join Mi-Connection here's what State Legislator Charles Jeter had to say. 

"I was a member of the Huntersville Town Board at that time.  I was also one of the two Huntersville Commissioners to be assigned to the working group committee of the parties that met often on behalf of the Town of Huntersville.
As to your question regarding the level playing field law… I don’t remember it being discussed.  In fairness it was some eight years ago and there were a great number of moving parts that were discussed."

Cornelius Commissioner David Gilroy was more direct.

"Absolutely no role whatsoever.  We pulled out because it was stupid in countless ways frankly."

So, there you have it.  The failure of Mi-Connection lies at the feet of the politicians who supported it and not with some blocking state legislation.

There are also other issues with these submissions...
 
Documents obtained by aShortChronicle show that the towns' comments were hardly more than canned copy provided to Mi-Connection by the local government telecom lobbying group SEATOA with instructions to customize the letter as needed.  (If you look at the two links above, you will notice that the two documents are identical except for the names of the towns.)  It appears the towns did hardly any customization of this lobbyist content and where they did update this copy it was more of an attempt to rewrite the history of Mi-Connection as described above than to provide any real justification for why the Level Playing Field law should be preempted.

Making matters worse, it appears the decision to submit these comments to the FCC was not fully discussed by the town Boards before these supporting comments were submitted by staff on the towns behalf.  This created a somewhat uncomfortable moment in Davidson when Commissioner Beth Cashion brought the issue up at the town's September 9th monthly meeting expecting to engage in further discussion on the subject only to be told by Town Manager Leamon Brice that the comments had already been submitted - a decision that was clearly made by staff on its own.

So, here you have our towns asking for the Federal Government to overturn a state law - a law that has bi-partisan support.  They are using canned lobbyist content modified in a way that is factually incorrect.  And the effort appears to driven more by staff than our elected officials.

Wonderful!

Action Opportunity:  If you want to submit your own comment to the FCC telling them how bad an idea it is to overturn this type of state law, they are taking comments until September 29th.  Here's the link.  It's for proceeding 14-115.

Correction: Commissioner Cashion brought up this issue at the September monthly meeting for further discussion - not August as was incorrectly reported earlier.

Cornelius Commissioner Blasts Town Decision to Support I-77 HOT Lanes

After last Monday's surprise vote in Cornelius where the Town Board took a split decision supporting I-77 HOT lanes, many of the project's supporters were surely hoping this would bring a quick end to the discussion in North Mecklenburg by snuffing out the only vestiges of resistance among the local town boards before ramming this project through at the next MUMPO meeting.   

 

Unfortunately for them, that was not to be.

Cornelius Commissioner David Gilroy published the following on Sunday May 12th as his regular "Cornelius Update" newsletter.  Read this and ask yourself if you think this discussion is ready to be put to bed.

Begin Commissioner Gilroy's comments to end of post...

Hello Everyone,

This entire Cornelius Update is focused on the critical I-77 Toll Lanes issue - arguably the most important question currently facing North Meck and one that will fundamentally impact our daily experience and quality of life for several decades to come. Public frustration levels on this issue are beginning to boil over in North Meck and for good reason. The 3-2 vote to affirm Toll Lanes at our Town Board meeting this past week, was undoubtedly the single worst decision I’ve witnessed in my 8 years serving Cornelius. Based on the flood of emails I received, I am well aware that many of you share my profound disappointment in Chuck Travis, John Bradford, and Lynette Rinker for their ill-conceived and close-minded decision. I’ll explain where we are now on this issue, and then suggest how folks who want to channel their anger can get involved. Given the length here, you may want to read when you have a few minutes to spare.

A lot has changed since 2010 when we started exploring Toll Lanes as a means of widening I-77. Even since my last Newsletter 2 months ago when I wrote, “Political realities make financing General Purpose (GP) Lanes impossible for the foreseeable future”, the pace of change has been dramatic, and we have every reason in the world now to reconsider. In fact, anyone with an open mind taking a fresh look must acknowledge a compelling emerging opportunity to widen I-77 with GP Lanes on the same timeline as Toll Lanes, if not sooner. Here’s why -

• State funding & prioritization. Our NC Legislature is now moving Governor McCrory’s proposed Strategic Mobility Formula sponsored by this region’s own Rep. Bill Brawley. The potential new law offers $16 billion over the next decade for statewide and major regional transportation needs – with a much higher priority put on “congested arteries serving major cities”. The Observer’s article on Tuesday called this forthcoming new law “the biggest overhaul in state transportation spending policy in 24 years”. A core principle of this new regime is funding more roadway capital projects based on a “data-driven” approach, not the same old political approach of the 1989 Highway Trust Fund Act, which would be outright cancelled.

• Regional funding & prioritization. MUMPO (Mecklenburg-Union Metropolitan Planning Organization – the key allocator of funds for our region) formally adopted an entirely new methodology and criteria (“Roadway Project Ranking Methodology”) on March 20, 2013. This new criteria explicitly puts far more weight on objective factors highly advantageous to I-77 GP Lanes (e.g. Reduces Congestion, Access to Employment Center) and far less weight on factors disadvantageous to GP Lanes (e.g. Center City, Impacts Air Quality which now carry no weight at all). Carefully considered analysis presented to our Board by Kurt Naas and Vince Winegardner suggest that GP Lanes would go from the infamous MUMPO ranking of #93 circa 2010 to the top of the list, if not the #1 project in the region. For those of us who drive around this region every week, this is purely common sense.

Even if the Strategic Mobility Formula legislation doesn’t pass this session, GP Lanes would still go to the top of the list in NC if MUMPO’s new methodology supports the project. This is because I-77 GP Lanes have always scored extremely well at state level on a quantitative merit basis, but have lacked MUMPO’s political support in the past which is key.

So, when Speaker Thom Tillis, whose words have huge impact and for good reason, famously said “good luck getting GP Lanes through MUMPO” earlier this year, in a meeting with several local officials and the Widen I-77 organization, he may have been right then, but the regional and state framework for highway funding is now changing radically almost real-time.

So, why no similar change in the views of many of our politicians, as reflected in Cornelius’s idiotic vote Monday night? Several reasons, all inexcusable:

1. Ego and psychology. Travis, Bradford, and Rinker (all close colleagues of mine who do not take strong policy disagreements personally), like so many other politicians, have strenuously and loudly made the argument in recent years that “it’s toll lanes or no lanes”. We all understand the powerful instincts in human nature against admitting when we might be wrong
2. Defeatism – Many of these I-77 discussions exude an attitude of defeat – “we’ve lost; there is no hope; Charlotte owns MUMPO and they’ll never support what's fair and makes sense in North Meck because they simply don’t care, etc.” This is self-fulfilling of course; as long as North Meck leaders don’t challenge status quo thinking, then Charlotte politicians are happy to let us pay tolls forever
3. Government inertia – “hitting the pause button” is never something government at any level does well. A massive enterprise like the current $550 million Private-Public Partnership (P3) conceived in 2010 and coordinated across innumerable local, regional, and state government entities long since took on a life of its own and an aura of inevitability. It’s the “way the wind is blowing” and so many of our politicians go along to get along unfortunately
4. Absolutism – for me, the most painful reason why North Meck is “sleep walking” into a minimum 50 years of paying several dollars each way to avoid ever worsening gridlock on I-77, is the reason John Bradford gave for voting for Tolls, “unless we have 100% confirmed proof of GP Lanes in the near future, then I choose Toll Lanes.” There are huge unknowns and risks associated with Toll Lanes (see WidenI77.org for a full set of facts and insight about managed Toll Lanes realities) and similar projects elsewhere have gone terribly wrong (see recent Washington Business Journal article about an eerily similar P3 structure set up in Virginia in the late '90s now in disarray with financial failure, crazy-high tolls, and hyper congested GP lanes AND surrounding secondary roads - Greenway Mess), why in the world would we err on the side of Toll Lanes as Bradford suggests?

All of us in local, regional, and state leadership owe our constituents an intense effort to due diligence a GP Lanes option. With the rapidly changing framework for roadway projects in NC, now is the time. NC DOT will not sign the contract for Toll Lanes until the end of the year, so there is sufficient time to act. Clearly, development and good faith due diligence of an alternative option is simply smart planning. After all, I-77 must be widened ASAP, and there are still uncertainties around Toll Lane economics and feasibility. $170 million of the $550 million on the Toll Lane project is NC taxpayer funded anyway – can some way be found for these same dollars to go to GP Lanes (especially since we would only need as little as half of this total)?

As a first step, I made a motion at our Board meeting to respectfully ask MUMPO to analyze how a GP Lanes option would be evaluated under their newly adopted prioritization methodology (even if only to provide a preliminary, informal assessment). Common sense, right? Yet Rinker, in her confused, highly charged thinking on this subject, broke our tie in voting this motion down, even though earlier in the evening her chief criticism of the Widen I-77 analysis was that Naas and team had not yet worked directly with MUMPO personnel.

How can you help? Go to WidenI77.org and learn more. Sign the petition. Attend the next meeting (info below). Email lrinker@cornelius.org, ctravis@cornelius.org, and jbradford@cornelius.org and demand that Cornelius send a message to MUMPO and regional/state politicians that a serious, fresh look at GP Lanes is needed given the emerging, entirely new framework for transportation spending in NC.

WidenI77.org working session:
Date: May 14th
Time: 7pm
Place: Cornelius Town Hall,
21445 Catawba Ave., Cornelius

 

Dave Gilroy

Commissioner, Town of Cornelius