wake county

Unfortunately, the influx of capital represents a loss of wealth for the area, not a gain:

The dream buyer is American Homes 4 Rent, a Malibu, Calif., company that since late December has paid nearly $13.3 million in cash for 81 houses in Wake County, according to property records. The company, which formed last year, is one of several firms hoping to profit from rising home prices by amassing thousands of single-family homes across the country and converting them into rentals.

My initial reaction when this story slid by my eyes was that there must be some local connection, somebody here on the ground that greased the skids for this. I haven't found one yet, but that's not as heartening as it should be. That means these investors see an economic situation where upper middle class people would be more amenable to rent instead of buy, and that's not a good thing. Not to mention, the new landlords might not be as responsible as others:

3,000 more chairs, to be precise:

The county, spending $22 million a year on mental health, had “imbedded” care for those groups into widespread operations and clinics. Now each part of the care that Wake County had offered through its Human Services Department must be examined as part of the ongoing “divestiture.” That means some other private or nonprofit entity will likely take over the work through a contract with Alliance.

There appears to be a whole lot of potential cracks for these patients to fall through, and part of this park deal should be an agreement by the State and Raleigh/Wake to make sure that doesn't happen.

Jim Fulghum, Republican candidate for NC House 49 in Wake County, has been caught red-handed with his hand in the taxpayers' cookie jar. What does it mean for this free-market worshipping, tax-cut-first-ask-questions-later, John Locke Foundation board member? It means he is a hypocrite.

In 2009, the Raleigh millionaire neurosurgeon received a $100,000 government bailout for his chicken farm in Chatham County. According to the NC Dep. of Agriculture, Fulghum's Deep River Farm received a $100,000 bailout through the Poultry Loss Contract Grant Assistance Program when its live poultry dealer, Pilgrim's Pride, went bankrupt.

Here is a YouTube link to the portion of the Commissioners meeting with the discussion of the resolution. It's in two parts. It lasts about 17 minutes and is worth listening to.

http://youtu.be/v68aGoscPTE

http://youtu.be/g0l83jcFE0I

Can progressives take back control of North Carolina's General Assembly? Three new polls conducted by PPP for Progress NC pinpoint areas where vulnerable incumbents or open seats could open the door for progressive candidates to enter the race, including a poll showing that incumbent Jim Crawford (D-Granville) is vulnerable in the Democratic Primary. If you are thinking of running, or know someone thinking of running, stand by for more polling in other counties soon. More details on these three polls after the jump:

As usual, Robin Hayes twists the truth to fit his anti-everything agenda:

“The reason why Republicans have fought to promote proper voter-identification laws is to prevent fraud like this from happening.”

Except, of course, that H351 wouldn’t have prevented "fraud like this" at all.

Apparently Laura's message isn't penetrating the depths of the Conservative communication network. This story hit the Tweetwaves last night, but stuff like this is still showing up:

Huffington Post has a story on the Wake County school board resegrigation plan. Here is the best paragraph.

Public ire aside, the Tea Party has shown its support of Wake County's actions. Art Pope, a popular republican figure who sits on the board of Americans For Prosperity, was quoted by the Washington Post as saying the isolation factor might make things more convenient.

"If we end up with a concentration of students underperforming academically, it may be easier to reach out to them. Hypothetically, we should consider that as well."

Finally the national media is starting to expose Art Pope, now if only more media would look into this plan.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/wake-county-school-board-_n_808...

Changing behavior is costly but necessary:

Authorities in Wake County pressured the legislature for the lake's cleanup, because the lake provides drinking water for 450,000 Wake residents. But the pollutants reach the lake from streams running through Durham, Granville, Person and Orange counties, whose taxpayers would bear the greatest financial burden for cleaning up Raleigh's reservoir.

It will probably do little good to repeat this, but it needs to be said: Techniques for ameliorating the negative effects of stormwater runoff have been available to county/city governments for decades, and they (for the most part) chose to ignore them. During that time, land development in the Triangle/Triad regions propagated like rabbits, and the combination of those two factors produced an inevitable result. A result that must be dealt with, now.

One speaker at yesterday’s Wake school board meeting who managed to speak before the theatrics began made an interesting point that goes to the root of the controversy over diversity versus neighborhood schools. While she said she supported the now abandoned diversity policy, she wanted the new board to succeed. All she wanted was for the board to “show me the money” and asked “where’s the beef.” In other words, she wanted to see the plan the board had to transition to neighborhood schools.

She has a point. After several months of demonstrations, counter-demonstrations, accusations and counter-accusations, the board majority has yet to reveal any details of its plan. Whether you support the diversity policy or neighborhood schools, wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly where the school board is going?