86 Percent Of Voters Don't Trust Elected Officials...Broken Government

86 Percent Say Government Broken: Poll


Wide majorities of Americans do not trust elected officials and think the federal government is “broken,” according to excerpts of a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Monday.

Eighty-six percent of the 1,023 Americans surveyed nationwide said that the government is “broken” compared to only 14 percent who said it is not.

However, only 5 percent of the 86 percent who think government is “broken” believe that it “cannot be fixed.”

The percentage who believe that government is broken has gone up 8 percentage points since CNN/Opinion Research Corp. surveyed the question in October 2006. Twenty-two percent of those polled in 2006 said government is “not broken.”

Additionally, 75 percent said the word “honest” does not describe their officials in Washington, while only 22 percent said it does.

That number is also up from the October 2006 survey, when 65 percent said they would not call government officials “honest.”

The poll was conducted February 12-15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.














NC Election Board Working On Flights Investigation


There's no timetable yet on when the State Board of Elections will finish an investigation into 31 previously undisclosed flights by Gov. Beverly Perdue's campaign or potentially more candidates, the board's executive director said Wednesday.

Gary Bartlett's comments came after state Republican Party Chairman Tom Fetzer held a news conference to announce he had asked the board to expand its probe of The Bev Perdue Committee to examine more contributions she received during her successful 2008 campaign.

Fetzer also wants the board to treat 31 private flights that Bev Perdue's campaign disclosed over the past six months in a similar manner to the dozens of unreported campaign flights for former Gov. Mike Easley made public during a board hearing. The board fined Easley's campaign $100,000 in October for those flights.

"There is an established pattern of questionable behavior from the Perdue Committee - behavior shockingly similar to that of the Easley Committee - and that behavior warrants investigation," Fetzer said.

Perdue said later Wednesday there's a difference between the flights her campaign has reported and those of the former governor - she's reporting the flights on her own as part of a yearlong audit she paid for after a campaign accounting software switch revealed problems.

"I have consistently self-reported for the last year. Other campaigns have not done that," Perdue told reporters. "My campaign has done everything that I can do fiscally to make sure that everything was done correctly."

Bartlett said his staff has been looking for months at issues cited in two complaints that Fetzer filed in the fall. Fetzer released a board letter this week confirming the probe. The board is obligated by law to review complaints.

Bartlett, who doesn't know when the board's probe will be completed, is also seeking data about campaign flights from 16 other gubernatorial candidates going back to 2004 as part of its investigation. During Easley's hearing, the state Democratic Party suggested that Republican candidates for governor hadn't reported some flights, too.

"I don't think it would be fair to single her out," Bartlett said.









Jennifer Roberts, Part of the Problem


I think I’m done cutting Roberts any slack on this DSS mess. For her to obstruct and slam the attempts of other commissioners to find out what is going on with county’s massive, $200m. DSS operation is too much. And for Roberts to suggest that a closed session airing of DSS’s dirty laundry is not her preferred way to go is an insult to the intelligence of all Mecklenburg County taxpayers.

The only reason Commissioner Bill James and the other GOPers are suggesting the closed session route is in response the “disclosure” stonewall County Manager Harry Jones has erected around the investigation — a construction effort aided and abetted by Jennifer Roberts. Fine. Let’s hear DSS chief Mary Wilson answer questions in open session. Super. Next.

It will also be interesting to see if Commissioner George Dunlap’s confirmation that a federal grand jury probe is underway of DSS shakes anything new loose. Why it took a full month for the probe’s existence to be reported remains a mystery, but at least everyone in town has caught up to the story.

However, it would be wrong to assume that the probe will result in any indictments, both as a matter of fairness and institutional inertia. Prosecutors are political animals and will require some slam-dunk, smoking gun type evidence of wrongdoing for them to move on a DSS devoid, until very recently, of adult supervision of its funds.

On the third hand, not all gross mismanagement rises to the level of criminality. This is why the county commission must itself reestablish public trust in one of its largest ongoing budget expenses. Jennifer Roberts needs to help that process or get out of the way.






Mayor Foxx And His Real Job


I see that the UPoR attempted to answer the question last week’s Charlotte Business Journal dispatch on Anthony Foxx’s new day job left hanging: Will Mayor Foxx lobby other big city Democratic mayors to buy buses from DesignLine?

Foxx says no. Further, Foxx, and evidently City Attorney Mac MCarley as well, believes that the mayor can work for DesignLine without conflict while both the city-owned airport and city-managed CATS decide whether or not to buy buses from DesignLine. OK. Given that I suppose it is likewise not a conflict for Mayor Foxx to work for DesignLine while DesignLine works out of a warehouse property owned by Childress Klein. Childress Klein only interfaces non-stop with city government on a host of development issues.

Other items of note:

* DesignLine CEO Brad Glosson gave Foxx’s campaign $4000 back in October, as did Glosson’s father, retired Air Force general Buster Glosson. Both men are registered Republicans and supporters of GOP candidates, including former Mayor Pat McCrory, according to state campaign records.
* DesignLine’s Baltimore effort has been repeatedly delayed with some questioning the value of spending $13m. to buy 21 hybrid buses, which will cost a total of $40m. to operate. The latest drop-dead date for DesignLine buses to start regular service in Charm City is January 11th, six months behind schedule.
* The company’s website is being re-worked, but the firm does not own the domain name — designlineusa.com — referenced in its own marketing material.

One thing is for certain, the days of Mayor Pat turning on the VCR for Duke Power’s new hires orientation program are long gone.

Update: SEC filings show that former Gov. Jim Martin is a director for DesignLine.













Mayor’s Hybrid Bus Firm Being Sued


DesignLine International, the hybrid bus maker Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx recently joined as an in-house attorney, is being sued by a supplier of the batteries for the buses.

According to a legal notice in The Charlotte Business Journal, Altair Nanotechnologies, an lithium-ion cells maker based in Reno, filed suit in Mecklenburg County on Dec. 17th to collect on a 2008 DesignLine contract.

The company’s Q3 SEC filing explained:

In September 2008, we accepted a purchase order from DesignLine International USA (DLI) for the delivery of four complete battery module sets. These hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) battery packs were to be used in demonstration buses for three city transit customers, and one for a modular testing program. The DLI HEV bus operates in an electric-only mode for as much as 30 percent of its range and provides a 100 percent improvement in fuel economy over a diesel bus, with fuel savings of up to 6,000 gallons per year. Due to a number of problems related to components outside of the battery cells and a disagreement on payment terms, this program is currently on hold and no additional work is being done with this customer until the open issues are resolved.

A previous Altair filing from 2008 adds, “Any subsequent orders from DLI are expected to be for cells only, with DLI taking full responsibility for module and pack assembly.”

Evidently there is some dispute as to what that all means — and who is going to pay for it.

An October 2008 press release on the contract characterized it as a $540,000 deal.


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Sources: Politico, Bloggingheadstv, WRAL, WCNC, John Locke Foundation, The Meck Deck Blog, McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Newsweek, Youtube, Google Maps