RALEIGH — Salisbury Mayor Paul Woodson met with Gov. Pat McCrory and other city mayors Tuesday for the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition.

McCrory hosted the coalition, comprised of leaders from the state’s 28 largest cities, at the governor’s mansion.

In a press release, Woodson said the meeting focused on issues important to the city and to others across the state.

“North Carolina’s cities are the driving forces behind our state’s economy, attracting industry and supporting innovation that benefits the entire state,” Woodson said in the release. “As mayors, we are focused on policies to strengthen our cities by improving transportation, supporting economic development and improving public safety.

“We are proud to partner with Governor McCrory, who — as a former mayor, understands our concerns — as well as the legislative leadership to advance issues that will help our cities and our people now and in the future,” Woodson said.

The coalition’s legislative agenda is focused on promoting innovative strategies to build and maintain transportation infrastructure, according to the release, providing cities the needed revenues and resources to ensure they continue to serve as thriving centers for citizens, and supporting local law enforcement and the judicial system to reduce crime.

McCrory founded the coalition with former Salisbury Mayor Susan Kluttz, who served as vice chairman from 2009 to 2011, when she had to resign from the coalition after losing the mayor’s seat to Woodson by a narrow margin in the 2011 municipal election.

McCrory has since tapped Kluttz to serve as head of the state Department of Cultural Resources.

(Salisbury Post)

Posted: Thursday, March 7, 2013 12:23 a.m.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Pat McCrory says it’s important to him to work closely with mayors of North Carolina’s largest municipalities because the towns and cities are economic engines in the state’s recovery.McCrory met Tuesday at the Executive Mansion with about 20 leaders of the Metro Mayors Coalition who came to Raleigh. McCrory says it was a treat to meet with the mayors – he was Charlotte mayor for 14 years until 2009 and a coalition founder.The governor says he, the mayors and Cabinet officials talked about transportation, land use and tax policies among others. He says he’d also like to see big cities communicate more with their rural small-town neighbors about their economic strategies.Coalition chairwoman Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane said her colleagues look forward to more dialogue with McCrory.

(The Associated Press)

Published: March 5, 2013 Updated 14 hours ago

RALEIGH, N.C. -Gov. Pat McCrory is going to hang out with some of his old friends who lead North Carolina’s largest towns and cities.

The former Charlotte mayor scheduled a meeting Tuesday at the Executive Mansion with members of the Metro Mayors Coalition to discuss municipal issues. He planned to hold a news conference outside the Mansion after the meeting.

McCrory was mayor from 1995 to 2009 and a founding member of the coalition. McCrory’s office said the mayors of the coalition’s nearly 30 towns and cities have been invited, including current Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx.

(WRAL)

Posted: 4:01 a.m. 3-5-13

 Gov. Pat McCrory spoke with reporters Tuesday afternoon after meeting with members of the North Carolina Metropolitan Mayors Coalition, a group he helped found when he was mayor of Charlotte.

 VOTER ID: Asked what he would say to people, like House Democrats, who say that requiring photo identification at the polls infringes on people’s rights to vote, McCrory said he disagreed.

 “I think voter ID is what you need to get Sudafed in the stores right now. It’s what you need to get on the plane. It’s what you need to get many government services at this point in time,” McCrory said, adding that he believed the bill lawmakers are developing will have safeguards for those without an ID.

 “I think requiring an ID to vote is a common-sense practice that over 80 percent of the people of North Carolina agree with,” McCrory said.

 Asked whether he thought voter IDs needed to have a photo, he said, “I would prefer a photo ID.”

 McCrory added that he would leave details of the law to legislators but said, “I anticipate that’s going to be voted on before this session ends, and we will have a new voter ID requirement, which I think will protect the integrity of the voter box for generations to come.”

 PINK LICENSES: McCrory said he participated in and approved the decision to issue specially designed licenses to immigrants allowed to stay in the U.S. under the federal deferred action program.

 He called on Transportation Secretary Tony Tata to explain that the color is not pink, but fuchsia, and the design is similar to temporary ID cards issued to refugees from Hurricane Katrina who came to the state several years ago.

 “I approved of this final decision and was very engaged in the process of this decision,” McCrory said.

 HELP: McCrory told reporters that he has asked the metro mayors group to help him push the legislature to renew funding for drug courts. This was an item he mentioned in his State of the State speech.

 He said he also asked the state’s big-city mayors to take into account the needs of areas as far as 60 miles outside their city limits when making plans for the future. That, he said, would promote more coordinated efforts to build roads and water lines and lure companies to North Carolina.

 MENTAL HEALTH: Asked about his plans to improve the state mental health system, McCrory said it would be part of the larger reform of the state Department of Health and Human Services.

 “Right now, my major issue is trying to fix and reform Medicaid, and then I’ll have revenue to fix the mental health system that is broken,” he said. “It’s no doubt one of our greatest challenges in this state and my Health and Human Services secretary, Aldona Wos, is working on strategy right now to fix mental health. I’m waiting on a total report.”

 McCrory also hinted that Wos would have more to say about problems in the Medicaid system later this week.

 BLUEPRINT: Asked about the infamous Blueprint NC / America Votes memo, McCrory said it had not changed how he worked with Democrats.

 “I’m not going to let a few foolish and, I think, irresponsible political organizations impact the way I govern,” he said.

 FRACKING: Asked to comment on the bill clearing the way for on-shore natural gas drilling in North Carolina, McCrory said he hasn’t had an update on the bill in two weeks.

(WRAL)

By Mark Binker

Posted: 5:28 p.m. yesterday

Updated: 6:12 p.m. yesterday

BURLINGTON — In a warehouse complex that used to be a fabric finishing plant, a man who once copied VHS tapes for a living may be presiding over the next big thing in crime fighting.

DNA:SI Labs is finalizing contracts with police and sheriff’s departments across the Piedmont Triad on a new DNA database. It’s the company’s first widespread foray in North Carolina. The company will double its lab space by building a new, thin-walled complex in a cavernous warehouse.

“The market is so huge,” company President Richard Clark said as he showed off the expansion. “This is a society changing. …”

The sound of construction drowned him out before he could finish.

Greensboro police Chief Ken Miller has been pushing this project for months. His department expects to take DNA swabs from crime scenes and suspects within a month, then ship them to DNA:SI’s lab for analysis and inclusion in a new database.

Other departments across the state are reviewing contracts to join. More are asking Greensboro officials for information.

Greensboro will focus on tying repeat offenders to property crimes that the overworked state DNA lab doesn’t have time to focus on. The State Bureau of Investigation’s lab takes an average of nine to 10 months to process typical samples, and it works with every law enforcement agency in the state.

DNA:SI promises results within weeks and online access to a new database of DNA profiles. A quick turnaround turns DNA into an investigation tool, not just evidence for a trial, Clark said.

Clark said his company processes a few thousand DNA samples a month in its lab on Tucker Street. It works with nine enforcement agencies in Florida, Louisiana, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Clark said he hopes to top 20,000 samples a month soon. The next goal, after he doubles his lab space, is 50,000 a month.

Clark acknowledges the company may be on the verge of big success. Local police departments expect a powerful new crime-fighting tool.

And it all began with a video cassette bound for Congress.

Clark used to be in the VHS business, copying tapes in bulk. The federal government was his largest customer.

One day, a tape arrived featuring James Watson, who helped unlock the structure of life’s genetic blueprint: DNA.

Watson wanted funding to map human DNA. Clark’s company copied the tape for every member of Congress. He said he watched it “over and over and over.”

Time passed, as did VHS tapes. Clark read about DNA backlogs plaguing law enforcement labs around the country and he “figured we would start the FedEx of the DNA business.”
DNA:SI is not the only company that does this. But testing DNA for crime fighting — forensic DNA — is not a crowded field.

DNA:SI’s first law enforcement client was Palm Bay, Fla., in 2007. The city quickly saw crime rates drop, though they have since rebounded.

Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana hired DNA:SI in 2009.

“It’s a good program,” said Lt. Allen Venable, who manages the program for the Lafayette sheriff’s office. “We’re still very, very happy with it.”

But, the Duke case?

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing.

In 2006, the company — then called DNA Security — tested DNA samples for Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, who was prosecuting the Duke lacrosse rape case.

Lacrosse team members had been accused of raping a stripper. They were exonerated and Nifong was disbarred.

DNA Security fired lab director Brian Meehan, whose report “obscured findings” that cleared the players, according to an appeals court decision. Meehan’s “opaque language” glossed over the fact that DNA samples found didn’t match any of the lacrosse players, the court found.

“The person responsible for that hasn’t been here for five years,” Clark told the News & Record this month.

Clark also said the incident was blown out of proportion. He said the defense team didn’t request the lab’s data for months. He said Meehan was fired because he wasn’t a good communicator, he prepared poorly for his court testimony and his “inability to clarify” the lab’s work made the company look bad.

Meehan said, “I categorically deny and refute all comments made by Richard Clark regarding me and the Duke lacrosse matter.”

DNA:SI, which changed its name in 2009, lost business from the incident, Clark said, but not its accreditation. The Garner-based American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors Laboratory Accreditation Board confirmed that DNA:SI is accredited.

DNA:SI settled a lawsuit earlier this month with three players who sued the company over Meehan’s report. The terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed. A second lawsuit on the matter continues.

Attorneys for some of the Duke lacross players did not return telephone messages.

A team from the Greensboro Police Department and other area law enforcement offices vetted DNA:SI and three other DNA companies before going with DNA:SI, according to Steve Williams, Greensboro’s director of forensic services.

The Duke lacrosse case never came up, Williams said. Miller said he learned of DNA:SI’s role in it this week from the News & Record.

The costs of prevention

Miller won’t put a number on his goal to reduce crime. He wants to start by developing DNA profiles on the roughly 500 “priority offenders” his department has targeted.

He hopes many will volunteer samples. Officers in communities already working with DNA:SI said that strategy works sometimes but not always.

The law for getting DNA for this new database isn’t explicit. Miller and Guilford County Assistant District Attorney Howard Neumann said collections will be governed by the search and seizure rules of the Fourth Amendment.

The database, called LODIS, will be separate from the state and federal DNA database, called CODIS. North Carolina jailers can force anyone charged with a violent crime to submit a sample to CODIS, but not to LODIS.

Officers may take a “touch DNA” sample from anything a suspected criminal touches, whether the suspect knows it or not, Miller said. The department also plans to take DNA swabs from crime scenes, and potentially from victims to separate their DNA profiles from criminals’ profiles.

The American Civil Liberties Union’s North Carolina branch said earlier this month it’s “troubled” by the growth of DNA databases. It said law enforcement should tell anyone volunteering DNA that a record of it will be kept forever.

Miller wouldn’t commit to that this week, saying his department is working on collection protocols.

Clark has said DNA profiles in the database won’t include health information. He said the only thing analysts can tell from profiles is gender and whether the profile matches others in the database.

Communities that use LODIS quickly see a 10 to 20 percent drop in crime, Clark said. Palm Bay showed a 13.6 percent decrease in burglaries, larcenies and motor vehicle thefts between 2007 when it implemented the system and 2009, according to crime data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Robberies decreased nearly 31 percent.

Since then, with one of the highest home foreclosure rates in the country and budget cuts reducing police positions and trimming the LODIS project’s budget, crime rates have rebounded.

Lafayette Parish saw a nearly 10 percent drop in property crimes from 2009 to 2011.

“I can tell you that, if it were not for LODIS, we have a lot of cases that would have never been solved,” Venable said. “We got one hit on one car burglary that solved eight other ones.”

The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office in Florida has used the system since 2010. It gives police leads on cases where they have little other information, and it connects serial crimes, office spokesman Chuck Mulligan said.

“When you can solve 35 car burglaries, put it on one individual, that person’s going to be away for a while,” Mulligan said.

Miller expects local results to take time. The department has budgeted $125,000 for the program, including a $14,000 setup fee. The City Council approved this funding without debate last month. Each test will cost $100, and there are much higher costs if a DNA:SI technician has to testify in court.

Miller said he doesn’t want to lock more people up. He said he hopes that people who know they’re in the database won’t become serial offenders.

Without an incentive, “you don’t commit one burglary and check it off your bucket list,” Miller said. “You’re going back.”

(News & Record)
By Travis Fain
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Updated 06:16AM

ASHEVILLE — Lawmakers have taken a step in expanding crime lab operations in Western North Carolina, and a report from the Department of Justice details a multimillion-dollar proposal for a new facility that would appease law enforcement and judicial officials in the region.

State Sen. Tom Apodaca introduced a bill Wednesday that would supply millions of dollars to build and staff a regional crime lab in the mountains. Two days later, Joseph R. John, director of the state crime lab, released a report outlining the options for a new lab, including the construction of a $16.7 million facility in Edneyville.

“The main thing I want to do is get us a lab up and going in Western North Carolina,” Apodaca said. “It is a top priority.”

Apodaca said it has not been determined exactly how much funding will be available for the crime lab project because of budget constraints, so it may not be as expansive as John outlined in the report.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to pull it off because we’re still recovering,” he said. “But we’re definitely going to get something done up here so we don’t have to wait so long with these cases.”

The report comes after months of frustration regarding a backlog at the state crime lab that has delayed WNC court cases, many of them involving impaired drivers. There aren’t enough crime lab analysts to deal with the growing number of toxicology and DNA requests and fulfill obligations to testify in court about those test results.

In a report sent to state House and Senate committees Friday, John detailed the cost of building a new facility in Edneyville versus the cost of leasing or renting a facility.

A new, 36,050-square-foot facility would cost $16.7 million to build on the campus of the Western Justice Academy in Edneyville, according to the report. The proposed plan for the new facility also includes the addition of 28 staff positions.

The report states the building would be ready for business in the summer or early fall of 2015, assuming adoption of the proposal for the biennial state budget this summer.

The options for leasing a facility would not be limited to the academy site in Edneyville and would explore options in the Asheville area. Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan said he is in favor of having a lab at the site of the academy to help speed up prosecution of driving while impaired cases.

Prosecutors have said lab delays, partially caused by an increase in responsibility for the lab analysts, are a major problem when it comes to prosecuting DWI cases.

“I think most people feel the efficient and effective ability to administer justice is high on everybody’s priority,” Duncan said.

The report says building a new facility would cost more upfront, but the state wouldn’t have to pay lease charges, which would provide savings in the long run. The estimated cost for leasing a facility that is 36,050 square feet would be about $972,000 a year, based on a rate of $27 per square foot when the state leased space for a lab in 2008.

“Over five years, the state would spend $14.29 million less by using leased facility approach,” the report states. “However, with the $972,000 annual lease charge, the capital construction approach the state would provide a savings payback period of 17.2 years.”

The state worked with architects, engineers and input from current lab scientists to develop plans for the facility.

The current lab in Buncombe County, which uses 8,800 square feet and supports 17 forensic scientists, is in a leased building at a location not suitable for expansion, according to the report. It is used for drug chemistry, latent evidence and firearm and toolmark analysis, but not drug toxicology and DNA services.

In North Carolina, more than 20,000 law enforcement officers submit evidence to the lab, according to the report. In 2011, submissions exceeded 42,000.

Toxicology requests, primarily in drunken driving cases, to analyze blood for the presence of alcohol and drugs soared to nearly 10,000 between fiscal years 2009-10 and 2011-12. That total increased 34 percent since fiscal year 2008-09, although only 12 toxicology scientist positions are funded.

About 38 percent of toxicology submissions originate in counties served by the current WNC lab, but most must be either transmitted to Greensboro or Raleigh because the lab here has neither the specific personnel nor the scientific equipment for toxicological analysis.

It takes a crime lab analyst roughly two hours to run a blood test when testing for alcohol only, John said. Testing for alcohol and drugs doubles the time it takes to run the test.

A 2009 court ruling that requires lab analysts to testify in person if a defense attorney objects to the admission of the test results alone has further complicated matters. Toxicology court hours for crime lab analysts grew from 692 hours in 2009 to 2,368 in 2010, according to state officials.

“The perfect storm of insufficient staffing, escalating case submissions, and the judicial requirement that lab scientists personally appear in every court proceeding, has taxed the lab’s current capacity to the limit,” John said in the report. “Caseload inventories have risen substantially, and turnaround and delivery times have expanded to unacceptable levels.”

Haywood County District Attorney Michael Bonfoey said the bill introduced Wednesday is a positive step. He said having expert examiners closer would help expedite the judicial process.

“It’s good to see there is some momentum and movement in that direction,” he said. “Hopefully the legislators will follow through and it will get passed.”

(Citizen Times)
Written by Romando Dixson
Feb 07

RALEIGH- A state senator from Mecklenburg County acknowledged Wednesday that he’s one of the lawmakers pushing a bill to transfer control of Charlotte Douglas International Airport from the city of Charlotte to a regional authority.

Sen. Bob Rucho said he’ll push the change along with Rep. Bill Brawley. Both are Matthews Republicans.

“It is a huge economic driver for our state,” Rucho told the Observer. “And in this circumstance we believe that it would be better for a group of dedicated authority people — business people, elected officials (and) the like — from the entire region to help provide direction for the long term success of the regional airport.”

“We’re looking at the future and the potential growth because we want everybody engaged in what will be continued strength for the Charlotte region.”

In his state of the city speech this week, Mayor Anthony Foxx alluded to an effort “in the backrooms of Raleigh” to remove control of the airport from the city.

Under an authority, aviation director Jerry Orr would report to an independent board.

Lawmakers appear to be looking to the time Orr retires.

An authority, Rucho said, would help ensure that “people that are competent and prepared to focus their all attention on this, and choosing the next leadership for the airport, will be in place with that one goal, of making sure that the Charlotte Douglas International Airport will serve the entire needs of the region and the state of North Carolina.”

Legislation in the last session created a similar authority for the Asheville airport. Circumstances there were different, according to GOP Rep. Chuck McGrady, a Henderson County Republican who sponsored the bill.

He said Asheville-area Democrats had sponsored a similar bill in 2009.

“I know Asheville felt bruised,” he said Wednesday, “but the critical thing to recognize is that this original proposal was put forward by Democratic legislators and two years later by Republican legislators.”

(Charlotte Observer )
By Jim Morrill
Published in: Politics
Posted: Wednesday, Feb. 06, 2013

With both Maryland and Virginia puzzling over how to come up with billions of dollars for transportation, local transportation planners have found little public support for an alternative to the gasoline tax that could raise a lot of money.

Although neither state nor federal gas taxes are bringing in enough money to pay to restore worn-out roadways, bridges and transit systems, some people would rather see those taxes go up than embrace a new system in which drivers would pay for each mile they travel, according to a report to be issued Wednesday by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board.

Overall, the 300 people from the two states and the District who participated in focus groups convened by the planning board said they wanted better transportation and less congestion but showed little will to pay more for them.

The report offers a timely perspective as state and federal officials grapple with massive funding shortfalls, in large part because greater fuel efficiencies have reduced revenue from the gas tax that paid for the interstate highway system and hundreds of thousands of miles of roadway and transit lines.

With Maryland’s transportation trust fund headed for bankruptcy within five years, the current legislative session will consider whether to raise the state’s 23-cent-per-gallon gas tax, impose a sales tax on gasoline or do nothing. Last year, Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) unsuccessfully sought a 6 percent sales tax on gasoline. The legislative package he presented to the legislature Friday did not include a renewal of that effort.

In Virginia, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) has proposed replacing the 17.5-cent-per-gallon tax with a sales tax increase. State officials said the purchasing power of the gasoline tax has declined by more than half since it was last increased in 1986.

As they focus on replacing highway and transit systems at the end of their life spans, regional officials also are mindful of forecasts that by 2040, traffic will increase by 25 percent while highway capacity is likely to increase by just 7 percent.

Every state’s transportation crisis is compounded by the prospect of dwindling funding from the federal government, which has poured billions of dollars from the general fund into transportation to bolster the faltering gas-tax-funded Highway Trust Fund.

“The debate in America, when it comes to infrastructure, is how do we pay for it?” U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said this month at a transportation conference. “We need to be sure we don’t become a second-class country when it comes to infrastructure.”

With leaders in the new Congress saying they plan to address that before the current two-year transportation bill expires next year, they have several options.

The federal Highway Trust Fund was established in 1956 as a funding source paid for by the people who used the transportation system and one that was protected from poaching by congressional or administration forces who might want to divert it to other purposes.

The federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon of gas was last raised in 1993, and with its revenue in what’s seen as an irreversible decline, Congress has transferred $34.5 billion from other sources into the trust fund since 2008.

Now, much like state legislatures, Congress could opt to increase the per-gallon tax, perhaps indexing it to inflation to ensure a steady rise in revenue. It also could abandon the gas tax in favor of a carbon tax, which would require oil and electric companies to pay a tax on every ton of carbon pollution linked to their business.

A $20-per-ton fee has been suggested in some studies, though $30 per ton is charged in some foreign jurisdictions. That cost would be passed on to consumers in higher gas or electric prices.

Another option is charging drivers for the miles they travel, an approach that could be used by both federal and state officials. That could take several forms: among them, toll roads, tolls on express lanes and computerized monitoring of the distance each vehicle travels.

This concept did not fare well in the opinions of the 300 people that the Transportation Planning Board assembled in five groups — two in Virginia, two in Maryland and one in the District.

Virtually all participants agreed that congestion is a critical regional problem. Most, however, didn’t know how transportation needs have been funded for more than half a century.

When several options were presented to increase transportation funding, the most popular was increasing the gas tax. That initially won support from 21 percent of the participants, but support increased to 57 percent after they considered all the alternatives. By contrast only 30 percent of those who responded to a 2010 survey backed a gas tax increase.Similarly, members of the discussion group initially were skeptical of tolling proposals, but they ultimately agreed that the best of several options would be tolling on major highways rather an on all roadways or for specific congested areas.

Half that many — 15 percent — said they supported replacing the gas tax with a per-mile charge for distance driven. While 28 percent said they might support tolls on new roads, only 15 percent said they were willing to see new tolls on existing roads.

The study pointed out that three of the region’s five most expensive recent projects — Virginia’s two HOT lane projects and Maryland’s Intercounty Connector — were financed based on projected toll revenue.

Although study participants were reluctant to endorse options that would cost them money, the people who participated in the study were eager to see more money spent. More than three-quarters of them said more should be spent on transit systems, 53 percent wanted more money to go to roadways, and 58 percent backed greater funding for pedestrian and bicycle projects.

(The Washington Post)
By Ashley Halsey III,
Published: January 23