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| Blog and Media Roundup - Thursday, June 5, 2008; News Roundup | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 5 2008, 03:51 AM (445 Views) | |
| abb | Jun 5 2008, 03:51 AM Post #1 |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-956407.cfm? Groups decry city cuts in funds By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun gronberg@heraldsun.com Jun 5, 2008 DURHAM -- The loudest complaints about City Manager Patrick Baker's fiscal 2008-09 budget request have centered on one of its smallest line items, the $784,957 reserved for a variety of nonprofit groups. Acting on orders from the City Council, Baker and other administrators this year used a new scoring system to evaluate funding applications from those organizations. The scoring -- meant to encourage groups to look to other sources of funding instead of relying on city subsidies year after year -- has some applicants looking squarely at the possibility of budget cuts. And they're not taking it lying down. They and their supporters packed a City Council budget hearing earlier this week to protest the manager's proposal. Most of the protests came from arts groups, which in comparing Baker's request to what they got from the city last year stand to absorb a collective loss of $135,718. Cuts on that level "are devastating" and will result in the "loss of signature programs" like the Blue Durham Blues Festival, said Sherry DeVries, executive director of the Durham Arts Council. Other critics said city officials are overrating the nonprofits' chances of making up for the loss from private or foundation donors, given both the lagging economy and the competition for such dollars from groups in other Triangle cities. But by Wednesday the complaints had triggered a backlash by Durham neighborhood leaders who contend that in a tough budget year, city officials should concentrate money on basics like maintenance and police pay. "I'm a supporter of the arts, but I don't expect the city to delay paving a street, installing sidewalks or preventing a sewer leak to support an event I'd like to attend if it means bypassing these projects another two or three years," activist Mike Shiflett wrote in an e-mail to members of Durham's Inter-Neighborhood Council. Baker requested what amounts to about an 11 percent increase in the city's property tax rate. But last Friday, elected officials said they weren't interested in trying to sell that to voters. They told him to find at least $4.3 million in budget cuts and come up with a plan that would require a tax rate of less than 54 cents per $100 of assessed value. Cuts on that level are likely to force Baker to abandon or scale back the Solid Waste Management Department's plan to launch tax-paid weekly pickups of yard waste and "white goods" in the fall. Further complicating Baker's task is the fact that his budget request didn't fully account for rising fuel costs or the bill for bringing his employees' salaries into line with what other cities in the area are paying. Officials got a reminder of that during Monday's budget hearing from Durham police Capt. Andy Miller, who urged the council to raise salaries for police across the board to counter retention problems. The department is authorized to employ 512 officers, but these days is fielding about 70 fewer than that, counting both vacancies and positions held by rookies who aren't fully trained to work the streets. Miller said the department is in that fix because recent budget compromises have always shortchanged salaries. "We cannot continue to build a professional department with a revolving door," he added. The cuts Baker has proposed to arts nonprofits range from a $2,843 cut to the Mallarmâ??© Chamber Players to a $58,400 reduction for the St. Joseph's Historic Foundation. DeVries in an e-mail to the City Council noted those cuts amount to a 35 percent reduction in city funding for the Mallarmâ??© group and a 20 percent reduction for St. Joseph's, operator of the Hayti Heritage Center. The foundation's president, Diane Pledger, said the reduction for St. Joseph's "takes us back to 1995," financially, and would threaten the blues festival. But none of the arts nonprofits DeVries singled out rely exclusively on city funding. Publicly available tax filings from the groups -- the most recent generally dating from fiscal 2005-06 -- show that together they raised from all sources $10.9 million in revenue. The reduction Baker has proposed would shave only about 1 percent off that. The Mallarmâ??© players raised $159,593 from all sources in fiscal 2005-06, while St. Joseph's raised $837,011. |
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| abb | Jun 5 2008, 03:51 AM Post #2 |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-956408.cfm East End Connector funds rise $32 million By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun gronberg@heraldsun.com Jun 5, 2008 DURHAM -- The newest version of the state's road-construction plan will include $32 million more for Durham's long-planned East End Connector, the city's delegate on the N.C. Board of Transportation says. That allocation follows earlier commitments of nearly $100 million and keeps the project on track for a 2013 construction start, board member and Durham lawyer Ken Spaulding said Wednesday. That's a year later than the current schedule lists, but a year better than planners in the N.C. Department of Transportation proposed in their initial draft of the 2009-15 state road plan. "The only other recourse would be to let it slip again," Spaulding said in advance of a scheduled vote today on the statewide road plan. "And I have found that once these projects start slipping, they never get built." Spaulding and other local officials likely have to find at least another $30 million in the next year or so to fully fund the project. DOT's long-range planners are assuming the link between the Durham Freeway and U.S. 70 will cost about $162 million. But consultants working on the connection's environmental-impact studies last summer estimated that it would cost $193 million. Both figures are substantial increases from the $100 million or so officials were figuring as the project's likely cost two years ago when Spaulding first started pushing the board to fund it. The 2.5-mile connector is a relatively short highway, but it will feature large, multilevel flyover interchanges at both ends. The necessary bridgework -- plus the fast-rising price of steel and other construction material -- is the main driver behind the project's increasing cost. Worries about inflation and the statewide competition for road dollars have led Durham officials to consider compromises. One is inherent in the new $32 million allocation, as it comes from a pool of so-called "equity" money that would otherwise have been available for other area road projects. All the previous allocations Spaulding landed for the connector come from the pool of money the General Assembly established in the late 1980s to pay for loop roads around the state's major cities. The East End Connector is the only Durham project that qualifies for loop money, and until recently local administrators had resisted drawing on other sources to pay for it. They contended that the city is due the same consideration as Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh and other cities that have benefited from loop allocations. But inflation in the construction market is devaluing the state's road dollars so fast that local officials recently concluded they have no choice but to bend on that point. Given a choice between compromise and a delay if state officials maintain there's not enough loop money available, local elected officials are willing to tap other sources "to move this project along," said Mark Ahrendsen, Durham's transportation manager. Spaulding said the city's agreement to that will help. "It shows a commitment," he explained. To save money DOT engineers are also considering building the connector with four travel lanes instead of the planned six. Their thinking is that four lanes would dovetail better with the area's existing road network, particularly with the four-lane Durham Freeway. The agency would still reserve space for additional travel lanes, and build them eventually, after demand justifies widening the Durham Freeway itself, Ahrendsen said. Motorists traveling the connector might not notice much of a difference anyway. The connector is so short that the acceleration and deceleration lanes for the on- and off-ramps, even though they don't count as travel lanes, will make the road seem like it has six lanes, DOT District Engineer Wally Bowman said. |
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| abb | Jun 5 2008, 03:52 AM Post #3 |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-956373.cfm Bill introduced to allow meals tax vote By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun gronberg@heraldsun.com Jun 5, 2008 DURHAM -- Local legislators have formally introduced a bill in the General Assembly that would allow Durham County to ask voters for the power to impose a 1 percent sales-tax surcharge on restaurant meals. Durham's N.C. House delegation filed the bill on May 27. The House Finance Committee -- chaired by state Rep. Paul Luebke, D-Durham -- will get the first crack at reviewing it. But the panel so far hasn't scheduled hearings on the measure. County Commissioners Chairwoman Ellen Reckhow said delegation members won't begin pushing it through the General Assembly until city and county officials sign a formal agreement governing their use of the potential tax revenue. Commissioners and City Council members have scheduled a joint meeting Monday afternoon to review a draft of the proposed agreement, Reckhow said. The Durham delegation's bill -- drafted following consultation with city and county officials -- specifies that the county can use 3 percent of the revenue to cover the cost of administering the tax. Of what's left, the county is supposed to devote 80 percent to pay for "civic and cultural amenities," 10 percent for marketing, 5 percent for workforce training and 5 percent to community cleanup. Reckhow and other supporters of the meals tax tie it to their plans to fund services likely to attract or serve visitors and tourists. The workforce-development money, for example, would particularly target "folks in the hospitality industry," while the reserve for cleanup is there on the theory that fast-food restaurants generate litter. Luebke -- a long-time opponent of sales taxes who agreed this spring to support the bill provided it included a referendum -- said Durham's legislators are standing behind the measure. "The delegation, including myself, is committed to passing the bill," he said. But it's already attracting opposition from trade-group lobbyists. The N.C. Restaurant and Lodging Association announced Tuesday that it would fight the measure. It believes the tax "would be harmful to Durham County citizens and restaurants because it is highly regressive, hurting lower-income citizens significantly more than higher-income citizens," association President Paul Stone said in an e-mail to Durham Mayor Bill Bell. Stone added that the tax would be discriminatory. "Why should restaurants bear the entire tax burden for non-essential projects that the whole community can use?" he asked. His e-mail also claimed that Durham legislators "do not support the measure with unanimity." But all four of Durham's House members are co-sponsoring the bill. And in the N.C. Senate, Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, Sen. Bob Atwater, D-Chatham, have introduced a parallel measure. Atwater's district includes southern Durham. The meals tax does have support from at least some local business leaders. It "has been very successful in Raleigh," said Downtown Durham Inc. President Bill Kalkhof. "I would argue that, spun off and used right, the restaurants could benefit by marketing themselves to more people visiting our community." |
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| abb | Jun 5 2008, 03:53 AM Post #4 |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-956371.cfm Bond reduced to $50,000 for man accused of rape By John Stevenson : The Herald-Sun jstevenson@heraldsun.com Jun 5, 2008 DURHAM -- Despite recent increases of as much as tenfold in local bail-bonding guidelines, a judge has gone the opposite direction by that amount in a pending rape case -- slashing the sum defendant Carlos Zambrano needs to get out of jail from $500,000 to $50,000. Zambrano is accused of raping a woman he claims to have been dating. Before this week, he had been locked up in the county jail for more than a month on bail of $500,000. Meanwhile, his alleged victim reportedly has disappeared, and the results of pertinent medical tests are not yet available. Court officials said Judge Ron Stephens took those facts into account when reducing Zambrano's bail. Zambrano is represented by attorney John Fitzpatrick, president of the Durham Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. According to Fitzpatrick, a drastic bond reduction was required in the interests of justice. "It's going to be a he-said, she-said situation as to whether there was a rape or whether consensual sex took place," said Fitzpatrick. "We contend it was consensual." Fitzpatrick added that Zambrano has no previous criminal record. He said the rape suspect and his alleged victim had been dating for two years and went to a party on the evening in question. They then spent the night at Zambrano's house, and the woman told authorities the next day that she had been raped, according to the defense version of events. "We may never know the whole story behind what motivated her," Fitzpatrick said. "She is nowhere to be found and is probably out of state." Fitzpatrick expressed gratification at this week's cut in bail. "It shows there is justice here in Durham," he said. "Judges sometimes are willing to make bold decisions to reduce unreasonable bonds. In this case, it would have been easy for a judge to allow passion and publicity to influence him to keep the bond high. It's good he didn't do that. "On the surface, some people might say [Zambrano] should have no bond and should never get out of jail," Fitzpatrick added. "But they don't know the whole story." Court officials steeply upped local recommended bail amounts on March 1. The changes marked the first bonding revision in two decades for the Bull City. They were made partly because of what some perceived to be a revolving-door syndrome in the judicial system, under which defendants got out of jail on relatively low bail for one offense, only to turn around and commit another. The new suggested bond for first-degree rape is $750,000, more than three times the old amount and a quarter-million-dollars more than the original figure set for Zambrano. |
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| abb | Jun 5 2008, 03:55 AM Post #5 |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/opinion/hsedits/56-956294.cfm Durham's surprise choice for manager Jun 5, 2008 The process that led to the hiring of new Durham City Manager Tom Bonfield was unusual, to be sure. Three candidates were presented to the public as finalists to replace outgoing manager Patrick Baker, but when it came time to decide, the City Council's answer was "none of the above." Bonfield came in through a side door. He was one of five finalists, but declined the public interviews because of concerns about alerting his employers in Pensacola, Fla., where he had been city manager for 10 years. Despite the odd turn of events, we won't quibble with the outcome. Bonfield, 53, seems a solid choice, an impression reinforced by the City Council's unanimous vote. Having all seven independent-minded council members agree on Bonfield speaks well of his qualifications. Each of the three publicly vetted candidates had left their most recent jobs as a result of disputes with their councils. While such disagreements are common in local politics, it was nonetheless heartening to learn that Bonfield has been on the job in Pensacola for 10 years and retains the admiration of his elected bosses. "What you'll find out in working with this guy is that he's about as ethical or full of integrity as anybody you'll come across," Pensacola City Councilman P.C. Wu told The Herald-Sun's Ray Gronberg. That's quite a reference, and many others were equally glowing. In addition, Bonfield's resume speaks of stability. Before the Pensacola job, he was city manager in Temple Terrace, Fla., for 13 years. Bonfield will step into the job Sept. 1 or before, when Baker slides over to become city attorney. As manager, Baker has had some successes, along with a few controversies and missteps. One criticism of Baker was that he lacked previous managerial experience, something you can't say about Bonfield. During Baker's tenure, and that of Marcia Conner before him, the mayor and City Council seemed to feel the need to help manage day-to-day operations. They were probably right, but we hope Bonfield's arrival changes that. Elected officials should be able to set policy and let an experienced manager manage. |
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| abb | Jun 5 2008, 03:56 AM Post #6 |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/opinion/columnists/guests/68-955007.cfm No shame in being an NCCU graduate By Candra Broadie : Guest columnist The Herald-Sun Jun 2, 2008 As a proud student at N.C. Central University, I must strike back to defend NCCU. I feel I had to respond after reading the demeaning article in the May 15 Duke Chronicle about the school where I hope to one day be honored with a degree. First, my heart goes out to Kristin Butler, the recent Duke University graduate who is obviously filled with hatred and malice toward an entire university due to an incident beyond the university's control. It was an incident the court dismissed, and we should likewise dismiss it from our minds, to learn from it, and move on. I can no longer sit back and allow outsiders who have never attended the university to speak about NCCU in such a degrading manner. Is it up to us to hold one back from success in life because of a mistake that was made years ago? Whatever happened to forgiveness? It saddens me to know that someone from a high-status university could have such an ignorant mind. It's unfair to stereotype an entire university because of the actions of one student. I'm so grateful that God is a God of second chances. According to Butler, no one deserves a chance to live a successful life after having done wrong. Is it really that much of a greater accomplishment to obtain a degree from anywhere but NCCU? Just like students anywhere else, I have pulled many "all-nighters" studying for tests, writing papers, doing homework and reading assignments while completing community service hours required by the university. A degree from NCCU is not handed out to you. So to say that our degree will be meaningless is just a mean-spirited proclamation being uttered by someone whose mind is sham-shackled and myth-tangled. Let's talk about a few accomplishments at NCCU. The university is third in North Carolina in recruiting National Merit Scholars. The director of our Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute, Ken Harewood, has been appointed by Gov. Mike Easley to serve as a member of the North Carolina Board of Science and Technology. The completion of the Biomedical Research Institute & Technology Enterprise which is a statewide initiative to make North Carolina a provider of skilled workers for the biotechnology industry, and not to mention the many accomplishments of our prominent law School. I could go on and on. And the list of illustrious alumnus include Gov. Easley, Ernie Barnes, a famous artist and former professional football player, Maynard Jackson, the first black mayor Atlanta and Willie Gary, a prominent black attorney, and CEO of MBC.I could go on and on. Candra Broadie is an NCCU student. |
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| abb | Jun 5 2008, 03:58 AM Post #7 |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/opinion/hsletters/index.cfm The wrong priorities How can Mayor Bill Bell look policemen and firemen in the eye and say there isn't money in the budget for a pay raise when he found money to build a $40 million-plus performing arts center down the street? Solution? Next time you have an emergency and need a policeman or fireman, call the Performing Arts Center box office and ask for help. See if they respond! Marie Miller Durham June 5, 2008 Apologies needed While I agree with Joyce Scarborough [Letters, May 27], I have to wonder if she really did not think some people would object to the woman at the center of the Duke lacrosse case being allowed to graduate from N.C. Central University. She ruined three young men's lives. They will always be remembered for this case, even though it was proven they did not rape this woman. She was allowed to go free and resume her life. She should have been prosecuted for her crimes. I do agree this case has caused some serious racial problems in Durham. I lived in Durham for 21 years. I was born and raised there. As long as the media continue to stay involved in the Duke lacrosse case, there will always be problems. Let me close by saying that not only does the writer of the article you referred to need to apologize, but the woman at the center of the Duke lacrosse case also needs to apologize publicly to her victims. That might help Durham recover faster. Until she does acknowledge that she lied, this case will continue to hurt Durham. Cindy Wrenn Yorktown, Va. June 5, 2008 |
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| abb | Jun 5 2008, 03:59 AM Post #8 |
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http://www.johnincarolina.com/ Duke’s Suffocation of Due Process Our nation’s founders would have liked The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). But leftist university professors and administrators foisting speech codes on college students and in other ways restricting the students' rights get apoplectic at the mention of FIRE. So right there , we have two good strong reasons to appreciate FIRE. Now, here’s a third: FIRE staffer Robert Shibley’s just published article, Duke’s Slow Suffocation of Due Process. It begins - - - As a Duke alumnus twice over (undergraduate and law), I watched with horror the events that unfolded in the infamous Duke Lacrosse/Mike Nifong case. snip |
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| abb | Jun 5 2008, 04:04 AM Post #9 |
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http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columns/story/1096799.html Point of View: Published: Jun 05, 2008 12:30 AM Modified: Jun 05, 2008 02:02 AM Let's not mandate volunteerism Jay Schalin RALEIGH - Senate Bill 2079, which would create a substantial community service requirement for graduation from the North Carolina colleges, has two laudable goals. It seeks to instill in educated young people a habit of volunteering for the betterment of society, and it tries to address some of the academic problems in our K-12 schools The bill calls for creation of an "Eve Carson/Abhijit Mahato Community Service Program" for all undergraduate students in the UNC system and in private colleges participating in state financial aid programs. It states that "students shall provide mentoring and tutoring services for a minimum of 20 hours per semester to public school-aged children across the State. " Unfortunately, this attempt to kill two birds with one stone will leave both birds singing gaily in the treetops, while giving the stone-thrower (taxpayers and residents of North Carolina) a sore pitching arm. It is unlikely that the spirit of voluntary service can be spread through involuntary servitude. And the poor performance by many students in low-income communities is not likely to be turned around by such a superficial approach as forcing college students to serve as tutors. As for fostering the volunteer spirit, this bill might be unnecessary. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 60 million Americans volunteered with some official organization in 2007, and the annual rate of participation in community service activities for people over the age of 25 with college degrees exceeds 40 percent. Also, the required "volunteer work" would disproportionately affect college students who are already making full use of their time. These include students who must work to pay for their educations, students who are heavily involved in extracurricular activities (including other forms of volunteer work) and students with difficult STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) majors who must study for long hours. It would be even worse for older students who not only juggle work and school but family obligations as well. l l l IT IS ALSO DOUBTFUL THAT THERE WOULD BE SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT in performance by "at-risk" K-12 students. The reasons for these students' slow progress are many and serious: possibly including dysfunctional families where drug addiction and alcoholism are present, single parents who are sorely pressed for time and money, deeply ingrained cultural barriers to education, and so on. Improving the performance of such students will require equally serious solutions, including, perhaps, a return to more traditional classroom teaching methods. There is also ample potential for mischief by immature or troubled participants on both sides of the relationship. And most college students are ill-equipped to deal with the problems presented by at-risk children, whose behavior often baffles experienced professionals. Other problems are easily foreseeable. With over 280,000 college students in the state, this program would require extensive coordination between two large public education bureaucracies, numerous private colleges and charities, religious groups and volunteer agencies. It would require systems and procedures for evaluation, background checks, and record-keeping. SB 2079 allots a mere $230,000 for the 2008-9 school year --an amount of money that would undoubtedly grow over time. Another negative aspect of the bill is the General Assembly's attempt to legislate graduation requirements, decisions traditionally left to the colleges themselves. Will this introduce an additional (and unwelcome) element of politics into the university system? And should the legislature be able to dictate to private schools as if they were state-run, simply because the institutions accept state financial aid to students? There may be benefits to urging young people to be more engaged with the community at large through volunteer work. But any proposal to require such work must be examined long and hard, from many angles. It might be better to simply allow the spirit of community service to come from the good will, religious beliefs or the passions of individuals, instead of forcing it upon them at a time when their minds are occupied with other pursuits. And the proposed "mentoring and tutoring" is unlikely to have much positive effect on the education of at-risk K-12 students. SB 2079, if passed, is likely to be a costly mistake, and not just in monetary terms. (Jay Schalin is a senior writer with the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.) |
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| abb | Jun 5 2008, 04:07 AM Post #10 |
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http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A259123 POSTED ON JUNE 4, 2008: Lawyer in Raleigh scam faces disbarment Case against James Webb's real estate attorney details investors' losses By Jennifer Strom James Webb bragged about his urban renewal projects on Fox News in 2006. In September 2003, Alpine Properties of Raleigh sold Sidney Lowe six rundown houses in five towns, from Gastonia to Wilson. Lowe borrowed $374,000 from a bank to finance the purchase. Lowe, who at the time was employed as an assistant NBA coach and is now the head coach of the N.C. State men's basketball team, had probably heard the same flashy sales pitch that Alpine's proprietor, James Thomas Webb, had been making to wealthy Triangle investors—many of them African-Americans like himself—for many years. It went like this: Investors ponied up anywhere from $40,000 to multiple millions for Webb to buy one or dozens of aging, dilapidated houses in disadvantaged neighborhoods throughout North Carolina and in Virginia, fix them up and then sell them—purportedly at enormous profits for both the investors and Webb. At the same time, Webb claimed his business model helped spiff up distressed neighborhoods and provided affordable housing in minority communities. And like most of the victims who gave Webb large sums, nearly five years later, Lowe has lost money on the deal, according to land records. Of the six houses he bought, four have since been resold, at a combined price of $353,000, according to deeds on file in the various counties. Lowe still owns one house, in Jones County, for which he paid $64,000 in 2003, documents show. The sixth house, in Fayetteville, was seized by the city two years ago. Officials deemed it uninhabitable and condemned it after Lowe failed to repair or demolish it himself, according to Cumberland County court records. Lowe did not respond to a request for an interview. The details of the high-profile coach's involvement with Webb surfaced this spring in documents filed by the N.C. State Bar in its case against lawyer Amy Robinson, who served as Webb's real estate attorney for several years. As such, she shepherded hundreds of land transactions involving dozens of investors and millions of dollars that moved through Alpine Properties and various other corporate entities Webb controlled. The Bar is seeking disciplinary action against Robinson, which could lead to her permanent disbarment. In a 39-page complaint filed in February, Bar lawyers laid out 16 sets of land deals that Robinson oversaw between March 2003 and July 2004. They involved 35 properties in 18 towns and $2 million in sales. The Bar is alleging that Robinson, while representing multiple parties in each transaction, knowingly provided false information to the federal government and to mortgage lenders on paperwork documenting the sales. For example, the Bar alleges, Robinson usually stated that buyers brought large sums of cash to closings when in fact the entire sale was financed by mortgages. In the deal involving Lowe, for example, Robinson reported that the total sales price for the six houses was $450,000, with Lowe financing $374,000 and supplying the remaining $76,000 in cash at the closing. The Bar alleges that the real sales price was $374,000 and Lowe provided no additional cash—a pattern repeated in all the other deals, effectively inflating the value of the properties. The Bar is not alleging that Robinson personally profited from the land sales—proceeds went to Webb, to Alpine, or to prior investors, according to the complaint. However, in orchestrating them as Webb's in-house attorney, the Bar alleges, Robinson "engaged in criminal conduct that reflects adversely on her honesty, trustworthiness or fitness to practice" and "engaged in conduct involving fraud, deceit, dishonesty or misrepresentation" in violation of Bar rules and regulations. "By facilitating a fraudulent loan transaction, [the] defendant assisted a client in conduct that she knew was criminal or fraudulent," the complaint alleges. The Bar's lengthy complaint is a 15-month snapshot of how Webb operated what has been described by disillusioned investors as a Ponzi scheme. State regulators in North Carolina and California have taken steps to prevent Webb from doing business in those two states; he's believed to have relocated to Florida about three years ago. A large majority of the transactions the Bar cites in its complaint involve Charlotte pharmacist John Sink, a major Webb investor. Sink, who was a principal in a company called Grand Summit that bought dozens of houses from Alpine, is also suing his former business partner in Wake County Superior Court in an attempt to recoup $2 million he claims Webb owes him. Sink's attorney, Jim Jorgensen, did not return phone calls. Bar officials declined to discuss the specifics of Robinson's case, which is scheduled for a hearing before a three-member panel in August. N.C. State Bar Deputy Counsel Margaret Cloutier said disciplinary action could range from a private reprimand to suspension or disbarment. Robinson's attorney, Dudley Witt, says his young, inexperienced client was fresh out of law school when Webb hired her, and that she did not knowingly violate either professional conduct rules or criminal laws. "She did not know how to properly handle real estate transactions," says Witt, a Winston-Salem lawyer who also represented disgraced former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong in his Bar proceedings. "I'm hoping to make an argument that she shouldn't be disbarred." Robinson is not currently practicing law, Witt says. She has not been charged with criminal activity by any law enforcement agency as of the present time, he said. "She got sucked in by Mr. Webb just like everyone else," Witt says. "It's an unfortunate thing for everyone, especially her." While his former associate fights to hold onto her law license in Raleigh, Webb seems to have slipped through the cracks again. He's facing federal fraud charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for his role as the mastermind of the giant real estate scheme. In a suit filed in November, federal agents accuse Webb, personally and through his many corporate entities, of engaging in a "real estate-based fraudulent investment scheme that raised at least $8.4 million from more than 80 investors." Last month, the U.S. government filed a motion to have Webb held in contempt of court for failing to produce financial records related to the case. According to court records, the last certified mail correspondence from the SEC to Webb, who is representing himself in the case, was returned unopened from his last known address. For archived stories about James Webb, see this article at www.indyweek.com. URL for this story: http://localhost/gyrobase/Content?oid=259123 |
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| abb | Jun 5 2008, 04:10 AM Post #11 |
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http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2008/06/05/Opinion/Dont-Force.Public.Service-3378508.shtml Don't force public service Helping the community should be a choice, not a chore By: Editorial Board Posted: 6/5/08 Carolina students: rewind. Picture your high school days for just a moment. I know it's painful, but stick with us. Remember all the clubs you joined and all the community service hours you logged so you could stack your transcript? Fast forward. Now that you're in college, where have all those hours gone? We're betting you haven't spent nearly as many tutoring children. It's OK; we haven't either. And so Tony Rand, N.C. state Senate majority leader, has introduced a bill that would require student community service. If the bill is passed, bachelor's degree-seeking students enrolled in the state's public and private colleges after 2012 would have to spend 20 hours per semester volunteering with K-12 students. The state should promptly squelch this bill - along with all other legislation that requires "volunteering." Undoubtedly, Rand's legislation would aid the state's public schools by opening them up to the intellectual resources of UNC's undergraduates. And many of our state schools need the help. It is clear that our teachers, who currently earn salaries below the national average, are stretched thin by growing classrooms and a lack of resources. But mandating volunteering has adverse longterm effects for the volunteers. Many of us who were forced to perform community service in high school never developed an appreciation for its benefits and its pleasures. We did it because we had to. Instead of adding more service requirements, schools - from the early stages of education - should promote volunteering and offer rewards for those who give back. For instance, UNC's APPLES program is an excellent case of how service can be fused with course credit in an engaging way. Educators in middle school and high school should better incorporate community service in the classroom by encouraging course-related volunteering and volunteering that appeals to the individual's interests. It is that kind of effort that will encourage the attitudes Rand seeks to engender. But for now his strategy appears to be nothing more than a pass-the-buck approach that would allow the state to avoid spending serious money on much-needed pay raises and upgrades. Also, Rand has packaged his bill in an offensive manner, dedicating it to the memory of Eve Carson, former student body president, and Abhijit Mahato, a slain Duke University graduate student. Carson and Mahato have no connection to the bill, and Rand's reference to them appears to be a shameful attempt to exploit their memories for political gain. |
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| ~J~ is in Wonderland | Jun 5 2008, 07:09 AM Post #12 |
~J~ is in Wonderland
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http://www.newsobserver.com/134/story/1096963.html Finally, senator, thanks Barry Saunders, Staff Writer Come on, baby. It's been all over the newspapers and TV. That's what I was fixing to say to the operator at Duke Hospital when she refused to even confirm that Sen. Ted Kennedy was a patient there Wednesday. The Massachusetts Democrat had brain surgery at the famed facility Monday and is expected to be there recuperating until next week. Before I could get the words out, she transferred me to a hospital spokeswoman who only grudgingly acknowledged his presence. "We're not giving out any information," the essentially nonspeaking spokeswoman said. "That's being handled by a family spokesman." When I asked if she could put me in touch with a family spokesman, I interpreted the resounding CLICK!! as a "No." I'm pretty much used to such treatment at Duke. Last time I was there trying to sneak a peek at royalty was in 1993, when Iffat Al-Thinayan, the widow of Saudi Arabia's King Faisal, commandeered an entire wing of the joint for her treatment and recuperation. That effort ended badly for me, with a striking woman in a striking red dress standing close enough for me to feel what was obviously a gun under her jacket. She and several plainclothes guards with wires running from their ears and guns beneath their jackets escorted me from the premises. It was with that memory still vivid that I returned to see Sen. Kennedy, the closest thing America has to royalty -- if, that is, you don't count Queen Latifah and you don't think liberal is a cuss word. Kennedy has been making conservative talk show hosts and politicians apoplectic for decades. Goody-goody. Just as I respected Republican standard-bearer Jesse Helms' commitment to beliefs I detested, you should appreciate Kennedy's equally unwavering commitment on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Depending upon the mood of the nation, he has sometimes been like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. When many Democrats treated liberalism like the snaggletoothed but fun girl no one wanted to be seen with, Ted stepped up proudly and escorted her onto the dance -- or Senate -- floor. No centrist, he. To appreciate Kennedy, it helps to separate the public Ted from the private one who at times displayed execrable judgment with regard to liquor and women. Who hasn't? Despite roaming the hospital's corridors for close to an hour, I got no closer to Kennedy than you did. The one time in my life that I was close enough to speak to him, my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth, and I choked under the pressure. As a college student in 1977, I was visiting the Capitol seeking a summer internship with South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond. The interview was set up by my college's president, and as I am wont to do even now, I took a wrong turn. I ended up on an elevator I probably shouldn't have been on -- alone until Sen. Kennedy stepped aboard. I was so awed that I never spoke. If he reads this column or if someone reads it to him, I want to say what I wish I'd said then: that even though this state kept sending Jesse Helms to Washington, many of us appreciate what his brothers and he did, tried to do and stood for. I also want to let him know where he can find some great ribs and fish in Durham. |
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| ~J~ is in Wonderland | Jun 5 2008, 07:13 AM Post #13 |
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~J~ is in Wonderland
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http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/national/story/2994550/ Lesbian kiss at Seattle ballpark stirs up gay-friendly town — Most of the time, a kiss is just a kiss in the stands at Seattle Mariners games. The crowd hardly even pays attention when fans smooch. But then last week, a lesbian complained that an usher at Safeco Field asked her to stop kissing her date because it was making another fan uncomfortable. The incident has exploded on local TV, on talk radio and in the blogosphere and has touched off a debate over public displays of affection in generally gay-friendly Seattle. "Certain individuals have not yet caught up. Those people see a gay or lesbian couple and they stare or say something," said Josh Friedes of Equal Rights Washington. "This is one of the challenges of being gay. Everyday things can become sources of trauma." As the Mariners played the Boston Red Sox on May 26, Sirbrina Guerrero and her date were approached in the third inning by an usher who told them their kissing was inappropriate, Guerrero said. The usher, Guerrero said, told them he had received a complaint from a woman nearby who said that there were kids in the crowd of nearly 36,000 and that parents would have to explain why two women were kissing. "I was really just shocked," Guerrero said. "Seattle is so gay-friendly. There was a couple like seven rows ahead making out. We were just showing affection." On Monday, Mariners spokeswoman Rebecca Hale said that the club is investigating but that the usher was responding to a complaint of two women "making out" and "groping" in the stands. "We have a strict non-discrimination policy at the Seattle Mariners and at Safeco Field, and when we do enforce the code of conduct it is based on behavior, not on the identity of those involved," Hale said. The code of conduct - announced before each game - specifically mentions public displays of affection that are "not appropriate in a public, family setting." Hale said those standards are based on what a "reasonable person" would find inappropriate. Guerrero denied she and her date were groping each other, saying that along with eating garlic fries, they were giving each other brief kisses. On Tuesday, Guerrero said a Mariners director of guest services had apologized to her. The team spokeswoman could not immediately confirm that. After the story broke, the Mariners were blasted by the sex-advice columnist Dan Savage, who wrote about the incident on the blog of the Stranger, an alternative weekly paper. "I constantly see people making out," Savage said. "My son has noticed and asked, `Do they show the ballgame on women's foreheads?'" Savage called for a "kiss-in" to protest against the Mariners. Web sites have been swamped with blog postings for and against Guerrero and her date. And the story has people talking in Seattle. "I would be uncomfortable" seeing public displays of affection between lesbians or gay men, said Jim Ridneour, a 54-year-old taxi driver. "I don't think it's right seeing women kissing in public. If I had my family there, I'd have to explain what's going on." "It all depends on the degree," Mark Ackerman said as he waited for a hot dog outside Safeco Field before Wednesday's game. "Even for heterosexual couples." Since the incident, Guerrero's job and her past have come under scrutiny. She works at a bar known for scantily clad women and was a contestant on the MTV reality show "A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila," in which women and men compete for the affection of a bisexual Internet celebrity. "People are saying it's 15 more minutes for my career," Guerrero said of the ballpark furor, "but this is not making me look very good." In 2007, an Oregon transit agency chief apologized after a lesbian teenager was kicked off a bus when a passenger complained about her kissing another girl. Also in 2007, a gay rights group protested a Kansas City, Mo., restaurant they said ejected four women because two of them kissed, and a Texas state trooper was placed on probation in 2004 for telling two gay men who were kissing at the state Capitol that homosexual conduct was illegal in Texas. "There's a double standard. That's the bottom line," said Pat Griffin, director of the It Takes a Team! Education Campaign, an initiative from the Women's Sports Foundation to eliminate homophobia in sports. |
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| Quasimodo | Jun 5 2008, 07:58 AM Post #14 |
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John Fitzpatrick was one of the staunchest supporters of Nifong's prosecution of the lax players--which is a very unusual position for a prominent defense attorney and president of the Durham Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. to take. He is also the HS's favorite person to quote among Durham attorneys (constantly trying to show how Nifong's case still was viable). Now he gets Judge Stephens to grant a bail reduction. (Sounds like courthouse crowd at work.)
Is he talking about Crystal?
Lay it on thick. . .
He sang a different tune during the lax case.
And now that bond is reduced to $50,000. Good thing Zambrano wasn't a lax player from Duke. . . |
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| Quasimodo | Jun 5 2008, 08:16 AM Post #15 |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/opinion/columnists/guests/68-955007.cfm No shame in being an NCCU graduate By Candra Broadie : Guest columnist The Herald-Sun Jun 2, 2008 First, my heart goes out to Kristin Butler, the recent Duke University graduate who is obviously filled with hatred and malice toward an entire university due to an incident beyond the university's control. [The incidents which made her angry were not beyond the university's control; it's the fact that they were entirely within the university's control that made her angry.] It was an incident the court dismissed, and we should likewise dismiss it from our minds, to learn from it, and move on. [Can there at least be an apology from those responsible first?] I can no longer sit back and allow outsiders who have never attended the university to speak about NCCU in such a degrading manner. Is it up to us to hold one back from success in life because of a mistake that was made years ago? Whatever happened to forgiveness? [Do we hear this plea on behalf of Scottsboro?] It saddens me to know that someone from a high-status university could have such an ignorant mind. It's unfair to stereotype an entire university because of the actions of one student. [It's not the actions of one student; it's the actions of the university. See above.] I'm so grateful that God is a God of second chances. [So are we all. But that's not what is at issue here. And there is an element of repentance that is usually included in the second-chance business. We haven't seen that from those involved. I also think the frequent use of religious cant by the AA community is misappropriated; and, to turn that around, that it needs very seriously to examine the log in its own eye before checking out the speck in everyone else's eye.] According to Butler, no one deserves a chance to live a successful life after having done wrong. [What article was this in? Butler never said any such thing. ] Is it really that much of a greater accomplishment to obtain a degree from anywhere but NCCU? Just like students anywhere else, I have pulled many "all-nighters" studying for tests, writing papers, doing homework and reading assignments while completing community service hours required by the university. A degree from NCCU is not handed out to you. [The question is, was one handed out to Crystal Mangum?] So to say that our degree will be meaningless is just a mean-spirited proclamation being uttered by someone whose mind is sham-shackled and myth-tangled. (snip) |
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10:05 PM Nov 30
