Antiplanner on Stossel

Randal O’Toole, aka Antiplanner, talks not-as-slow-speed rail with John Stossel.

In fairness to organizations like PART, O’Toole advocates spending money on buses rather than very expensive trains that nobody will ride.

Anyone fired up about North Carolina’s $520 million for not-as-slow-speed rail should watch this.

Duncan, Edwards and Rove

Guilford County Board of Education chairman Alan Duncan is mentioned in this N&O article on the latest Rielle Hunter -Andrew Young-sex tape hearing. Just a reminder, Duncan is one of Hunter’s attorneys.

Meanwhile, John Edwards’ name comes up during Matt Lauer’s combative interview with Karl Rove about Iraq and WMDs.

Dear Google —choose Greensboro— please

N&R columnist Jeri Rowe practically begs Google to choose Greensboro for its broadband test site.

Yes, I realize that Jay Ovittore is active in the effort to land Google, but is a “house painter who has no houses to paint” really the best example to hold up when citing the potential economic benefits of broadband?

State pensions: Going to Vegas

North Carolina gets prominent mention in this NYT article on states’ Las Vegas-style investment strategies to fund pensions:

“In effect, they’re going to Las Vegas,” said Frederick E. Rowe, a Dallas investor and the former chairman of the Texas Pension Review Board, which oversees public plans in that state. “Double up to catch up.”

….Last year, the North Carolina Legislature enacted a measure to let the state pension fund invest 5 percent of its assets in “credit opportunities,” like junk bonds and asset-backed securities from the Federal Reserve’s Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, an emergency program created to thaw the frozen markets for such securities.

The law also lets North Carolina put 5 percent of its pension portfolio into commodities, real estate and other assets that the state sees as hedges against inflation. A summary of the bill issued by the state’s treasurer and sole pension trustee, Janet Cowell, said it would provide “flexibility and the tools to increase portfolio return and better manage risk.”

JLF president John Hood said last month that addressing the pension issue should be an election issue for public employees.

Grier stirs things up in Houston

Locker Room’s Terry Stoops passes along this interesting piece featuring an old friend of ours:

HISD Superintendent Terry Grier recommended Monday that the district sever ties with Community Education Partners and let other groups compete to run an alternative school for students with serious discipline problems.

The Houston Independent School District has contracted with CEP, a Nashville-based for-profit company, since 1997 to run two alternative schools, which have drawn a mix of ardent supporters and opponents over the years.

…..Houston Federation of Teachers President Gayle Fallon, an ardent supporter of CEP whose union has exclusive bargaining rights at the Houston campuses, criticized Grier’s idea.

“That jerk is willing to throw these kids away rather than save them so he can divert a few dollars into his asinine new programs that no one wants,” she said.

Grier certainly drew the ire of many parents here in Guilford County, but —- correct me if I’m wrong —– I never heard such ire from educations professionals or the school board.

Down in Davidson County….

The City of Lexington borrows $4.2 million to “to build a consolidated operations center for the city’s natural gas and public works departments, relocate the Lexington Fire Department’s Station No. 2 and replace sheds housing equipment for the city’s street and sanitation departments.”

Meanwhile, Thomasville approves an economic development grant for “Project 3C,” another one of economic development director Steve Googe’s super-double-secret names for a manufacturer that plans to create 20 jobs.

PTP restructuring

The N&R editorializes on the restructuring of the Piedmont Triad Partnership:

Traditionally, the Partnership, headed for the last 10 years by CEO and President Don Kirkman, has had the right idea to promote the region as a whole rather than individual communities. But Triad cities continued to focus inwardly for economic development and have never fully bought into the Partnership’s gospel of collaboration across traditional boundaries.

As one clear signal that it’s a new day, the Partnership’s new chairman, Kelly King, CEO of the Winston-Salem-based bank, BB&T, rallied business leaders to raise more than $1.5 million for the Partnership in 2009 — most of it in only 90 days. “That is certainly something that I never could have done,” says Kirkman, who says he not only accepts the sweeping changes in the organization, but his likely future role there, as something other than CEO.

It’s hard to imagine how Triad cities will be able to ‘buy into’ the regionalism concept, considering the fact that they’re more than likely facing budget crisis that will force them —-hopefully —- to reign in expenses.