In most of North Carolina, the presence of a national retailer in a large storefront is not a cause for alarm. However, Orange County is not like the rest of North Carolina. Here a big box store is anathema.

Why? Let’s look at the reasons given to the Chapel Hill News by Mr. Jason Baker in response to recent attempts by State Senator Ellie Kinnaird to get a Costco in Chapelboro:
1) Big retailers result in a net outflow of money from the region.
2) Marketing, merchandising, IT, finance, human resources, and other business support and executive jobs would largely be somewhere else.
3) Locally owned business provide the full gamut of job opportunities to bring just as many high-skilled as low-skilled positions to the area.
4) Locally-owned retailers struggle and go out of business because of competition from national retailers.
5) The progressive nature of Chapelboro should support local businesses because of their unique character, the jobs they bring to our community, the preference for high-quality and locally produced products over cheaply made and morally questionable foreign imports.

Unfortunately, the truth lies elsewhere.
1) Local retailers also result quite often in a net outflow of money from the region. The goods they offer are made elsewhere.
2) Marketing, merchandising, IT, finance, human resources, and other business support and executive jobs are jobs not dependent upon any particular geographic site. Costco IT jobs can be performed in Chapelboro, assuming that the smalll business was competitive in quality service and pricing.
3) Locally owned businesses do not necessarily use local high paying wage service providers. There are no studies showing this assertion. Is using a Raleigh based law firm considered progressive?
4) Small business failure occurs for many reasons. Seven out of ten new employer firms last at least two years, and about half survive five years. More specifically, according to new Census data, 69% of new employer establishments born to new firms in 2000 survived at least two years, and 51% survived five or more years. Firms born in 1990 had very similar survival rates. With most firms starting small, 99.8% of the new employer establishments were started by small firms. Survival rates were similar across states and major industries. More particularly to the Progressive doomsday arguments, in some cases, small businesses suffer the same termination rate as larger businesses. According to a research report from the Office of Advocacy in the US Small Business Administration “larger eating and drinking retailers (most likely multistore chains) are no more likely to shut establishments than are other retail firms of that size. Clothing and shoe retailers have a relatively high rate of establishment exit across all size categories (the highest for the 20-99 employee and 100-499 employee firms, second or third highest for the two smallest size categories).”
5) Notice how Progressives don’t talk about creating a successful business that creates a net inflow of money into Chapelboro by selling goods and services desired outside Chapelboro. If unique business character is a societal value to be prized, then successful Chapelboro small businesses that penetrate other non-Chapelboro markets are not to be prized. In essence, Progressives are advocating for a late 19th century economic model.

The argument of what to do about “cheaply made and morally questionable foreign imports” is one for a national discussion. Imports stop at the national borders, as much as Progressives wish to eliminate those national borders.

The more interesting fact ignored by Progressives is what a good job local municipal governments have done building a regulatory maze for big box retailers. According to Chapel Hill’s ED specialist, Mr. Dwight Bassett, the Chapelboro roadblock takes about four years to navigate before a store can open its doors. Of course, the reaction by business is “thanks, but no thanks”.

Thankfully, being a Progressive community, no one is to blame for the detour.

In most of North Carolina, a town would be glad to have a Costco store set up shop. Costco is seen as a responsible big box retailer by most people who don’t believe that local government should pick economic winners and losers.

However Carrboro, the blind beacon of absurdist anarchism, most definitely is not like the rest of North Carolina. In Carrboro, local government is based on rewarding your friends, enabling them to pursue new boundaries in business efficiency and customer service.

None other than Orange County State Senator Ellie Kinnaird has given up on trying to bring a Costco to Carrboro. Revealing a moment of lucidity, Ms. Kinnaird declared that “[Costco is] very well suited to the county. Bringing a big-box store like Costco would have created jobs for low-income community members.” In a capricious moment, Ms. Kinnaird showed concern for building the commercial tax base in a town copmaratively devoid of competitive commercial businesses that aren't tied into local government.

Never fear, the Carrboro rulers, the competition-strangling BOA asphyxiated any further efforts by Ms. Kinnaird. In her words, “I’m giving up. It’s a lost cause.”

Alderman Jacquie Gist, armed with two decades of blathering experience, but zero years of business experience, declared that Costco would hurt the small businesses in Carrboro. According to Ms. Gist, big box retailers like Costco “only have loyalty to themselves”. Ms. Gist failed to explain how Costco is different from local retailer Weaver Street Market (WSM). Apparently, the abandonment of Carrboro for administrative and production facilities in Hillsborough are the acts of a more loyal local business to Ms. Gist. But then Ms. Gist during the fall elections used big box retailer Staples for some of her campaign supplies, a dreaded big box retailer not located in Carrboro, but conveniently located for Carrboro hypocrites.

Ms. Gist further demonstrated her financial perspicacity by saying that Carrboro is doing better financially thant many places that have a Costco. The reason? “Big corporations are a part of the reason the economy is the way it is”.

Not to be left out of any bad decision, vehicular assault expert Alderman Dan Coleman publicly told Ms. Kinnaird to ”take her ideas about Costco to Chapel Hill”, as Ms. Kinnaird is moving to Chapel Hill. Such respect for the woman who launched Mr. Coleman's political career in Carrboro is to be expected from Carrboro's most infamous misogynist.

Ms. Gist was backed up in her peculiar wisdom of government-business nepotism by one of her pals. Mr. Jason Baker, WSM owner services and events coordinator, argues that Costco, with a far greater logistics efficiency than WSM, somehow leaves a larger carbon footprint per delivered good than WSM. Ever the visionary, albeit one freed from empirical confirmation, Mr. Baker says that money from local businesses is better for the community as a whole.

It all boils down to controlling people’s behavior. In Mr. Baker’s words, “We don’t need to tempt people with bad choices”. (See the DTH Costco Catastrophe Story.)

Furthermore, Mr. Baker, a UNC political science major and erstwhile political pollster, neglects to explain how Costco is a “bad choice”, considering that WSM employees don’t receive the same suite of benefits as Costco employees. The average WSM employee doesn’t receive:
1) a solid health care plan;
2) a dental care plan;
3) a pharmacy program;
4) a vision program;
5) a 401(k) plan;
6) a dependent care assistance plan;
7) a personal/family/work care program;
8) a voluntary short-term disability program;
9) a life insurance plan;
10) an employee stock purchase plan;
11) a health care reimbursement account;
12) a long term care insurance; and
13) a long term disability program.
The average Costco employee does receive each of these benefits.

Did Mr. Baker also forget to mention that Costco pays a higher average wage than WSM?

No truer disciple of “feel-good” progressive political thought can be found than current Orange County State Senator Ellie Kinnaird. In a recent Carrboro Citizen editorial, she showered a veritable fountain of wisdom regarding the federal government controlling the nation’s borders. You see, if you advocate that part of the role of a national government is to control its border, well, then you are just practicing the hostility of an anti-semite. You lack a moral compass.

Yes, it's time for the Pulp to batten down the hatches again. The favorite canard of progressives is to affix a repugnant label on you if you disagree with them. (That's called “intelligent debate”.) Once the label is applied, the progressive need no longer address your arguments, no matter how cogent or powerful.

So Ms. Kinnaird gets right to work with the labelmaker. “It is time to speak out against the hostility and outrageous treatment of undocumented people in our state – such that has not been seen since the Jim Crow days. We strive to be a better people than this, but unfortunately repeat this disgraceful conduct every generation. How can we forget the history of discrimination in this country of the Irish, Germans, Italians, Poles, Czechs, Chinese, Japanese, Catholics and Jews? And now Hispanics are the target of intolerant speech and action.”

Ms. Kinnaird believes that the USA should open its borders to anyone from Canada or Mexico who wishes to come. At a time when the USA economy shed over 1,800,000 private jobs in the last three months, Senator Kinnaird wishes to open the borders to 140,000,000 people, of whom at least 30,000,000 are of an employable age. Moreover, while opening the borders to members of two countries, she doesn’t explain how she will keep the borders controlled with regards to the 400,000,000 that live in Mesoamerica and South America.

Moreover, she doesn’t explain, why a moral compass differentiates between those living in a country adjacent to the USA by land and those adjacent only by sea? Why is somebody living in Cambodia less worthy of open immigration than someone living in Mexico?

Perhaps the greatest wisdom from Senator Kinnaird can be found in her statement that “[a]nother advantage of open borders would be a reduction in drug trade.” Ms. Kinnaird seems to have missed the recent travel advisory issued by the US State Department, issued after the installation of the President Obama administration.

According to the State Department, USA citizens should avoid travel in Mexico if possible. “U.S. citizens should make every attempt to travel on main roads during daylight hours, particularly the toll (“cuota”) roads, which generally are more secure.”

Moreover, according to the State Department, drug cartels are waging a battle for control over the legitimate government authorities in Mexico.

“Mexican drug cartels are engaged in an increasingly violent conflict - both among themselves and with Mexican security services - for control of narcotics trafficking routes along the U.S.-Mexico border. In order to combat violence, the government of Mexico has deployed troops in various parts of the country. U.S. citizens should cooperate fully with official checkpoints when traveling on Mexican highways.“

“Some recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades. Large firefights have taken place in many towns and cities across Mexico but most recently in northern Mexico, including Tijuana, Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez. During some of these incidents, U.S. citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from leaving the area. The U.S. Mission in Mexico currently restricts non-essential travel to the state of Durango and all parts of the state of Coahuila south of Mexican Highways 25 and 22 and the Alamos River for U.S. government employees assigned to Mexico. This restriction was implemented in light of the recent increase in assaults, murders, and kidnappings in those two states. The situation in northern Mexico remains fluid; the location and timing of future armed engagements cannot be predicted.”

Somehow, open borders will curb the open, violent militarism of Mexican drug cartels. Why worry over the reality, if it feels good to say it.

No word on whether or not opening national borders will eliminate anti-Semitism as well.

The ostensible story in the local media is simple. As reported, “The town of Carrboro may soon join its neighbor to the east in keeping campaign contributors – and the candidates who accept their money – on a short leash.” (See Herald Sun Campaign Contribution Story.) The Boa can limit contributions in Carrboro elections to $250 per person per candidate, down from the state limit of $4000. Also, now contributors giving only $50 must be identified, as elsewhere in the state. (The Boa didn’t get the as low as $1 limit it originally wanted.)

A local Orange Progressive politician also tells a simple story. According to former Green Party member, little blue choo line cutter, vehicular weapons expert, tax-exempt business profiteer, and Carrboro anarchist alderman Dan Coleman, ”Carrboro elections have in the past been and are currently very affordable, This measure [allowed by recently passed S488], if we enact it, will allow us to keep them that way.”

Unfortunately, there is no sign of any problem with campaign contributions in Carrboro elections, except the use of outside district moneys. (See Lavelle Big Spender Outside Influence Pulp story.) The only person spending more than $3000 in an election in 2007 was Alderman Lydia Lavelle.

State Senator Ellie Kinnaird, who filed S488 in March 2007, is reported as saying “I think both Carrboro and Chapel Hill, and Orange County, want to be leaders and they believe strongly in campaign finance reform. They don't want money to influence elections.” Unfortunately, Senator Kinnaird is clueless in that she can’t give an example of where money has influenced an Orange election, choosing to ignore the use of outside district moneys by Commish Mike Nelson in his 2006 election campaign.

In order to take advantage of SB 488, the Boa must hold a public hearing and enact an ordinance. If adopted, the contribution limit ordinance sunsets 60 days before the next election. A new limiting ordinance can be adopted between 150 days and 60 days before filing for that next election.

Here’s the real story.

In order to maintain power in Carrboro elections, the Boa asked their favorite state senator to file an anarchist bill that would have allowed the Boa incumbents to maintain power by limiting campaign contributions to as little as $1 per person per candidate. The Boa would have been able to lower the contribution disclosure limit down to $1. The Boa could have done so at any time, even in the middle of an election, as many times as the Boa wanted. That’s what seemed fair and reasonable to Senator Kinnaird and to the Boa.

Unfortunately for Senator Kinnaird and the Boa, there is a state representative with Carrboro constitutents who doesn’t drink Orange Progressive Cool-Aid, Representative Bill Faison. Mr. Faison is responsible for changing S488 from a carte blanche maintaining power tool for the Boa into a law that supposedly is needed for a “problem” that Mayor Mark Chilton acknowledged to Representative Faison doesn’t exist. Mr. Faison required the contribution floor be no lower than $250, removed the $1 campaign contribution disclosure power, removed the ability of the BOA to change the limit during the election, removed the ability of the Boa to change the limit more than once in an election cycle, and imposed a sunset provision requiring reenactment before each election cycle.

So why isn’t the story of the reining in of an abusive anarchist Boa bill told in the local media? The answer is quite simple and in keeping with local politics. Mr. Faison is not in the favored political circle for southern Orange. So he shouldn’t get favorable media coverage. Moreover, his truly progressive actions highlight the abusive nature of the original overreaching bill wanted by the favored faux progressive anarchist Boa politicians.

The real lesson from this story is that the absence of “home rule” power for Carrboro forced an unreasonable, overreaching, anarchists bill to be recrafted into a tolerable, more reasonable bill. (“Home rule” refers to the ability of a local municipal jurisdiction to define its own powers. North Carolina doesn't allow “home rule”, and thus, the Boa had to go to the General Assembly to get the powers set forth in S488. But for a moderate legislator from Orange County (Mr. Faison), Senator Kinnaird and Representatives Insko and Hackney would have rammed through the original anarchist bill.)

On 11 June 2008 the NC Senate Finance Committee approved a repeal of the land transfer tax option that lawmakers gave to counties last year. Nineteen counties have held referendums to increase the tax. All failed, including the May 6th Orange County referendum on which Commishes spent over $100,000.

Local Orange Progressive Senator Ellie Kinnaird spoke out against the bill, apparently not believing that a 2 to 1 supermajority against such a tax is worth accepting. (See Pulp Local Transfer Tax Defeat Story.)

The legislation is expected to face stiff opposition in the NC House from none other than local Orange Progressive Speaker Joe Hackney.

In the true historic spirit of USA progressivism (such as prohibition), “good” decisions should be forced down your throat whether you want to live with them or not.

Last year, the Boa asked Senator Ellie Kinnaird and Representative Verla Insko to introduce legislation in March 2007 that would enable the Boa to strangle the rights of Carrburbans to make campaign contributions and to do so anonymously.

Representative Insko’s bill (H.465) and Senator Kinnaird’s bill (S.488) would have enabled the Boa to require the disclosure of any campaign contribution, no matter how small the amount. Even a one dollar contribution could have been required to be disclosed. Moreover, H.465 and S.488 enabled the Boa to limit campaign contributions to as little as one dollar as well.

Only after Ms. Sharon Cook and Ms. Katrina Ryan, candidates in the Carrboro 2007 municipal campaign for aldermen, raised an objection to these bills, were changes made in the legislation. S.488 was amended to raise the disclosure threshold to $20 in May 2007. In July 2007, S.488 was further modified only to require disclosure of instate residents who contributed more than $20. Out of state residents were excluded.

About this time alderman candidate and self-described “level-headed” establishment annexee Ms. Lydia Lavelle started revealing her campaign contributions. While publicly for S.488, Ms. Lavelle didn’t release publicly the names of her individual contributors of at least $20. Instead she stuck to the statewide mandate of $100. While publicly wringing her hands on the influence of money in Carrboro elections, Ms. Lavelle turned out to be the largest receiver and spender of money in the Carrboro 2007 election. Showing her concern for keeping local elections local, well over half of Ms. Lavelle’s listed individual campaign contributions came from those living outside Carrboro. See Pulp Lavelle Big Spender Outside Influence Story.

Neither H.465 or S.488 passed in the 2007 legislature.

However, a bill did pass the legislature that limited the campaign disclosure limit to $50 statewide (H.1743, SL 2007-391).

Fast forward to the short legislative session in May 2008. The Boa is pushing for S.488 to become law, again seeking to reduce the rights of Carrboro citizens with regards to any other North Carolina citizen.

In an effort to tighten the Boa coils on diversity of thought, biggest four color glossy mass mailer and outside influence receptacle Aldermen Lavelle and choo-choo line cutter, vehicular weapons expert, political anarchist, apology challenged perp, and anger management specialist Alderman Dan Coleman met with Ms. Cook recently and told her the following:
1) the $20 disclosure limit by town ordinance (as opposed to the $50 statewide limit) is no longer part of S.488, the only active bill that can be amended and passed in this short legislative session;
2) the express exclusion of out of state residents from the disclosure limit by town ordinance is required by “federal law”; and
3) the Board can by ordinance cap campaign contributions to any amount less than the current $4000 state limit at any time.

Unfortunately, the Aldermen's statements aren't all accurate. No house or senate bill (including S.488) currently active in the legislature has removed the $20 disclosure limit. Moreover, SL 2007-391 (formerly H.1743) removed the distinction between out of state and in state residents for statewide campaign disclosures (excluding the language regarding Carrboro that was in that bill). According to the committee chairman, members objected to this artificial distinction that gave out of state residents more rights than in state residents. Yet, Aldermen Coleman and Lavelle remain adamant about being forced by “federal law” to have an artifical distinction.

Moreover, Aldermen Coleman and Lavelle couldn’t provide any examples of any excessive campaign influencing in Carrboro regarding campaign contributions except by those few candidates (such as Alderman Lavelle) who brought in most of their campaign monies from outside Carrboro (as revealed by disclosed individual campaign contributions). S.488 doesn’t address the problem of out of Carrboro monies influencing Carrboro elections. The Boa ignores a real issue to address a speculative issue.

Discerning herpteologists see further reasons to beware the Boa constrictor mentality. S.488 allows the Boa to change campaign contribution and disclosure limits at any time and as often as it desires. The Boa can wait until after candidates have filed to slither about with these limits.

In the past recent election cycles, the local steno pool (aka media outlets) have refused to print “negative” campaign ads. But what the term “negative“ means is in the eye of the beholden.

For example, the above ad was run in a local paper by parasitic fungal expert and, quite appropriately, former head of the Orange County Democratic Party, Barry Katz. This ad is considered not “negative”, i.e. the editors aren’t backing the candidate being exposed. (See Flame Pit - Katz Scratch Fever!!!.)

However, the below ad, was not allowed in April 2006 by the local papers because it was “negative”, i.e., the editors were backing the candidate being exposed.

In the 8 April 2008 Daily Tar Heel, State Senator Ellie Kinnaird states that you are being fed misinformation regarding the proposed “home equity” tax (aka the local option transfer tax) (See Hot Orange Transfer Tax Story.) According to Ms. Kinnaird five counties have “enjoyed” the local transfer tax for years. For her their success story reads as “growth in the counties has not slowed, their ad valorem taxes are the lowest in the state and they have more money for schools. In fact, after the transfer tax passed, their ad valorem property taxes went down while their school funding increased.”

No facts are given by Ms. Kinnaird, but fortunately, facts are available.

Dare and Currituck counties (along the coast) have had the local transfer tax the longest, since 1985.

Are homes more affordable there? No. Home prices in beachfront blessed Dare and Currituck Counties are among the highest in North Carolina and are more than double the state average. Higher home prices mean higher ad valorem revenues per houehold for the counties. In 2006, the average Currituck resale price was $581,878 with a median price of $380,000. The average resale price in Dare was $483,244 with a median price of $397,500. By comparison, the average 2006 resale price in North Carolina was $214,948, and the Triangle average was $233,763.

Are the tax levies per person less? No. Even with a “home equity” tax, ad valorem tax levies per person for Currituck and Dare counties are, respectively $1073 and $1293. That compares to $966 for Orange County without a “home equity” tax.

Are “home equity” taxes stable or growing? No. As reported in the Coastland Times of Manteo, Dare County Commissioners cut capital reserve fund expenditures to “adjust for a steep decline in land transfer tax revenue.” Dare’s collection of land transfer tax declined from a high of $15.13 million in FY 2005, to $10.74 million in FY 2006 to a projected $6.84 million for FY 2007.

Are impact fees to pay for capital infrastructure growth costs not needed there? No. Currituck County is seeking a proposed Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) which would force developers to pay “voluntary mitigation payments” of more than $12,000 per home, or make another form of contribution toward the local school system. Orange County has a SAPFO ordinance that forces the commissioners to build schools and doesn’t ask developers for a dime!

Ms. Kinnaird reveals that she is on the cusp of discovering the source of the costs of residential growth when she further says “[t]he choice is forever increasing property taxes to pay for our growth and the need for more schools and parks to accommodate that growth or a one-time tax that affects a family maybe only one or two times in their lives.” However, she falls off the wagon by failing to state who picks up the tab and who picks up the profits.

Ms. Kinnaird misses the plain and simple fact that the local transfer tax simply shifts the burden of new infrastructure capital off those making the profits (the developers) onto those who sell their homes. She wants to tax the capital gain of residents while allowing developers to escape with their income gains untaxed by the county.

In a jingoistic rebuttal, Ms. Kinnaird ends by stating that “the ad valorem property tax is a “home tax” already, just one that is hard on those with a fixed income.” Too bad, Ms. Kinnaird can’t tell the difference between an operational home tax (ad valorem property taxes), where one pays for services available, and a capital home tax (home equity transfer tax), where one is taxed on maintaining or building the value of a property without receiving any services from the county for having done so.

No word from Ms. Kinnaird or the Commishes on why there is (in the words of the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners) “a growing crisis” on how counties pay for infrastructure needs aka schools.

See Ms. Kinnaird’s letter in the DTH.