chatham county

Glenn Gerding announced today he is running for District Court Judge for District 15B, which includes Orange and Chatham Counties. Gerding is in private practice in Chapel Hill and represents clients in both counties.

Gerding said he intends to enforce the law fairly, help improve the efficiency of District Court, and work hard to help people with difficult problems. He plans to ensure victims' rights are protected and their voices heard.

Orange County residents have been on the receiving end of dubious push poll telephone calls recently, described by one recipient as:

...what may very well be the most egregious violation of research ethics I have ever experienced.

Why all the fuss? Tuesday evening, February 5th, at 7.30pm, the Orange County Board of Commissioners, at its regular meeting, will a public hearing regarding a Local Revenue Options Referendum. The purpose of the hearing is "to solicit opinion from voters regarding which, or both, of two local revenue options should be placed on a May 2008 referendum for voter consideration." In other words, they are trying to decide between a 1/4% sales tax or a 0.4% transfer tax increase, to pay for growth.

Yesterday’s Pilot reports Moore, Chatham, and Orange Counties are joining together to request new local taxing options as alternative sources of revenue to existing sales and property taxes. It is hoped that three counties working together and which happen to be represented at least partially by the Speaker will be more effective in bringing fairness and consistency to taxing authority for all 100 NC counties.

An important element of these resolutions is that the counties are asking to have these options so they can put them up for referendum. This is an important distinction, because if the legislature is to deny these options, they are saying they know better than the voters do about how the people would choose to be taxed. Of course, would also be saying, in not so many words, they desperately need the money that flows from the homebuilder and real estate lobbies. If we're talking about referendums, there should be no need for the Legislature to act to “protect” people from their county governments.