RALEIGH'S PLANNING COMMISSION AND CITY COUNCIL AT ODDS OVER GRANNY FLATS: Some members of the city’s planning board say the Raleigh City Council is ramming through rules for backyard cottages and granny flats that are so “overly complex” few people will ever build them. Several Planning Commission members feel their hands were tied after the council instructed them not to consider alternatives to proposed rules for accessory dwelling units, also known as backyard cottages and granny flats. The advisory commission debated the proposed rules last week before deciding to send them to a committee for more discussion. At least one planning commissioner was prepared to vote for the recommendations though he acknowledged he might be the only one. “I think a site-specific rezoning would be preferable, but we’re not at the beginning [of the discussion],” Planning Commissioner Bob Geary said, noting the more than five years the city has already spent on the issue. “We are well along, and the proposal sent to us by City Council is the one they intend to adopt. I think.”
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article221645025.html

MEADOWS FINED AND REPRIMANDED OVER CODDLING SEXUAL HARASSER: Rep. Mark Meadows, a Republican from western North Carolina, must repay the government more than $40,000 after the House Ethics Committee found that Meadows didn’t do enough to address or prevent harassment by his former chief of staff. Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, also received a reprimand from the committee, which began an investigation in 2016 after getting a referral from the independent Office of Congressional Ethics. “Meadows’ failure to take prompt and decisive action to deal with the alleged sexual harassment in his congressional office was troubling,” the committee wrote in its report released Friday afternoon.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article221776670.html

REPUBLICANS HOLD KANGAROO COURT OVER COOPER'S PIPELINE MITIGATION FUND: State legislators will hire an investigator to review Gov. Roy Cooper administration's handling of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline amid Republican suggestions that the governor may have extorted Duke Energy for millions over a key project permit. The decision came at the end of the second legislative committee meeting in a row on the controversy during which Republican lawmakers essentially asked rhetorical questions from a lectern. No one from the administration was there to answer. The Governor's Office said Republicans "staged another bizarre kangaroo court to score political points." Cooper has repeatedly denied the pay-to-play accusations, which Republican leaders present not as fact, but as open questions that the administration won't answer to their satisfaction.
https://www.wral.com/legislature-putting-investigator-onto-cooper-administration-over-atlantic-coast...

DESPITE PENDING LAWSUITS, ATLANTIC COAST PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION UNDERWAY: Land is being cleared in Cumberland County for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, but opponents still hope to stop the project. Bridget Munger, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Quality, said company officials received a stormwater permit for the contractor’s yard in Cumberland County last month. “They have received the required environmental permits and approvals to proceed with work on the project,” she said. Aaron Ruby, a spokesman for Dominion Energy, said the company building the pipeline also has gotten the needed federal permits. “We’re moving full steam ahead,” he said. Mac Legerton, a Robeson County minister who opposes the pipeline, said two lawsuits — one each in federal court and state court — are challenging the project. “This situation is long from over,” he said.
https://www.fayobserver.com/news/20181112/workers-make-way-for-atlantic-coast-pipeline

VOTERS LOSE, GERRYMANDERING WINS. THIS NEEDS TO STOP: Tuesday 49.7 percent of the state’s voters picked Democrats to send to the U.S. House of Representatives. But only three Democrats (23 percent) actually were elected. “The blue tide did not breach the gerrymandered sea wall that exists because of the broken redistricting process we have in North Carolina,” Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause NC, said after the election. “That was what we were watching for. We were waiting to see, does anything change? Gerrymandering does provide a protective sea wall.” Phony rationalizing that Democrats competed in several close races in this election and captured a few more seats, misses the point. What Republicans know – and the evidence shows in the results of this most recent election – is that even when the party put up flawed and lack-luster candidates, the districts are so rigged it is all-but impossible to lose.
https://www.wral.com/editorial-voters-lose-gerrymandering-wins-it-needs-to-stop/17979817/