The Charlotte Observer / February 22, 2000, Tuesday
RALEIGH, N.C.--With the state's biggest names looking on and six months of research to back him up, Erskine Bowles on Monday presented Gov. Jim Hunt with several billion dollars worth of recommendations for rebuilding and rejuvenating rural North Carolina.
But residents in the state's struggling areas may have to wait awhile for actual help. They'll be competing with universities, public schools and pre-kindergarten programs for cash when the legislature returns in May.
Bowles and his Rural Prosperity Task Force, appointed by Hunt this past summer, met 10 times in rural areas and heard from more than 400 North Carolinians. They came up with 120 pages of recommendations for improving the economy and quality of life in rural communities.
The most critical needs Bowles and friends identified involved infrastructure. They say the state needs to bring high-speed Internet access to out-of-the-way areas. They want state lawmakers to float a $ 1.billion water and sewer bond issue. And they think a few needed rural road projects should be made a top priority.
In recent years, record low crop prices, the continuing shrinking of the textile industry and mounting environmental problems have plagued parts of southeastern, northern and western North Carolina. Even some of the slow-growing towns that ring Charlotte, including the western edge of Union County, northern Iredell County and parts of Lincoln and Gaston counties, have suffered from plant closings and high unemployment among unskilled workers.
Hurricane Floyd, which caused more than $ 6.billion in damage in the eastern half of the state, only exacerbated problems.
At the state's western tip, Swain County reported an unemployment rate of 16.3 percent in December, compared towith 2.8 percent statewide. Far-eastern Tyrrell County's unemployment rate was 12.3 percent.
"For too long, the state has underinvested in rural North Carolina," said Bowles, a Charlotte investment banker and President Clinton's former chief of staff.
"We don't have to be two North Carolinas. As a state, we can't afford that to happen. And as a people, we certainly can't morally allow it."
The main goals
Though they came up with more than 70 recommendations, everything from expanding illiteracy programs to setting up new economic incentives, Bowles and his group made some primary pitches to Hunt and state lawmakers.
Among their recommendations, over the next few years, they're asking the state to:
-- Make sure every part of the state gets high-speed Internet access at a reasonable cost. Bowles' task force warned that the state might need to increase regulation of Internet servers and perhaps add a $ 1-a-year surcharge to N.C. telephone bills to pay for expanding the information highway.
In some parts of the state, Internet access costs up to 10 times as much as it does in Charlotte and Raleigh.
-- Help bring business to poor areas by establishing state organizations to work with local economic developers. One idea is a revolving loan fund to pay for investments. Another is creation of a private small business investment corporation to spur rural growth.
-- Strengthen rural schools by giving them more money and increasing state efforts to recruit teachers to smaller school districts.
A coalition of smaller, poorer school systems have sued North Carolina, alleging the state's system of funding schools based on population is unfair. The plan would make community colleges more relevant to local needs by giving them more money and more advanced technology.
-- Encourage farmers to branch out into nontraditional crops and help them find new markets and uses for mainstays such as tobacco. Some farmers have seen their annual profits cut in half in recent years because of increased costs, dropping markets and rising international competition.
-- Make rural infrastructure -- such as roads and water and sewer lines -- a higher priority.
Bowles' group recommends asking voters to approve a $ 1.billion bond issue for water and sewer construction, on top of a $ 1.billion water and natural gas bond issue voters passed two years ago.
They also want the state Department of Transportation to give priority to road projects along three rural highways: U.S. 19E in Mitchell, Yancey and Avery counties, the Goldsboro bypass on U.S. 70 and U.S. 17 in Bertie County.
Trenton, the county seat in tiny Jones County, can't recruit new businesses because its sewer system is at maximum capacity. "We just need help," said Mayor Sylvia Willis. "This is a pretty basic thing, but it's holding us back." The six proposals presented Monday would cost $ 677.million in taxpayer money -- and more than another couple of a billion dollars more in federal grants, local contributions and private donations -- over the next five years, Bowles said. State legislators, while supportive, say money could be a problem.
Tax cuts, increased spending and huge court losses have left North Carolina facing a half-billion-dollar budget shortfall that lawmakers will have to address when they return to Raleigh in May. And University of North Carolina system leaders and community college supporters put a bond issue for repairs and new construction before voters in November.
House Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg, said he didn't expect the legislature to approve a large -- say $ 100.million or more -- package this year. He also said putting more than one bond on the ballot -- say, money for college construction and for rural infrastructure -- would be a tough sell.
"Money's tight," Black said. "We've got a full plate of things to deal with this year." But Black and Senate leader Marc Basnight, D-Dare, agree improving the lot of rural communities is critical to the state's continued economic good times.
They'll meet with Hunt soon to comb through Bowles' recommendations to see what can be done in the next few years.
"People back home in Charlotte might not realize it, but we're going to feel it if we continue to let the rural parts of the state lag," Black said.
"Their success is our success. Same thing is true for their failure. We have to find a way to start implementing some of these recommendations if we don't want to learn that lesson the hard way."
Copyright 2000 The Charlotte Observer:
