OK, maybe we didn’t actually hear people say this stuff about some of the year’s biggest local news stories, but we know they thought it. In the interest of full disclosure, Creative Loafing has dug deep into the noggins of those directly involved in some of the year’s biggest stories to let readers know what’s really going on behind the scenes. Please note, once again: the following are not actual statements made by the people cited here. This is satire. OK, CL lawyers — happy now?
“I’m way too sexy for North Carolina” — Likely presidential candidate John Edwards, who was elected to his first term in the US Senate by NC voters in 1998. Since then, Edwards has spent a good deal of his free time not in North Carolina, but campaigning in other states considered key to winning the presidency. This strategy has earned him the admiration of the media and some degree of disdain from North Carolinians, who seem sharply divided on whether they still like the guy they haven’t seen much of since they elected him (when he was generally known as “not Lauch Faircloth”). A poll conducted this spring by Elon University showed Edwards’ approval ratings among North Carolina voters had plummeted to 43 percent, down 14 percentage points since October. Three out of five North Carolinians oppose his potential White House bid, the poll found.
“When they’re that desperate, it almost takes the fun out of squeezing them dry. Almost.” — NBA Commissioner David Stern, musing to himself about the deal he cut with the Charlotte City Council in which the city pays the full cost of building a new $265 million arena voters said they didn’t want, and the new team reaps nearly all the revenue the building brings in. For their efforts, Stern and the NBA will get $300 million from new team owner Robert Johnson that will help keep the struggling NBA afloat and Charlotte will get. . .uh. . .a really big building.
“I think of it as a mere accounting error.” — Former Mecklenburg County Democratic Party Chairman Andrew Reyes, explaining the 15 bank fraud charges against him. Reyes disappeared in May 2001 after telling friends he was leaving town on a business trip. Soon afterward, he was accused of stealing $3.6 million of an accounting client’s money. Then it was discovered that Reyes was only pretending to be an accountant, that he wasn’t the rich businessman he’d told everyone he was, and the social security number he was using wasn’t even his. Before his reign in Mecklenburg County politics was over, Reyes had donated thousands of dollars that likely weren’t his to local and national political candidates. He was picked up near the Mexican border by federal agents this fall. He now sits in a Mecklenburg County jail awaiting trial.
“People should be grateful for all the free fertilizer.” — County Manager Harry Jones, explaining the benefits of the raw sewage spills that happen nearly every day in Mecklenburg County. An investigation by Creative Loafing revealed that over 12 million gallons of raw sewage was spilled into the waters of Mecklenburg County between 1999 and 2001 in 815 separate incidents. Many of the larger spills CL analyzed wound up in creeks and streams in subdivisions or residential areas. Despite the repeat nature of several large spills from the same pump station areas, North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR) didn’t fine the spiller, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities (CMU), for a single one of these incidents despite levying fines on businesses for much smaller spills. Although Jones and county staff still refuse to publicly acknowledge that the problem exists, CMU has put in motion a plan to notify nearby residents of spills near their home with door hangers.
“Hey, I know they’re cash-strapped, but there’s no way I’m going out poor like the folks living in those broke-ass houses we managed.” — Harrison Shannon, the former Charlotte Housing Authority CEO who left the cash-strapped agency that manages the city’s public housing projects with a $170,000 severance package. Shannon departed after an embarrassing audit showed that tens of thousands of dollars of maintenance supplies were missing, budgets had been ignored, and public housing waiting lists were in nearly complete disarray.
“The real tragedy is that this cigarette tax money could have lined the pockets of rich tobacco producers, instead of being funneled to terrorists who’ve never donated a dime to Mike Easley’s gubernatorial campaign.” — A US prosecutor explaining the real reason the government was so hot to convict two Lebanese men of smuggling cigarettes from North Carolina to Michigan to raise funds for the Middle Eastern terrorist organization Hezbollah. Their Charlotte trial this summer caught national attention. And so did the escapades of Golden Leaf, a committee created in part by the Easley administration to distribute funds from the tobacco settlement to retrain struggling tobacco farmers. Members of the group’s board made national news when they helped themselves to some of the money instead.
“You’ve just got to check out our benefits package. And you don’t even have to show up to work.” — A Duke Power executive, testifying before a governor’s committee studying causes of the power outage that left two million people without power in the wake of an ice storm.
“You know, he’s absolutely right! — Charlotte Mayor, and ostensible Duke Power employee, Pat “Lapper” McCrory.
“Here at Crossroads Charter High School, we do whatever it takes to help students achieve.” — Proposed new motto for the troubled charter high school. After three teachers from the school for academically and behaviorally challenged kids claimed the school had fixed students’ grades to allow them to graduate, the school’s attorney convinced a judge to slap a gag order on Creative Loafing. The order was later overturned by a judge who seemed to have more of a grip on the whole concept of freedom of the press. The school continues to operate despite financial troubles, though nearly everyone who taught there in its first year of operation has quit or has been fired.
This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2003.
