A decade of work for temps
Two workers hired into temporary jobs ended up working for the Governor’s Highway Safety Program about 10 years before losing their posts this month.
The jobs came under the scrutiny of Gene Conti, chief deputy secretary of the state Department of Transportation, after a reorganization made the program part of the department.
In reviewing the program’s structure, Conti found that two employees hired about 10 years ago through company that places temporary workers still had those contract jobs.
The temporary workers traveled the state in state cars, telling local law enforcement officials about the state’s long-standing checkpoint programs “Click it or Ticket”, and “Booze It & Lose It.”
Conti said that they came to work for the safety office when the programs were new and the office was trying to get the word out but that the employment contracts weren’t justifiable any more.
“I didn’t think it was necessary to have people that were essentially marketing those programs because, essentially, those programs are performing well and doing a great job,” he said.
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What does SBI know?
A state legislator says he is being stonewalled in his attempts to get information from the state Attorney General’s Office about an investigation into alleged corruption in the Division of Motor Vehicles enforcement section.
State Rep. Mark Crawford, a Republican from Black Mountain, asked for the report after reading news reports about an SBI investigation into allegations that DMV officers in the western part of the state had selectively enforced the law and taken gifts from truck companies and truckers.
A report on the investigation has been circulated to district attorneys in the region and to the U.S. Attorney’s Office there as well as the Special Prosecutions Section of the N.C. Department of Justice.
But Crawford said he can’t get any information about the investigation. He said he hadn’t gotten a response to a March 7 letter he wrote SBI Director Robin Pendergraft, so he wrote state Attorney General Roy Cooper on Friday to ask for the report.
“I firmly believe that the longer they delay, the stinkier this situation,” he said. “And I do believe there is a cover-up of some serious malfeasance that was never adequately dealt with, and it needs some serious looking at.”
The state Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday that Pendergraft was drafting a reply to Crawford’s letter but wouldn’t say what she would tell him.
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Anti-tax rally in April:
An anti-tax rally, sponsored by Citizens for a Sound Economy, the Wake County Republican Party and another anti-tax group, is set for April 8.
In June, an anti-tax rally drew hundreds to the state government complex as tax increases loomed. This year the groups plan to hold the rally in April, a month before the full legislature is scheduled to convene.
Tom Roberg, a former Wake Republican Party chairman, asked delegates and candidates at the county convention this week to mark their calendars.
“It’s important to the party,” Roberg said. “It’s important to our cause.”
GRAPHIC: photo file Roberg says anti-tax rally important to Republican Party.
