Coble Dismisses Zebulon’s Request for Help
months after Zebulon went to court to kick the Carolina Mudcats baseball team out of Five County Stadium unless the team paid more rent, the town is asking the local big boys – Raleigh and Wake County – to join its fight.
Clyde Holt, an attorney who represents both Zebulon and the Triangle East Regional Sports Authority, the public body that oversees the stadium, asked the Raleigh City Council on Tuesday to intervene in the suit. Holt also sent a letter to Wake County officials asking the county for support.
Zebulon Mayor Bob Matheny and Town Attorney Andy Gay said they want the city and county to help fix what they believe is a bad deal for taxpayers. “We do not want to take taxpayer money and subsidize Steve Bryant’s operation,” said Matheny, referring to the Mudcats owner.
The team, meanwhile, has filed a motion in Wake Superior Court to dismiss Zebulon’s lawsuit and says it wants to continue playing in the ballpark. Its lease doesn’t end until 2012.
Matheny said the town, which has an annual budget of slightly more then $ 7 million, cannot afford to subsidize a baseball stadium by more than $ 70,000 a year. Zebulon says it spends $ 130,000 a year on utilities and maintenance. The Mudcats pay $ 57,500 a year in rent and provide some maintenance, equipment and cleaning services. The county recently completed a $ 15 million upgrade to the stadium, using money from the countywide hotel and meals taxes administered by both the city and county.
Matheny did not get any sympathy from Raleigh Mayor Paul Coble, who gave his usual plain-spoken interpretation of the circumstances.
“As I understand it, your argument is you did such a lousy job building, managing and writing the contract, you allowed them to take advantage of you, and you want our help?” Coble said.
Holt looked surprised.
“Mayor,” he said, “that’s a little stronger than I said.”
The Raleigh council agreed to study the lawsuit before making a decision. Wake Manager David Cooke said the county likely will do the same.
Holt, Matheny and Gay did not look pleased but thanked the council anyway. They and several members of the sports authority huddled against a second-floor window of City Hall, listening to Holt explain what just happened.
Asked if he was worried, Matheny smiled and shook his head. “We’re all headed in the same direction, I think, and that’s to look closely at how taxpayer money is handled,” he said. “So that’s fine. We’re happy with this.”
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Political Scorecard:
Red awakening: Raleigh City Councilman Marc Scruggs Jr. was angry, no question about it. After finally getting the General Assembly to let Raleigh and other Wake County towns use cameras to catch motorists who run red lights, he ran into some serious – and he said unexpected – opposition right at City Hall.
At Tuesday’s council meeting, Scruggs asked his colleagues to let the Law and Public Safety Committee recommend where to put the cameras and how to pay for them. But Mayor Paul Coble and Councilman John Odom frowned on the request. They said the cameras would invade people’s privacy. Coble also said he didn’t like the way that legislators had written the law, or the idea of paying for the cameras. He said the city’s motorcycle cops could handle any red-light runners.
Scruggs’ face reddened as he listened to Coble and Odom, usually two of his allies.
He wondered aloud: Why spit on the idea now, after he and politicians from other Wake towns had lobbied the legislature on the idea? Why campaign on public safety and then oppose something that could free up more time for cops? And isn’t a cop sitting on the corner the same as a camera, anyway?
“Don’t talk to me right now,” he said after the meeting. “I’m so angry.”
The next morning, after a jog at dawn and a swig of Gatorade, Scruggs was calmer but still not quite ready to forgive. He is not seeking re-election this year, and he wanted the red-light cameras to be part of his legacy.
“I’ve put six years of work into this thing, on and off the council,” he said. “I told the General Assembly there was unanimous support. Couldn’t these guys have said something sooner?”
One in, one out: Andrew Leager says he will join the race for two at-large Raleigh City Council seats. Three other candidates have already filed: incumbent councilman Mort Congleton, Common Sense’s development director Janet Cowell and Planning Commission Chairman Neal Hunt.
Leager, 53, an architect, says he wants to promote better development and downtown revitalization. “We need a metropolitan form where, if you want, it is possible not to use your car, where people willingly and voluntarily do things without driving, and do so in their own self interest,” he wrote in a letter July 18.
In 1993, Leager lost to Paul Coble, who is now the mayor, for northwest Raleigh’s District E council seat.
Meanwhile, another long-whispered at-large candidate, Esther Hall, said she has decided not to run. The executive director of Arts Together said she has too many responsibilities – including leading a $ 4.3 million fund-raising drive for a new SPCA shelter
– to take on a political campaign right now.
“Politics is about timing,” said Hall, 49, who is married to state Sen. Brad Miller. “There are plenty of good people running this year. They won’t miss me.”
… and a reminder: When filing begins Monday, Raleigh City Councilman James West will be in Atlanta at a conference on bringing economic development to under-invested cities. But the Southeast Raleigh representative wants everyone to know he will be seeking re-election. He says he plans to file Thursday after he returns from the three-day conference.
Dress code on fast track: The chances that Wake students will have to cover up their bellybuttons and leave their caps at home went up a great deal this week.
New school board Chairwoman Kathryn Quigg named J.C. O’Neal the new chairman of the board’s policy committee. That post gives O’Neal, one of the board’s most outspoken supporters of a strict dress code, the ability to fast-track the recommendations of a board-appointed committee that advocated toughening clothing standards.
The previous policy committee chairwoman and newly appointed board vice chairwoman, Susan Parry, wasn’t as gung-ho about pushing ahead on the issue.
School bell: The times are changing, literally, for the Wake school board.
Starting in September, the full board will meet the first and third Tuesdays of each month. Board committee meetings will take place the first three Tuesdays of each month. Times haven’t been set yet, but all the meetings will be in the afternoon. The full board has been meeting the first and third Mondays, and the committees meet whenever their schedules permit.
Quigg, the school board chairwoman, said she implemented the changes to streamline things. She said that because board members don’t get their packets for the meetings until Thursday, waiting until Tuesday will give them more time to prepare.
And more filings: More candidates filed this week for the municipal elections Nov. 6 in many of Wake’s small towns.
In Apex, incumbent Mike Jones of 1607 Cone Ave. is seeking re-election as commissioner. In Fuquay-Varina, commissioner Gene Truelove of 809 Holland Road is running for mayor.
In Holly Springs, Mayor Parrish “Ham” Womble of 114 W. Hickory Ave. is seeking re-election, and Van A. Crandall of 4813 Salem Ridge Road and incumbent Chet Van Fossen of 5104 Windance Place are running for commissioner. In Wake Forest, Rob Bridges of 728 Wall Road and David P. Camacho of 7906 Hogan Drive are running for commissioner.
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Political Trail:
– Charles Meeker, a candidate for Raleigh mayor, will hold a fund-raiser from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the home of Barbara and Allen Page, 5601 Lambshire Drive.
– Wake Young Democrats will discuss campaign finance reform at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the home of state Sen. Eric Reeves and Mary Morgan Reeves, 1116 Cowper Drive in Raleigh.
– Jerry Agar, a talk-show host on WPTF-AM, will speak to N.C. Citizens for a Sound Economy on the state budget situation at a picnic at 6 p.m. Aug. 2 at the large shelter at Pullen Park in Raleigh.
