Foes swap sharp words

RALEIGH — Paul Coble and Charles Meeker debated for the second time in their mayoral campaign Thursday night, offering widely different answers on solving traffic problems, supporting public safety and privatizing city services such as parking enforcement.

Coble, the 48-year-old insurance broker and the incumbent mayor, and Meeker, the 51-year-old lawyer who is challenging him, will meet in two more debates before the runoff election Nov. 6.

Three panelists — two journalists and the head of a conservative Raleigh-based think tank — posed the questions. Panelists were John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation; Cash Michaels, editor of The Carolinian newspaper; and Todd Mormon, a columnist for The Spectator weekly newspaper. The debate, arranged by The Spectator and NBC-17 TV, aired live on NBC-17 Thursday night.

The rivals appeared edgier than at their first public faceoff on WRAL-TV last week. As their political consultants watched nervously, the two men tried to handicap each other’s signature issues while answering the panel’s questions.

Coble attacked Meeker on development and traffic issues. Meeker dug into Coble on public safety and his support for turning over parking enforcement to a private company.

On Thursday, the two men addressed the most high-profile infill project in the city’s history — Neal Coker’s failed proposal to build a dense collection of high-rise homes, offices and shops on 15 acres near Cameron Village.

Coble said Meeker and his supporters, the neighbors who opposed the project, never wanted to negotiate with Coker and used the issue for political purposes. “My opponent never intended that to be a project,” Coble said of the Coker project. Coble said he supported the project after the Planning Commission approved a smaller version than the one Coker initially proposed. Meeker said the project should have been scaled down a little further to fit in with the neighborhoods and limit traffic impact.

Meeker said the proposed project’s neighbors spent months researching the case, so it is unfair to dismiss their concerns. He also said the mayor should have brought Coker and the developers to the negotiating table early in the process.

Coble repeatedly pointed out Meeker’s opposition to the Outer Loop, or I-540. In 1989, when the council was discussing the highway, Meeker, then a council member, did not support it because he believed the highway would encourage sprawl.

And, in his closing statement, Coble repeated his claim that Meeker did not support the Edwards Mill connector in northwest Raleigh. (Meeker actually supported the road: He pushed for the connector over a more controversial road called the Duraleigh connector, which he said would have disrupted neighborhoods and endangered William B. Umstead State Park.)

“I’m really positive about Raleigh,” Coble said in his closing statement. “He [Meeker] looks at what’s wrong with the city.”

On public safety –one of Coble’s pet issues — Meeker pointed out that he had received the endorsements of organizations representing police and firefighters. Meeker said this was partly because Coble had brushed off their concerns, such as low salaries and poor benefits, during his eight years on the council.

Coble responded by saying he had supported large pay increases for the officers and that the organizations that endorsed Meeker are affiliated with the AFL-CIO. Only one of the three, the Raleigh Police Protective Association, has such ties. The other two groups, the Wake County Chapter of the Police Benevolent Association and the Raleigh Professional Fire Fighters Association, do not. “I don’t think it’s fair to bash our police officers,” Meeker said.

Meeker also dug into Coble for privatizing the city’s parking enforcement services, a venture that has been criticized by several downtown business owners who believe the company, Capital City Parking, is overzealous and unfair in issuing tickets. Meeker said the city should do its own parking enforcement.

Coble defended the parking privatization, saying it was the best way to keep parking spaces open downtown. He also suggested that Meeker, who works at a downtown law firm, didn’t support the privatization because he didn’t want to pay for parking. [Meeker, who lives in the Boylan Heights neighborhood near downtown, usually walks to work.]

In his closing statement, Meeker said he supports further restrictions on clear-cutting, opposes dense development in the Falls Lake watershed and would invite more public participation in development issues.

“It shouldn’t be a good ol’ boy network,” he said of city government.

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MAYORAL DEBATES

Raleigh Mayor Paul Coble and challenger Charles Meeker are scheduled to appear in two more debates before their Nov. 6

runoff:

– Monday, 7 to 8:30 p.m.; live forum sponsored by N.C. Citizens for a Sound Economy, McKimmon Center, 1101 Gorman St. at Western Boulevard.

– Nov. 4, 9 a.m.; taped forum airs on sponsor WTVD-TV (channel

11)

CORRECTION-DATE: November 08, 2001

CORRECTION:

An article Friday in the Metro section gave an incomplete record of mayoral candidate Charles Meeker’s stance on the Edwards Mill connector in Northwest Raleigh. In 1993, Meeker, then a City Council member, voted against a proposal to endorse the Edwards Mill project, though he says he did so because the proposal included the Duraleigh Road connector, which he opposed. In 1995, he voted for a proposal to build the Edwards Mill connector. Mayor Paul Coble, then also a council member, also voted yes in 1995 and is making Meeker’s vote in 1993 an issue in the campaign.