Opinions for week ending: Sunday, January 11 2009

(1.05.09) Make incentives meaningful
You would think that the leaders of businesses getting incentives would at least know their companies were receiving them. After all, the reason governments give incentives is to attract and keep businesses. But a UNC researcher found that 62 percent of the "top officials" at businesses getting incentives from the state of North Carolina didn't know their companies had them.

(1.05.09) It's past time for land use review to get started
The acknowledgement by Waynesville’s leaders that they let a review of the town’s much-heralded land use plan languish and now intend to jumpstart the process is welcome news. “It’s back on track,” said Mayor Gavin Brown of the review process. It was last March when Town Planner Paul Benson was told to get the ball rolling on this important project. But since that time, next to no progress has been made, other than establishing a committee and beginning to look at a possible consulting firms.

(1.05.09) Hog lagoons are with us still
Mike Easley was still North Carolina's attorney general when Smithfield, whose industrial farms at the time produced two-thirds of the state's hogs, agreed to phase out waste lagoons within five years and to convert to cleaner disposal systems. It's now been eight years, and a drive through Duplin County or Sampson County is a dead giveaway that hog lagoons are still with us. But new waste lagoons are now banned, a positive step that eventually should eliminate the smelly waste ponds that can overflow in heavy rains, sending their contents into nearby rivers and streams. The new rules, years in coming, took effect on New Year's Day.

Return to the Opinion Archive