N.C. Governor: State Needs $2.8 Billion Infrastructure Bond Proposal to Stay Competitive
Katherine Welles / Shutterstock.com
“We’re selling quality of life,” according to Pat McCrory.
North Carolina is in a competition, according to Gov. Pat McCrory.
Among the other contenders are neighboring states, such as South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The objective: attracting employers and jobs.
Part of McCrory’s plan to edge out North Carolina’s competitors is a $2.85 billion bond package he’d like to see put before voters this November. If approved, the bonds could help pay for over 300 projects around the state, involving highways, ports, parks and other infrastructure.
McCrory has been promoting the bond proposal for several months now. The Republican governor continued to make his case for it on Tuesday during a press conference at the Executive Mansion in Raleigh. Dozens of local leaders joined him to show their support.
“The people behind me, who are visiting Raleigh today, get it,” McCrory said, referring to the local officials. “They get that we have to invest in the future now, and the longer we delay the more expensive it’s going to get for the taxpayers of North Carolina, and the longer we delay the less competitive their cities and towns are going to be when we compete with other states.”
“If we invest in our future, we beat our competition for jobs,” he added. “We’re selling quality of life, of North Carolina.”
The governor’s proposal consists of two separate bond issues. One totalling $1.48 billion would pay for 101 infrastructure projects in 64 counties. Another, worth $1.37 billion, would finance 27 highway projects and 176 paving projects in 57 counties, according to the governor’s office.
Getting the bond measures on ballots around North Carolina this fall will require approval from the state’s General Assembly. And some key lawmakers in the Republican-controlled legislature have voiced skepticism.
"I don't think there's substantial support for the transportation bonds," Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, who represents a district that includes Guilford and Rockingham counties and borders Virginia to the north, said recently, according to WTVD-TV. "We think there's a way to get dollars into transportation from current transportation taxes that will address the funding issues that would be satisfied by the bonds on a short-term basis but satisfy them on a long-term basis."
The projects in the governor’s proposal vary widely in type and scope and are spread across regions located throughout the state. They include possible road construction on stretches of Interstate, as well as state and U.S highways, renovations for university buildings, upgrades to state parks, and even improvements to exhibits at the North Carolina Zoo.
Johnnie Carswell is chairman of the Burke County Board of Commissioners. The county is situated in the western part of the state, along Interstate 40, near the Blue Ridge Mountains.
North Carolina is about 500 miles wide in some places, and during his comments at Tuesday’s press conference, Carswell joked that some think of the state as stopping at Interstate 77, a north-south highway running through Charlotte, east of Burke.
“We’d like to connect that western part of the state with the eastern part of the state,” he said. “As far as economic development, I think those roads that are going to be built to us will help us tremendously.”
“We need this,” Carswell said earlier in his remarks. “This is actually the future for us.”
NEXT STORY: Consistency, agility and cost: the calculus of cloud