What North Carolina’s City Leaders Want Most From the Feds

Asked about issues confronting his city that he’d like to see members of Congress and the 2016 presidential contenders address, Sterling Cheatham, the city manager of Wilmington, North Carolina did not have much trouble coming up with a few suggestions.

“High on our list would be the degrading infrastructure,” said Cheatham, who has held the city manager post in Wilmington since 2003. “Our transportation network, from our roads, to our boulevards, to our bridges are antiquated.”

He added: “The level of funding doesn’t reflect the commitment that transportation requires.”

Route Fifty contacted about a half-dozen local leaders in North Carolina cities last week to ask about the priorities they’d like to see federal lawmakers, and the presidential candidates, devote more attention to. Transportation funding was a common refrain.

But the leaders raised other issues as well.

For instance, the mayor of Fayetteville wants to see a robust military presence maintained at Fort Bragg, a major military installation located on the edge of the city. Others would like stronger federal commitments toward the Community Development Block Grant Program, job training, and law enforcement initiatives.

Referring to the 2016 presidential race, Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said: “There is a path to victory for whichever candidate chooses to grab it.”

What is that path? “Talking about helping our cities,” he said.

‘We Are Now an Urban State’

North Carolina’s population is expanding. Much of that growth is happening in and around the state’s cities and urbanized counties.

Estimates compiled by the University of North Carolina’s Carolina Population Center show the number of people in the state increasing by a projected 11 percent between 2010 and 2020, from about 9.5 million to nearly 10.5 million people. About 718,000 of the roughly 1 million new residents will be on top of the population change that would occur naturally from births and deaths. In other words, these residents will come to North Carolina from out-of-state.

The counties expected to see the biggest upticks in population encompass metropolitan areas like Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh, the state capital. By 2020, for example, it’s estimated that the number of people in Wake County, where Raleigh is located, will have shot up by 23 percent compared to 2010, to 1.1 million residents.

“We are now an urban state,” said Kleinschmidt, whose town of 60,000 residents, home to the University of North Carolina’s flagship campus, is part of the Research Triangle region. “More people are living in cities than live in rural areas.” That’s true, according to 2010 Census data.

About 66.1 percent of North Carolina residents lived in urban parts of the state, the data show. In 1990, that same figure was about 50.4 percent.

Kleinschmidt stressed that he did not think that increased federal support for cities needed to come at the expense of rural areas, but added: “Increasingly the cities just don’t get their share.”

The Transportation Backdrop

Several of the local officials Route Fifty contacted in North Carolina, identified transportation as an important area where they’d like to see bolstered and more consistent federal support.

Congressional lawmakers have struggled in recent years to figure out how to shore up long-term highway and transit funding, passing 34 short-term funding measures since 2009. With the current extension—which was approved in July—set to expire on Oct. 29, another temporary patch, rather than a more permanent fix, is expected later this month.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is scheduled to markup a multi-year bill this week that would maintain current federal surface transportation funding levels, providing around $325 billion over the next six years. Senate legislation passed in July would provide $350 million, but only offers a way to pay for three of the six years covered by the bill.

‘We Like to Be Able to Plan’

For local officials in North Carolina, concerns about federal transportation funding aren’t just about opening the spigot of dollars more widely. They also stem from the lack of certainty that comes with the Band-Aid approach toward funding roads and transit that has become so common in Congress.

“We like to be able to plan more than one year, or two years,” said Durham Mayor Bill Bell, referring to federal transportation funding.

This is because certain infrastructure projects can require planning efforts that start long before the time construction begins.

Bell highlighted a proposed 17-mile light rail line that would connect Durham County with Chapel Hill in Orange County. The currently projected operating date for the line is 2025 or 2026. A portion of the estimated $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion needed to build the light rail would come from ½ cent local sales taxes. But how the total amount will materialize is unclear.

Slipped into North Carolina’s latest state budget was a $500,000 state spending cap on light rail projects. A bill that would annul that provision remained in a Senate committee when this year’s General Assembly session ended on Sept. 30, and could be acted on in the next session. Left in place, the budget provision would likely torpedo any chance of the light rail getting built.

“In Durham and Orange County we’ve secured the local 25 percent needed for the project,” Kleinschmidt said. “Traditionally the state picks up 25 percent and the feds picks up 50 percent.” So far, that’s not the case. “This current legislature has already indicated they’re not willing to pay the 25 percent,” Chapel Hill’s mayor said. “But we don’t need it right now, so hopefully we’ll be able to convince them later.”

Uncertainty around federal transportation funding complicates matters further for the light rail project. “This is a 10-year planning horizon,” Kleinschmidt explained. “Without confidence that Congress is going to be making these kinds of investments, it puts us in a very difficult place.”

He did note that in September the Federal Transit Administration awarded a $1.7 million grant that will help pay for planning the project.

A Bridge Across the Cape Fear River

In Wilmington, the most pressing transportation projects don’t have to do with rail, but roadways, according to Cheatham, the city manager there.

“Our principal priority right now is to build another bridge into the city,” he said.

He also noted the proposed Independence Boulevard Extension project, which is currently in development, but unfunded.

A city of around 113,000 people, Wilmington is located about 50 miles north of the South Carolina state line, near the Atlantic coast.

Slicing north-south along the city’s western edge is the Cape Fear River. There are only two bridges that cross the river within the city limits, providing a route in and out of Wilmington to the west. A third bridge carries Interstate 140 over a branch of the river a few miles north of town.

Both of the in-town bridges are aging. But according to a North Carolina State Department of Transportation spokesman they’re in good condition. The Cape Fear Memorial Bridge was built in 1969 and has about 25 years left in its planned lifespan. The other, the Isabel Holmes Bridge, was constructed in 1980 and should be useable for about 40 more years.

Planned rehab projects could extend the lifespan of both bridges, the spokesman also said.

But Cheatham believes an added bridge could unlock more economic opportunities with the city’s port, and accommodate Wilmington’s growing population.

The number of people in New Hanover County, where the city is located, is set to rise by a projected 19 percent to about 241,000 residents by 2020. As of 2013, the city’s port was ranked 64th nationally in terms of total cargo tonnage, with 6.7 million tons of freight moving in and out of the facility that year, according to figures from the American Association of Port Authorities.

Some preliminary planning has taken place for a third span across the river. The proposed bridge project is known as the Cape Fear Crossing. It would be located south of the other bridges. “That’s a project that we know, looking forward, we really need to try to develop the wherewithal to make happen,” Cheatham said. But the estimated price tag for completing the bridge is $950 million to $1 billion, and the construction costs remain unfunded.

‘I Guess I Can Eat Cannolis’

Esther Manheimer was elected mayor of Asheville in 2013. Nestled amid mountains in the western part of the state, the city has about 87,000 residents. Food, beer, art, access to the outdoors and liberal politics are some of what the city is known for.

In recent years, state lawmakers have moved to crimp revenues going to cities in North Carolina, according to Manheimer. This has implications when it comes to federal grants.

“When I’m looking at running a city that’s in a pinch between the loss of state funding and more pressure on my citizens,” she said. “I’m going to turn more toward federal opportunities.”

But taking advantage of those federal funding opportunities isn’t always simple.

“They don’t just write you a check,” Manheimer said. Federal dollars, she added, are “not necessarily targeted at the absolute thing that you need.” There’s an analogy Manheimer likes to use to explain this phenomenon. “Because of the nature of the grants, and their particular focus, I always joke, I say: ‘I need meat and potatoes and they say, well, we’ve got cannolis.’”

“And you’re like: ‘well, I wasn’t looking for cannolis,” she continued. “But I guess I can eat cannolis.”

As an example, Manheimer mentions funding for adding bus service. She says a federal grant might be available for buses. But a big cost of adding service is paying for more drivers, which the money cannot be used for. Likewise, a city might need more dollars to buy new police cruisers, while money from Washington is only available for police officer body cameras.

That doesn’t mean a city like Asheville doesn’t welcome and appreciate the cash.

“You patch it together,” Manheimer said. “We’re very good at adapting.”

She also thinks that when you look at the big picture, the Obama administration’s criteria for directing many federal grants is aligned with what residents in progressive cities want.

“They have policies that are sound and that, I think, are very much in sync with city priorities in the U.S.,” the mayor said. “I do think that the administration sets policies that are aimed at getting cities to where they think cities need to be.”

But depending on the grant program, and who you ask, there can be differences of opinion about whether federal money is being smartly directed within urban areas.

The city manager in Charlotte declined an interview request for this story. The Democratic candidate for mayor there, Jennifer Roberts, did not return requests for an interview. As of late last week she was polling 15-points ahead of her Republican opponent, Edwin Peacock.

Peacock did speak with Route Fifty. He is critical of a streetcar project in Charlotte, and took a dim view of a Federal Transit Administration grant that helped fund it.

The mayoral candidate touted the success of Charlotte’s 9.6 mile light rail line, which opened in 2007. But he thinks the CityLYNX Gold Line streetcar is too expensive, too slow, and that it obstructs traffic. “The reason the city went for it,” he said, “is because the Obama administration said: ‘hey, we’re going to offer a matching grant for this.’”

America’s Hometown

Located in Fayetteville, there are about 63,000 military and 11,000 civilian personnel working at Fort Bragg, according to information about the base published by the Army. Compared to a place like Asheville, the federal issues seen as important there are a bit different.

“We’d love to have a bigger, more robust system of transit here,” said Mayor Nat Robertson. “But that’s so low on our priority list when we’re talking about dealing with the needs of our military.” He added: “We just want to make sure that we remain ‘America’s Hometown’ and that Fort Bragg continues to build its strengths right here.”

It’s difficult, Robertson explained, to pin down one message he has for congressional lawmakers. This is because decisions at the federal level about Fort Bragg, determining things like troop levels there, are so complicated.

A report from the Army earlier this year said the facility could see as many as 16,000 military and civilian positions shed over the next decade, and that the regional dent in the economy could be almost $1 billion. According to the Army Times, a local county commissioner said the effects from from this level of downsizing would amount to an "economic tsunami" for the region.

Robertson warned that cuts at the base could have major consequences for the local housing market in particular. Referring to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, he said: “About half the homes in Fayetteville are secured by VA financing.”

‘We Need Investment’

Jobs, housing and public safety were among the other topics that the local leaders in North Carolina brought up when asked about where they’d like to see more support and collaboration from the federal government.

For instance, Cheatham emphasized job-training. He brought up a program that ran in Wilmington during the 1970s, which provided summer employment for low to moderate income young people, saying that it had been successful and popular.

“We live in a global society and, to a degree, our education system is not producing the level of graduates, and the number of graduates, to satisfy the demand that we place on the millennial workforce of tomorrow,” he said.

Chapel Hill’s Kleinschmidt also sees an important role for the federal government when it comes to jobs. “When Congress talks about the need to create jobs,” he said. “Those jobs don’t just materialize in space over Kansas somewhere. They happen in the cities that are the economic generators of our country.” He added: “In order to help make those jobs become reality, we need investment from the federal government in our cities.”

Kleinschmidt and Bell, in Durham, both see funding for the federal Community Development Block Grant Program as a crucial. The grant program has been around since 1974 and is overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“A lot of cities really transformed themselves from mid-twentieth century economies into modern economies, because those dollars were there to help provide educational benefits, to help create funding for people who were transitioning in their professional lives, or were at a point of real need in their lives,” Kleinschmidt said. “We’ve seen those dollars just continue to dry up.”

In Chapel Hill, he said, much of the block grant money has been funneled to local housing nonprofits.

On the public safety front, Cheatham said that the local police in Wilmington could use some help when it comes to communications technology and other equipment. And Peacock, the mayoral candidate in Charlotte, would like to see more federal resources and assistance directed toward combatting human trafficking in the city. “That is a really big issue,” he said.

Why Should the Federal Government Pay? And Will They?

When questioned about why the federal government should help cover costs like local transit projects and job training programs, city leaders who spoke with Route Fifty generally said that these investments make sense because they further national objectives.

“It’s not just a handout,” Kleinschmidt said.

“What does transit do?” he said. “It’s not just about getting a person who lives in Chapel Hill from one place to another. It’s about bringing our region into compliance with federal air quality standards. It’s about making sure that we reduce pressure on the kind of sprawl that would ultimately have some major impacts on our nation’s ability to respond to climate change issues… These are the kind of things that the federal government should be working with cities to do if we’re going to meet our national goals in those areas.”

Will the presidential candidates, or members of Congress take notice when it comes to the priorities city leaders in the Tar Heel State are calling attention to?

“I don’t see anything particularly revolutionary happening,” said Andrew Taylor, a professor of political science at the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carolina State University. “For the rest of this Congress we’re biding time until it’s over.”

Taylor noted that, in the near-term, Congress will be preoccupied with “must do” legislation. To name a few pressing issues on the horizon: the nation is nearing its debt ceiling, a continuing resolution funding the government is set to expire in December, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal will soon be debated and, of course, there’s the matter of transportation funding.

“There’s just not room for anything more,” Taylor said.

What about in the long term? Will metropolitan priorities in North Carolina and other states gain more traction in Washington, D.C., in the years ahead?

Taylor said there have been signs lately that Republicans and Democrats in Congress might cooperate on legislation related to infrastructure, criminal justice and incarceration. All of which are topics of importance for many cities.

But longstanding, partisan differences do remain, which may be difficult to overcome.

“Members of Congress represent different areas, many of them have rural and small town constituents, as well as urban ones, and particularly Republican districts tend to be less urbanized than Democratic districts, and the Republicans have the majority in the House and Senate currently,” Taylor said. “That’s a sort of political reality for managers and mayors of larger jurisdictions, or more populous jurisdictions.”