{"id":646,"date":"2011-01-22T11:54:20","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T16:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/?p=646"},"modified":"2011-01-22T11:54:20","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T16:54:20","slug":"expect-pain-difficult-choice-owens-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/?p=646","title":{"rendered":"Expect Pain, Difficult Choice, Owens Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Expect pain, difficult choices, Owens says
\nBy Reggie Ponder
\nThe Daily Advance
\nFriday, January 21, 2011
\nNorth Carolina\u2019s projected $3.7 billion budget shortfall will result in painful spending cuts and require difficult decisions by state lawmakers, state Rep. Bill Owens, D-Pasquotank, told a group of area public officials and business leaders Friday.
\nOwens spoke at the annual Northeastern Legislative Summit held at The Pines in Elizabeth City. He said that in keeping with the \u201c100\u201d theme \u2014 Elizabeth City Area Chamber of Commerce President Jennifer Palestrant had mentioned earlier that the Chamber is 100 years old this year and using that as a theme \u2014 Owens predicted that 100 percent of the people would be unhappy with the upcoming state budget.
\nLawmakers will find few places to cut the state budget because all the \u201clow-lying fruit\u201d has been cut in the last two years, Owens said.<\/strong>
\nHe said 60 percent of the budget goes for education, which makes spending choices even more difficult.
\nOwens said that it\u2019s \u201cridiculous\u201d to talk about closing Elizabeth City State University and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke \u2014 as one leader from the western part of the state had mentioned.
\nOwens was scheduled to be joined at Friday\u2019s event by fellow state Reps. Tim Spear, D-Washington, and Annie Mobley, D-Hertford, and by state Sen. Ed Jones, D-Halifax.
\nHowever, because of family illnesses and conflicting schedules, Owens was the only area legislator to attend.
\nAddressing a project dear to the hearts of his constituents in Currituck, Owens said he hopes the \u201cgap funding\u201d for the proposed mid-county bridge will remain intact. Taking away that money would not help the general fund, he said.
\nAll it means, he said, is that highway money slated for this region will go elsewhere.
\n\u201cWe will be in a defensive mode because of cuts that will be taking place,\u201d Owens said.
\n<\/strong>Owens, who had reached the number two position in the House when it was controlled by Democrats, said he believes that House Republicans, who will take control when the Legislature reconvenes next week, have elected a good leadership team.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve got to say they have been very fair to me personally,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been pleased with the way they have treated me so far.\u201d
\nThe House leadership will have a tough time because of the challenging budget, he said.
\nOn an issue to Elizabeth City, Edenton, Hertford and Winfall officials, Owens said the General Assembly likely will try to curtail annexation by cities and towns.
\nOwens said that while he is interested in tweaking annexation laws, states that have sharply limited annexation have seen their cities and towns \u201cbecome slums.\u201d
\nHe said he favors raising the cap \u2014 now set at 100 \u2014 on charter schools but believes vouchers for private schools \u2014 which many Republicans would like to see implemented \u2014 would hurt public education.
\nHe said there probably will be an effort in the Legislature to repeal the Racial Justice Act.
\nAlthough there are some things in that law that some people don\u2019t support, \u201cI hope that doesn\u2019t happen,\u201d Owens said.
\nDespite those and other legislative initiatives, Owens said the most important issue for all lawmakers next session will be the budget and job creation.
\nHe said he and other area legislators have worked hard on basic infrastructure for northeastern North Carolina.
\nA lot of that is now in place because legislators have worked as a team, he said.
\nHe said he will work with Republican lawmakers in the upcoming term as much as possible. The two parties need to work together, he said, because there are \u201cbigger problems and issues than trying to make each other look bad.\u201d
\nOwens said he hopes legislators can \u201cfind some middle ground\u201d on a GOP proposal to require voters to display an identification card at the polls. He said he wants to stop voter fraud but would hate to see someone 90 years old not be able to vote because they forget their ID card, or someone who owes child support be afraid to go vote because they would have to show ID at the polls.
\nHe said there also is likely to be a push for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
\nHe said he believes the amendment is unnecessary since state law already prohibits same-sex marriage.
\nAnswering a question about funding for the N.C. Rural Center, Owens said he thought funding would continue but he predicted that local matching funds might have to increase.
\nHe said he would work to have \u201ca graduated scale\u201d so that lower-wealth counties would not be overburdened by the matching funds requirements.
\nHe said there probably will be less money available for nonprofits in the upcoming budget since basic state services have to come first.
\nAddressing the issue of redistricting, Owens said he is in favor of a nonpartisan commission working on redistricting. But he said Democrats drew districts in their favor 10 years ago and Republicans likely will do the same now.
\nAside from partisan issues, however, rural North Carolina \u201cis in for a tough road in my opinion\u201d because of the increasing influence of urban areas, Owens said.
\nThat will continue to be the case regardless of which party controls the legislature, he said.
\nRichard Bunch of the Edenton-Chowan Chamber of Commerce read a letter from Spear, who was absent because of a serious illness in his family.
\nSpear\u2019s letter said job creation is a top priority, including tax credits and lowering he capital gains tax and looking closely at regulations. He endorsed continued highway and continuation of funding for low wealth school districts.
\nThe state should consolidate and eliminate outdated and nonperforming programs, Spear\u2019s letter stated.
\n\u201cEverything will be on the table,\u201d Spear said. \u201cThere will be no sacred cows in this session.\u201d
\nContact Reggie Ponder at rponder@dailyadvance.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Expect pain, difficult choices, Owens says By Reggie Ponder The Daily Advance Friday, January 21, 2011 North Carolina\u2019s projected $3.7 billion budget shortfall will result in painful spending cuts and require difficult decisions by state lawmakers, state Rep. Bill Owens, D-Pasquotank, told a group of area public officials and business leaders Friday. Owens spoke at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":648,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions\/648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}