Bridge naming will honor Easley, Perdue fundraiser<\/p>\n
By Bruce Siceloff – bsiceloff@newsobserver.com<\/p>\n
By Bruce Siceloff The News and Observer<\/p>\n
Tags: Lanny Wilson | Gene Conti | Mike Easley | NC DOT | campaign finance | Wilmington<\/p>\n
State Transportation Secretary Gene Conti will travel to Wilmington on Friday to dedicate a highway bridge in honor of Lanny T. Wilson, a political fundraiser forced to resign from the state Board of Transportation in 2010 amid state and federal investigations that brought down former Gov. Mike Easley.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the bridge over 23rd Street on the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, a major road on the north side of the city. Local officials who secured the honor for Wilson credit him with bringing state highway money to the Wilmington area.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn particular, the parkway was finished during the time he was a board member, after we\u2019d had trouble getting it funded,\u201d said Laura Padgett, a Wilmington City Council member. She succeeded Wilson as chairperson of a regional planning board, a seat that Wilson also was forced to relinquish in 2010.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe needed a very strong voice for southeastern North Carolina, and we had not had a very strong voice at the Board of Transportation until he got there,\u201d Padgett said.<\/p>\n
Wilson, a lawyer and developer, was a major fundraiser for Easley, who appointed him to the state board, and for Gov. Bev Perdue, both Democrats. Perdue reappointed Wilson to the board in 2009. She also appointed Conti and current board members who agreed this fall to put his name on the Wilmington bridge.<\/p>\n
Decision disparaged<\/strong><\/p>\n Senate Republican leader Phil Berger issued a statement rebuking Perdue.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, with a nod to her predecessor and mentor Mike Easley, Perdue is allowing our roads and bridges to bear the namesake of top campaign donors, political cronies, and co-conspirators in the scandals that led to Easley\u2019s felony conviction,\u201d Berger said Thursday. \u201cIt\u2019s a good thing she only has one more month to secure her \u2018legacy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n Wilson financed a Carteret County real estate development, Cannonsgate, where Easley received a $137,000 discount on a lot. In an indictment of Easley aide Ruffin Poole \u2013 who later was sentenced to a year in federal prison for tax evasion \u2013 prosecutors said Wilson gave money and gifts to Poole to secure political access and advance his real estate interests.<\/p>\n The State Board of Elections ruled in 2009 that Easley\u2019s campaign had accepted illegal contributions from Wilson. Wilson testified that he wrote and solicited large checks for the state Democratic Party that were intended for Easley\u2019s benefit. He also testified that he had given money to his fianc\u00e9e that she then gave Easley, after he had reached the legal limit on his own direct contributions.<\/p>\n Easley later was convicted of a felony related to improper reporting by his campaign of a flight.<\/p>\n But Wilson was not charged with a crime.<\/p>\n Feelings in Wilmington<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cMr. Wilson was never indicted formally, not accused and not convicted of anything,\u201d Padgett said. \u201cOur feeling is, we\u2019re recognizing him for what he did for transportation in our area.\u201d<\/p>\n Conti serves as chairman of the Board of Transportation Road Naming Committee, and he will be the keynote speaker at the Wilson bridge dedication ceremony Friday afternoon. In an email statement released Thursday by a spokeswoman, he said there were no objections when the committee followed its practice of accepting local requests to name highways and bridges.<\/p>\n Conti said the city of Wilmington had made the request \u201cin honor of the work he did on that project and his many other civic endeavors in Wilmington and New Hanover County.\u201d<\/p>\n Local elected officials on the Wilmington planning board were split on the vote to honor Wilson.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we should name it for him,\u201d said Kure Beach Mayor Dean Lambeth. \u201cIt should have went to somebody that didn\u2019t have any baggage. He left the board under a cloud. I don\u2019t think anybody who leaves under a cloud like that needs anything named for him.\u201d<\/p>\n Lambeth had favored a proposal to name the bridge for movie producer Frank Capra Jr.<\/p>\n Siceloff: 919-829-4527 or blogs.newsobserver.com\/crosstown or twitter.com\/Road_Worrier\/<\/p>\n Read more here: http:\/\/www.newsobserver.com\/2012\/12\/06\/2529638\/bridge-naming-will-honor-easley.html#storylink=cpy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bridge naming will honor Easley, Perdue fundraiser By Bruce Siceloff – bsiceloff@newsobserver.com By Bruce Siceloff The News and Observer Tags: Lanny Wilson | Gene Conti | Mike Easley | NC DOT | campaign finance | Wilmington State Transportation Secretary Gene Conti will travel to Wilmington on Friday to dedicate a highway bridge in honor of […]<\/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-981","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\/981","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=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":989,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions\/989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomcb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}