Z. Anne Hoyle about National League of Cities Meeting

My last letter about the City Council meeting of February 17, 2009 was so long that I left out Ms. Hoyle's important comments at the end of that meeting. Ms. Hoyle is a North Carolina representative for the National League of Cities. She is on the Public Safety and Crime Prevention Steering Committee for the NLC.

Ms. Hoyle went to Capitol Hill to talk about Hickory's plight, in terms of money, that needs to be addressed with our infrastructure. The committee worked for two evenings and as a result she feels that they came up with a pretty good plan. She was involved directly with infrastructure plans. She wants money from the federal government to be sent directly to the cities, instead of coming to the state and then being filtered down to the cities. In the past there have been issues when the State of North Carolina has had a shortfall, they end up confiscating money that was intended for the cities.

The Hound is happy to hear about Ms. Hoyle taking a stand on this issue. What good does it do, when this City runs a tight fiscal ship and Raleigh continues to constantly kick sand in our face. This State has been no friend to Hickory. We have constantly been short shrifted by the good ole boy network in Raleigh.

The worst part is that we have received little representation by local leaders when it comes to our issues with Raleigh. State Senator Austin (Who?) Allran is worried about unenforceable text messaging legislation, when he needs to get on the ball and propose legislation that keeps the State Government from being able to confiscate County and Municipal funds, the way they have in the past.

Ms. Hoyle should not have to stand alone. We need to join together with other local governmental entities, like we have with the Catawba River Project, to grab the bully pulpit and tell Raleigh that their out of control budget process is unacceptable and they better not steal any more local funds, like they did with the half-cent sales tax a few years ago.

It is time for Raleigh to get its house in order.