July 8, 2007

by Curtis Wright
Community Commentator, local columnist for the John Locke 'Squall Lines' Blog, and host of The Morning Beat on The Big Talker 93.7/106.3 FM in Wilmington, North Carolina.

What ever happened to patriots and professional legal practitioners like Justice Robert Orr: citizens and lawyers who actually know and follow the law in North Carolina?

Why is it that the people of North Carolina have to chase their elected governmental bodies around the block to try and get them to follow our laws?

Is it too much to ask that the “well settled” issue of using “public money” for “private purpose” by the North Carolina Supreme Court be respected and followed?

Take some time and educate yourself by pulling the decisions of our North Carolina Supreme Court in the 1960’s and the supporting cases, such as; People v. Parks; Allen v. Jay; Parksburg v. Brown; English v. People; State v. Town of North Miami.

“Indeed, it is well settled by all decisions on the subject, with none to the contrary, that the power of taxation may not be employed for the purpose of establishing, aiding or maintaining private business enterprises….however important it may be to the community…it is not the business of government to aid them with its means”

“It is public money and under our organic law public money cannot be appropriated for private purpose or used for the purpose of acquiring property for the benefit of a private concern…the financing of private enterprises by means of public funds is entirely foreign to a proper concept of our constitutional system”.

The City of Wilmington and New Hanover County government officials, supported by a liberal press, controlled for years by those that would call themselves “fiscally conservative”, with some even being lawyers, have perverted the purpose of government, supported misplaced public priorities, and violated our most basic principals of our laws.

Financing a Convention Center with public tax dollars; funding soccer fields with public funds for the benefit of members of a private organization; continual attempts to publicly fund a private museum, owned by millionaires, while ignoring the needs of the ‘public’ museum; and, paying unreasonable amounts of public funds for parcels of land; and, publically funding the local, privately owned film industry, while ignoring the needs of our public safety agencies, are just some of those perversions of our laws.

I can only figure that reading and understanding basic concepts of law were not the educational priorities of our elected officials – including those who would call themselves “professional lawyers”!

This is Curtis Wright and that’s my opinion