BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for April 16, 2009

• N.C.'s House Finance Committee ended up voting to support the bill currently in the General Assembly that would provide a local-option transit sales tax for the Triangle -- one method (along with property tax, vehicle registration, land development deals and the like) that would help to fund a transit system for the region, if all three counties' voters go along with it. (If only some go for it, those counties get to start on their own transit priorities, though in any event funds need to be spent proportionately with where they're raised.) Even Paul Luebke voted in favor; has anyone checked his sweet tea? (N&O, H-S)
• Duke will start again making $300k annual payments to Durham to help defray the cost of fire service, something that public universities are required to do by statute, but which Duke has done voluntarily as part of a 2001 deal with the then-city manager. The payment looks to have been missed during last summer's city manager transition. (H-S)
• Durham DA Tracey Cline appeared before court this week, after defense lawyers alleged that the prosecutor may have held back evidence from the defense through the application of a witness protection order in a 2006 case. Cline insisted the protection order was needed to prevent gangland retribution from creating mayhem for witnesses. Oh, good, more prosecutorial misconduct allegations. (N&O)
• The annual job growth ratings at NewGeography.com -- a decent site, if you can get past Wendell Cox's asinine suburban claptrap posts -- find Durham-Chapel Hill ranked #4 among mid-size metros and #19 among all MSAs for job growth in '08. Raleigh-Cary, which did very well last year, dropped from #1 to #8 among large metros. (TBJ)
• "Fireball" White's property company, still in bankruptcy, gets 90 more days to try to fix up abandoned properties on Boone St., before the City will be allowed to demolish them. (H-S)
• A subsidiary of Durham's Square 1 Bank has raised $35 million out of an intended $100m for its new venture capital fund. (TBJ)
• Rays phenom David Price pitches for the D-Bulls tonight at 7:05pm against the Gwinnett Co. Braves. (We're still not sure whose bright idea it was to dump Richmond for exurban Atlanta, though the stadium in RIC was in pretty bad shape.) (N&O)

Comments

[fullsteam]

you mean the 6-and-0 Durham Bulls! wahoo!

[DRR]

With a road trip ahead of us, this might be Price's last start in Durham for the Bulls... see him if you get the chance.

[SteveG]

Here's a comment I posted on the HS site regarding the inevitable failure of Haskell Properties:

Why is the city allowing this? This is just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic that is Haskell Properties. Haskell, thankfully, is in a death spiral that they cannot recover from. This may be one desirable side effect of the economic crisis.

Haskell properties is finally coming to its much deserved demise. We have only lived here for just under four years and I've lost count of how many Fireball-owned properties have been torn down or burned down due to neglect - really neat, unique houses that really could have been great again. Houses that would have brought families to live in our neighborhood. Houses that would have produced property tax income for the County.

I recall a house on Elizabeth that the city condemned, which then prompted Fireball to begin working very slowly on "fixing" it. This fixing resulted in tearing out historic windows and replacing them with smaller, crappy, ugly, vinyl windows. They then sheared off the chimney, followed by a half-assed re-roofing job. And then work stopped, and the house sat in an incomplete state for many months before the city finally tore it's sad, broken body down.

There were also two houses on E. Seeman that sat in a dangerous state for many years, attracting junkies who squatted in one of them and then proceeded to catch it on fire, sending flames shooting a hundred feet into the sky, catching the neighboring condemned house next to it on fire, destroying both houses, and threatening a third, occupied house.

These are just two examples from within a couple blocks of my house. I'm sure that the Bull City is full of similar stories about how Fireball has, for many years, neglected properties which as a result has degraded, and in some cases destroyed neighborhoods.

I hope that Rodney Rogers gets his way and Haskell Properties is forced into Chapter 7. This would be a long overdue and just end to an awful slumlord who has done so much to tear down Durham - both it's houses, its neighborhoods and its people.