Capital concerns: growth, parks

Tuesday’s election in Wake County showed a couple of interesting things in a fast-growing area that’s the state’s second-largest county and contains the state’s second-largest city, the state Capital. Voters in Raleigh and Cary municipal elections generally backed candidates seeking more controls on growth and, in the case of Raleigh, higher impact fees from developers.
This is particularly interesting because the issue really wasn’t whether to increase impact fees to help pay for growth-related services. The Raleigh city council had already approved 72 percent higher impact fees, but not as high an increase as many believe are needed to cope with the dramatic increase in population and an accompanying demand for more schools and other essential services.
What also struck me as particularly interesting was the fate of four bond issues totaling $275 million: All four passed. Wake voters approved three bond issues totaling $187 million for Wake Tech, the county library system and the purchase of open space by roughly 70 percent; and voters in the city of Raleigh approved an $89 million parks bond issue by 72 percent. This is significant because many folks thought Wake County voters would be fed up with more bond issues after approving a $970 million school bonds issue in 2006. Evidently voters want the county to keep on making improvements.
This is generalizing, but it seems to fit neatly with the observation by political analyst John Davis of the pro-business organization N.C. FREE and others that the influx of newcomers to this area, even though many of them are registered Republicans, support and expect good schools, good parks and other services because that’s what they were used to in areas of the Northeast and Midwest where they resided before moving here.
A final note: turnout wasn’t good: 10.8 percent, according to the Wake County Board of Elections.