Easley-Dole: He said, she said

Gov. Mike Easley and Sen. Elizabeth Dole provided their constituents with an entertaining exchange last week over each other’s handling of a Navy proposal for a jet landing field to practice aircraft carrier landings in Eastern North Carolina.
Both Easley and Dole oppose the field anywhere that local residents oppose it, and both have tried to help the Navy find a suitable place. And it is not opposed everywhere. Jones County commissioners have voted 3-2 “not to oppose” the field in the Hoffman State Forest. That may not be the same thing as support for the Navy, but it tells the Navy something about the doubts that even military-friendly North Carolinians have about the field.
I spoke with both Easley and Dole last week after their public exchange of prepared statements. Easley was exasperated because he thought Dole, as a member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, could be doing more to make the Navy understand it has to offer the state more. “This thing I cannot do by myself,” Easley said. “Elizabeth Dole has got to get involved in this. She can’t keep ducking it.... I’m not looking for a fight here. I’m looking for some help.”
Easley felt stung when Dole and fellow Sen. Richard Burr responded sharply to his suggestion the Navy come up with other proposals. They interpreted that as meaning “other sites,” but Easley says he meant other proposals that would help local communities and build support for a landing field.
“If it were me, I’d put together a good economic development package with the jobs for a major base, solving the long term problems (of overcrowding and noise at the Navy’s current base at Oceana, Va.), put that proposal out there and see if there’s support for that,” he said.
Dole also felt stung by Easley, especially his suggestion she hadn’t been able to guide the Navy in the right direction. She and her staff had been meeting with the Navy all along, encouraging it to find a better site for the field and also meeting with residents of northeastern counties that didn’t want the field at all. That’s why she responded that Easley needed to keep working with the Navy to find the right site.
“I wanted to give him a heads up it wasn’t personal, but I’m a Southern lady and I wanted him to know I wasn’t going to stand still for that,” Dole said.
She also was miffed because the governor hadn’t met with local officials and residents to talk about the landing field, but had helped the Navy pick the sites the governor now says he opposes.
“The one thing that is very clear is the governor decided to work with the Navy.... It’s very clear the governor did not talk to local officials. It’s clear that the process went poorly, and we have written to the Navy to say, ‘Sorry you didn’t learn anything from the last time’” when it failed to develop local support for previous landing field proposals, she said.