Farm Report
For weeks on end up in our part of the Blue Ridge, the predominant color has been slate gray in the treeline on the yonder ridge, framed by hard gray clouds overhead and a light gray stubble in the hayfield that slopes up toward the dirt road.
Down near the old springhouse, though, the seasons are sending out feelers. Tiny daffodils that never seem to grow higher than six inches have sprung back up. I went down to find some barbed wire in an old shed the other day and discovered on my way a handful of bright yellow blooms in a protected spot out of the nearly constant winds.
The evening before, just as twilight began to come on, I watched the last rays of the sun hit the western slope of the ridge across from us and realized it had begun blushing, maple buds just starting to swell and giving a faint rinse of color to an otherwise bland landscape.
Even the bare field has begun to show a smudge of the green tide that will begin to rise before long.
The wildlife are beginning to move about more now, too. We looked out the window a week ago and saw a flock of 11 wild turkeys strutting around the edge of the field not 100 feet away, scuffling and pecking for a late winter ort in ground that has just lately thawed.
A week ago Saturday it was mild one morning, then snowed like crazy for an hour and a half at midday, blew away overnight with temperatures in the teens before warming again the next day. We keep splitting firewood.
Spring doesn’t arrive with all its baggage and bummers for quite a while up around 3,000 feet, but its pickets are moving through quietly now, leaving behind unmistakable – and welcome – signs of what is to come.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Ethics panel could use more sunshine
Last week’s decision by the House Ethics Committee recommending expulsion of Rep. Thomas Wright, D-New Hanover, briefly focused light on what happened to an ethics complaint filed with the Legislative Ethics Committee, a different, joint House-Senate committee, by former Sen. Fern Shubert, R-Union, against Rep. Pryor Gibson, D-Anson. The complaint was filed in 2007 after Gibson had signed a House document in an earlier session certifying that a bill he sponsored involving extraterritorial jurisdiction and meals taxes was non-controversial and had the support of local legislators. It didn’t, and Shubert believed his signing the document was unethical.
But until Wright’s lawyers protested that the House was following a double standard with racial overtones in pursuing an ethics complaint against Wright and not against Gibson, the public didn’t know what happened to that complaint. The House doesn’t make complaints public unless and until it proceeds to a hearing – one of the flaws in the system, I think, because the public cannot find out why ethics officials haven’t done anything – or even whether they’ve done anything, including dismissals.
In this case, Gibson waived the confidentiality last week and committee chair Rick Glazier revealed that the complaint against Gibson had been dismissed by the Joint Ethics Committee last July because, he said, it was not an ethical violation at the time and the ethics committee didn’t have jurisdiction over something that happened in an earlier session.
Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, passes along a copy of the disposition. Click here to take a look.
As a document signed by Glazier and Sen. Dan Clodfelter, D-Mecklenburg, last July 12 makes clear, certifying that a bill is locally non-controversial when it isn’t will be subject to ethics committee jurisdiction in the future.
John Blust followed up with a note: “I think the House still needs to deal with this matter effectively. Maybe the Legislative Ethics Committee set up by the 2006 reform doesn’t technically have jurisdiction of the Gibson Complaint - they did not have jurisdiction over Wright either and passed it on to the House Ethics Committee. I wonder why the Joint Committee did not pass on the Gibson matter too, rather than dismissing it. I don’t know whether the complainant in Wright (Sinsheimer) specifically requested the House Ethics Committee rather than the Legislative Ethics Committee investigate Wright. If the Legislative Ethics Committee did this on its own in the Wright matter, then why did it not do the same in the Gibson matter?
“It seems to me that filing a false certification with the House clerk has to be an ethics violation of some sort and perhaps a new complainant - maybe one of the Union County residents affected by the Gibson bill will file a new complaint with just the House Ethics Committee. I feel this must be dealt with if the House is to have any credibility.”
Blust added in another note:
“I left out one more point. The Gibson matter is a clear-cut example of why the State Ethics Commission should have jurisdiction over complaints against legislators, at least through the stage of recommending a punishment, and why the process should be totally open. The entire reform community has been unanimous, I believe, in backing these changes.”
I think he's right about this. While legislators may have been motivated by a concern that there would be bogus ethics complaints filed and there's no reason to make those public, the risk is that the legislature will be seen as ignoring complaints with merit to them, or worse, covering up for cronies. There's a lot to be said for allowing the public to see what's going on, and to make up their own minds.
But until Wright’s lawyers protested that the House was following a double standard with racial overtones in pursuing an ethics complaint against Wright and not against Gibson, the public didn’t know what happened to that complaint. The House doesn’t make complaints public unless and until it proceeds to a hearing – one of the flaws in the system, I think, because the public cannot find out why ethics officials haven’t done anything – or even whether they’ve done anything, including dismissals.
In this case, Gibson waived the confidentiality last week and committee chair Rick Glazier revealed that the complaint against Gibson had been dismissed by the Joint Ethics Committee last July because, he said, it was not an ethical violation at the time and the ethics committee didn’t have jurisdiction over something that happened in an earlier session.
Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, passes along a copy of the disposition. Click here to take a look.
As a document signed by Glazier and Sen. Dan Clodfelter, D-Mecklenburg, last July 12 makes clear, certifying that a bill is locally non-controversial when it isn’t will be subject to ethics committee jurisdiction in the future.
John Blust followed up with a note: “I think the House still needs to deal with this matter effectively. Maybe the Legislative Ethics Committee set up by the 2006 reform doesn’t technically have jurisdiction of the Gibson Complaint - they did not have jurisdiction over Wright either and passed it on to the House Ethics Committee. I wonder why the Joint Committee did not pass on the Gibson matter too, rather than dismissing it. I don’t know whether the complainant in Wright (Sinsheimer) specifically requested the House Ethics Committee rather than the Legislative Ethics Committee investigate Wright. If the Legislative Ethics Committee did this on its own in the Wright matter, then why did it not do the same in the Gibson matter?
“It seems to me that filing a false certification with the House clerk has to be an ethics violation of some sort and perhaps a new complainant - maybe one of the Union County residents affected by the Gibson bill will file a new complaint with just the House Ethics Committee. I feel this must be dealt with if the House is to have any credibility.”
Blust added in another note:
“I left out one more point. The Gibson matter is a clear-cut example of why the State Ethics Commission should have jurisdiction over complaints against legislators, at least through the stage of recommending a punishment, and why the process should be totally open. The entire reform community has been unanimous, I believe, in backing these changes.”
I think he's right about this. While legislators may have been motivated by a concern that there would be bogus ethics complaints filed and there's no reason to make those public, the risk is that the legislature will be seen as ignoring complaints with merit to them, or worse, covering up for cronies. There's a lot to be said for allowing the public to see what's going on, and to make up their own minds.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Governor Easley starts digging out
Looks like Gov. Mike Easley realized the hole he was in and has started digging out, not deeper. Over the past three days he spoke to the annual N.C. Editorial Writers Conference in Chapel Hill Sunday evening, had a one-on-one interview with the News & Observer in the hotel lobby following his remarks and gave WRAL-TV an interview Monday morning. His Secretary of Health and Human Services Dempsey Benton was quoted at some length in Tuesday morning’s N&O about solutions the administration will propose to the legislature.
Easley’s press office, you may recall, made the decision that the governor shouldn’t talk to the newspaper for its recent series about the fundamental and costly failures of mental health reform over the past six years. The reason, spokesman Seth Effron said, was a concern that the newspaper would deal more in blame and not in solutions to the problem.
I didn’t follow that reasoning then or now; it’s hard to imagine reporters not wanting to ask about and report what the administration intends to do about a problem. Tuesday’s headline in the N&O: “Mental health plan in works,” with a story on the administration’s developing approach to fix mental health problems by the end of the Easley administration.
I don’t know that Easley is answering all the questions thoroughly or satisfactorily, but I think he’s made an attempt to get at them and to be more open about what happened. And, of course, other questions have arisen. The N&O reported Monday that Easley said he had received a handwritten note from former HHS Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom, now a foundation executive in New York. But we’ll never know what it said because, the governor said, he “chunked” it into the waste basket after reading it.
Some days, you just gotta wonder.
Late morning addition: After a news conference to discuss his upcoming proposals to deal with the drought, Easley said the note from Carmen Hooker Odom was not about mental health and didn't even mention the subject. It was entirely personal -- complimenting him, in fact, and thus he concluded the news media wouldn't have been interested in publishing its contents.
Easley’s press office, you may recall, made the decision that the governor shouldn’t talk to the newspaper for its recent series about the fundamental and costly failures of mental health reform over the past six years. The reason, spokesman Seth Effron said, was a concern that the newspaper would deal more in blame and not in solutions to the problem.
I didn’t follow that reasoning then or now; it’s hard to imagine reporters not wanting to ask about and report what the administration intends to do about a problem. Tuesday’s headline in the N&O: “Mental health plan in works,” with a story on the administration’s developing approach to fix mental health problems by the end of the Easley administration.
I don’t know that Easley is answering all the questions thoroughly or satisfactorily, but I think he’s made an attempt to get at them and to be more open about what happened. And, of course, other questions have arisen. The N&O reported Monday that Easley said he had received a handwritten note from former HHS Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom, now a foundation executive in New York. But we’ll never know what it said because, the governor said, he “chunked” it into the waste basket after reading it.
Some days, you just gotta wonder.
Late morning addition: After a news conference to discuss his upcoming proposals to deal with the drought, Easley said the note from Carmen Hooker Odom was not about mental health and didn't even mention the subject. It was entirely personal -- complimenting him, in fact, and thus he concluded the news media wouldn't have been interested in publishing its contents.
Friday, March 07, 2008
A major award for his excellency
Former Charlotte newsman Max Veale, who spent some time in Raleigh and understands some things about how government works and doesn’t, relays the following epistle purporting to be from Sir Rudyard Fulch, self-described knight errant. Veale recently discovered it somewhere near his home in Carpenter. I don’t know of anyone who would vouch for its authenticity, but just in case:
“The Pecksniffian Society of Greater Needmore and Lesser Hilltop has bestowed upon Governor Michael Easley its Award for Dogged Intransigence in recognition of the gubernator’s persistent refusal to accept responsibility for the misdeeds of his lackeys despite whelming evidence of their guilt, to wit:
“Governor Easley has displayed singular tapdancemanship in addressing questions concerning the mistreatment of thousands of North Carolina citizens who have sought professional care under mental health programs that either were or weren’t reformed into a state of confusion and inadequacy either (a) with his explicit approval or (b) over his vociferous objection, depending on who you ask, and assuming anyone can come to the phone.
“The Governor exhibits admirable dexterity by managing to be both responsible incumbent chief executive and critical shadow governor as it suits his fancy or as situations dictate.
“A Pecksniffian “Yo, bro!” to His Excellency and His Effrontery.
“/s/Rudyard W. Fulch III
Exalted Knight Errant”
“The Pecksniffian Society of Greater Needmore and Lesser Hilltop has bestowed upon Governor Michael Easley its Award for Dogged Intransigence in recognition of the gubernator’s persistent refusal to accept responsibility for the misdeeds of his lackeys despite whelming evidence of their guilt, to wit:
“Governor Easley has displayed singular tapdancemanship in addressing questions concerning the mistreatment of thousands of North Carolina citizens who have sought professional care under mental health programs that either were or weren’t reformed into a state of confusion and inadequacy either (a) with his explicit approval or (b) over his vociferous objection, depending on who you ask, and assuming anyone can come to the phone.
“The Governor exhibits admirable dexterity by managing to be both responsible incumbent chief executive and critical shadow governor as it suits his fancy or as situations dictate.
“A Pecksniffian “Yo, bro!” to His Excellency and His Effrontery.
“/s/Rudyard W. Fulch III
Exalted Knight Errant”
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Memo to Easley: Quit digging
Rule No. 1 of any problem has to be this basic dictum: When you’re in a hole, quit digging.
That would be some good advice for Gov. Mike Easley to take in the current contretemps over what his administration did and didn’t do regarding the legislature’s reformation of state mental health policies.
Administration of that program turned into a fiasco long ago, as The News & Observer reported in a recent series on mental health.
But administration mishandling of the bad news about the program is a recent development – and has gotten worse since the governor’s press conference in his Capitol office Tuesday. It was a bad setup from the start, and resulted in the governor avoiding follow-up questions from writers who authored the series – and who seemed to know more about what was going on than the governor.
And when it ended after a relatively few questions, reporters who staked out a building exit hoping to get in more questions found that the governor had ducked out another way and was gone.
And while the press conference was underway, the administration fired a public information officer who, it turns out, has considerable credibility with reporters. Debbie Crane was booted out because, among other things, the administration thought she had persuaded former Secretary of Health and Human Services Carmen Hooker Odom not to talk to reporters. Thing is, Crane was regarded as a spokesperson who helped the public understand the truth, not as a spin doctor who tried to put the best face on administration missteps. Her firing was a miscalculation, a symbol of a botched process start to finish.
This whole mess was avoidable, but the governor doesn’t seem to realize it. Here’s a guy who made his bones in politics as a tough, crusading prosecutor in Southeastern North Carolina, and now here he is dodging reporters’ questions. As a former boxer who wasn’t afraid of getting in the ring and trading blows, Easley’s reluctance to face aggressive questioning is curious.
A smart fellow told me a long time ago that the best way to handle bad news is to get it all out, and get it out quick. Easley’s seeming reluctance to deal with this issue more directly, and in full, suggests there’s more the public doesn’t know. If I were he, I’d call every reporter I could find, invite them into the office and sit there until every last question, and every last questioner, was exhausted.
It might not be pleasant, but it would soon be over. And the governor’s hole would stop getting deeper.
That would be some good advice for Gov. Mike Easley to take in the current contretemps over what his administration did and didn’t do regarding the legislature’s reformation of state mental health policies.
Administration of that program turned into a fiasco long ago, as The News & Observer reported in a recent series on mental health.
But administration mishandling of the bad news about the program is a recent development – and has gotten worse since the governor’s press conference in his Capitol office Tuesday. It was a bad setup from the start, and resulted in the governor avoiding follow-up questions from writers who authored the series – and who seemed to know more about what was going on than the governor.
And when it ended after a relatively few questions, reporters who staked out a building exit hoping to get in more questions found that the governor had ducked out another way and was gone.
And while the press conference was underway, the administration fired a public information officer who, it turns out, has considerable credibility with reporters. Debbie Crane was booted out because, among other things, the administration thought she had persuaded former Secretary of Health and Human Services Carmen Hooker Odom not to talk to reporters. Thing is, Crane was regarded as a spokesperson who helped the public understand the truth, not as a spin doctor who tried to put the best face on administration missteps. Her firing was a miscalculation, a symbol of a botched process start to finish.
This whole mess was avoidable, but the governor doesn’t seem to realize it. Here’s a guy who made his bones in politics as a tough, crusading prosecutor in Southeastern North Carolina, and now here he is dodging reporters’ questions. As a former boxer who wasn’t afraid of getting in the ring and trading blows, Easley’s reluctance to face aggressive questioning is curious.
A smart fellow told me a long time ago that the best way to handle bad news is to get it all out, and get it out quick. Easley’s seeming reluctance to deal with this issue more directly, and in full, suggests there’s more the public doesn’t know. If I were he, I’d call every reporter I could find, invite them into the office and sit there until every last question, and every last questioner, was exhausted.
It might not be pleasant, but it would soon be over. And the governor’s hole would stop getting deeper.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Mismanaging the news
For those looking for some accountability in the ongoing saga of the Easley administration’s mishandling of mental health reform, a head has indeed rolled – but it’s not one of those in charge. As this morning’s papers reported, the administration has fired Debbie Crane, a veteran spokesperson for state government agencies. (A former program director is leaving, but not right away, while new directors have been appointed. Crane is out the door and gone.)
Crane's transgression, the governor’s office said, was interfering with a plan to have former Secretary of Health and Human Services Carmen Hooker Odom talk to reporters from the News & Observer, whose six-month investigation revealed how money has been squandered, treatment botched and needy patients neglected or abused.
Gov. Easley has refused to meet with the paper's reporters – a curious reaction given that Easley handles himself pretty well with the press. If he wants his story told, he’s got to tell it better than he has so far in a press conference where questions were limited and the governor got piqued with reporters who tried to ask follow-ups. It evidently has not been a happy time for Mike Easley.
The administration believes Crane's e-mail to Hooker Odom – the spouse of former state Sen. Fountain Odom of Charlotte – saying she herself wouldn't want to talk to the N&O reporters left the governor holding the bag of blame. Or something. The governor’s office thinks Hooker Odom was all set to talk about it until Crane's e-mail suggested she think twice about it, but it’s hard for me to buy the argument that Hooker Odom decided not to talk based on what Crane advised. Hooker Odom is now head of the Milbank Memorial Fund in New York, a pretty nice foundation job.
Meanwhile, everyone in town is trying to figure out if Easley is right in saying his administration “vigorously opposed” the mental health legislation that went off the tracks. Crane said after her firing that she had talked earlier with Hooker Odom seeking documents showing vigorous opposition. “There is no evidence to show that we did,” Crane said. “I called Carmen to ask her if there are any documents and she said, ‘No, there aren’t.’ Nobody did oppose it vigorously. Now, there were four things that she was concerned with” that she lobbied legislators to change, and two were changed. But “it was not a wholesale” opposition to the bill,” Crane said.
More on this later. This story isn’t going away.
Crane's transgression, the governor’s office said, was interfering with a plan to have former Secretary of Health and Human Services Carmen Hooker Odom talk to reporters from the News & Observer, whose six-month investigation revealed how money has been squandered, treatment botched and needy patients neglected or abused.
Gov. Easley has refused to meet with the paper's reporters – a curious reaction given that Easley handles himself pretty well with the press. If he wants his story told, he’s got to tell it better than he has so far in a press conference where questions were limited and the governor got piqued with reporters who tried to ask follow-ups. It evidently has not been a happy time for Mike Easley.
The administration believes Crane's e-mail to Hooker Odom – the spouse of former state Sen. Fountain Odom of Charlotte – saying she herself wouldn't want to talk to the N&O reporters left the governor holding the bag of blame. Or something. The governor’s office thinks Hooker Odom was all set to talk about it until Crane's e-mail suggested she think twice about it, but it’s hard for me to buy the argument that Hooker Odom decided not to talk based on what Crane advised. Hooker Odom is now head of the Milbank Memorial Fund in New York, a pretty nice foundation job.
Meanwhile, everyone in town is trying to figure out if Easley is right in saying his administration “vigorously opposed” the mental health legislation that went off the tracks. Crane said after her firing that she had talked earlier with Hooker Odom seeking documents showing vigorous opposition. “There is no evidence to show that we did,” Crane said. “I called Carmen to ask her if there are any documents and she said, ‘No, there aren’t.’ Nobody did oppose it vigorously. Now, there were four things that she was concerned with” that she lobbied legislators to change, and two were changed. But “it was not a wholesale” opposition to the bill,” Crane said.
More on this later. This story isn’t going away.
Monday, March 03, 2008
What's the governor going to do?
In a column Sunday spanking Gov. Mike Easley for not being willing to answer questions about his administration’s handling of mental health programs, Easley spokesman Seth Effron said Friday afternoon it was the press office that made the decision for him not to respond to questions from The News & Observer.
Here’s his quote from the column: “It was our sense here in the press office that there wasn’t going to be an opportunity for the governor to talk about solutions, but quite frankly more about the blame game, and that was not where the governor wanted to go,” said Seth Effron, spokesman for Easley.
Here are several more quotations from Effron, a longtime reporter before joining the Easley administration, that I didn’t have space for in the column:
“The governor trusts us to make those kinds of decisions, so the interview was declined.” He added later, “We made that decision.”
Effron also said, “... Reporters can get away with pointing out problems, but the governor will not let himself do that. If he talks about a problem, he is going to talk about solutions.”
When I asked why his office thought the N&O wouldn’t discuss solutions as well as what went wrong, here’s what Effron had to say: “It was our conclusion ... that there was not an interest (in discussing solutions) in the reporting that would have followed.”
We’ll never know now, of course, but it’s hard to imagine that the newspaper wouldn’t have wanted to know what the governor was going to do about it, and how quickly. The program is obviously broken. The question is, how does the Easley administration intend to fix it?
Maybe there’ll be more news this week. It’s high time. Shoot, I even bet reporters will write about it.
Here’s his quote from the column: “It was our sense here in the press office that there wasn’t going to be an opportunity for the governor to talk about solutions, but quite frankly more about the blame game, and that was not where the governor wanted to go,” said Seth Effron, spokesman for Easley.
Here are several more quotations from Effron, a longtime reporter before joining the Easley administration, that I didn’t have space for in the column:
“The governor trusts us to make those kinds of decisions, so the interview was declined.” He added later, “We made that decision.”
Effron also said, “... Reporters can get away with pointing out problems, but the governor will not let himself do that. If he talks about a problem, he is going to talk about solutions.”
When I asked why his office thought the N&O wouldn’t discuss solutions as well as what went wrong, here’s what Effron had to say: “It was our conclusion ... that there was not an interest (in discussing solutions) in the reporting that would have followed.”
We’ll never know now, of course, but it’s hard to imagine that the newspaper wouldn’t have wanted to know what the governor was going to do about it, and how quickly. The program is obviously broken. The question is, how does the Easley administration intend to fix it?
Maybe there’ll be more news this week. It’s high time. Shoot, I even bet reporters will write about it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
