North Carolina Now; Interview with Governor James B. Hunt, Jr.

It's Friday June 23rd Cherry Point loses a big decision on relocating Navy fighter planes. We'll talk with Governor Hunt to find out what it means for North Carolina now. Thank you. Thanks Good evening I'm Mary Lou Hart char glad you could join us on this Friday evening.

It's been a tough day for the people of Craven County the Base Realignment Commission decided today not to base more than 100 Hornet fighter bombers at Cherry Point Marine air station in a few moments we'll have a conversation with Governor Jim Hunt about that ruling. Also want to have tonight we will check in with our legislative bureau for a wrap up of this week's events at the General Assembly. And we'll talk with two men who have researched a study on urban inequality. And then on the lighter side tonight we'll travel to the coast for a visit to the Elizabeth and gardens near Manteo. Lots of ground to cover tonight. First news of Hornet jets heading to Virginia instead of North Carolina. The Realignment Commission in Washington discussed the fate of the FAA teens for only about 15 minutes and then the panel voted unanimously to send the aircraft to the Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach for the community surrounding Cherry Point. This means they won't be getting the 160 planes and also the 11000 military personnel that would have accompany them. Just a short while ago I spoke with Governor Jim

Hunt about the decision. And I asked him what the economic impact would be. Governor Hunt thanks for making time for us today. Tell me what the economic blow to this state is as far as the potential job loss and so on. Well first let me say how very very disappointed I am in this decision and especially since I know they made the wrong decision. We know it would have cost list who brought those planes to Cherry Point we have the room for him. The community had done a great job of getting ready. And what it would have amounted to would have been about 5000 new military personnel coming here about 12000 additional people. About one hundred fifty million dollar a year impact on the economy a tremendous asset. But I think I should also point out that. We're probably still the only state in the country that hasn't had any bases closed or cut back. Everything that we have had at Cherry Point in camp was June and Fort Bragg and Pope and Seymour Johnson is going to stay here. In fact they're adding 700 more

Marines at New River so we're very disappointed in this decision. We worked our heads off and we're going to keep working the future so they don't close any of our bases in North Carolina and maybe as they make other decisions down the road we'll have other things come to North Carolina. I know that you lobbied very very hard for this. Is there any reason that you've been told of why they chose Virginia over North Carolina in this particular decision. I don't understand this. You're right I've made calls all week in our coal three members of the commission members of the staff pushing them making the last points in favor of North Carolina in Sharepoint. I don't understand it. I think that that somehow. Somebody got to the secretary of defense who at the 1st of this year recommended those jets go instead to Virginia. And that just stayed locked in all the way through even though we had all this good evidence as to why it would be more cost effective to bring But North Carolina again. We now will get this information all that

we know to the pros and to the Congress in case there's any chance of turning this back. But we now probably need to look forward in the future to keep all of our bases open those additional ones will be closed in the years ahead. You suspect it was a political decision. Yes I do. I do suspect that it was a political decision. But exactly how that came about I don't know. I just know they made the wrong decision and I'm upset about it. But we're going to keep fighting for other things in the future. Many people will look also and say 15 minutes is all they talked about this. Did they really give enough thought to the action that they took and did they realize the tremendous effect of this especially to our state. What's your comment I mean I don't know I don't think they gave enough time and thought to it. Of course they've got the whole country to look at. Look you know to deal with but it looked to me like the members didn't really know too much about it today. And the one young lady had a question asked a question that nobody had an answer to. So I don't think they gave enough time to it.

And I know they made the wrong decision. Well we shall see what happens here in the near future. Governor thanks again for making time for us. Thank you. Also today the Base Closure and Realignment Commission voted unanimously to follow a Pentagon recommendation to close the Navy's fleet industrial supply center in Charleston South Carolina. The head of the commission says there's been quote nothing but pain in making today's decisions but says the panel has little choice in the face of defense cutbacks. Well still to come on North Carolina now see the beautiful blooms in the Elizabethan garden. But first Michel Louis is here with today's statewide news business and whether Hola Michel. Hello Mary Lou. Good evening everyone. A federal appeals court in Virginia today cleared the way for more nuclear fuel rods to be shipped to the United States. The decision means the rods may be shipped through the port of Wilmington. The divided court ruled that the U.S. must accept spent nuclear fuel rods from Europe. The Justice Department says the return of spent nuclear fuel rods is a necessary part of the US's nuclear

nonproliferation policy. It appears that North Carolina and Virginia will not be able to meet an end of the month deadline to resolve the Lake Gaston pipeline dispute. Talks between the two sides have become deadlocked. A group of Virginia lawmakers is opposing an earlier compromise that would have fed water from the border like southeastern Virginia. The group is unhappy with the amount of water North Carolina would be allowed to draw from areas upstream of the lake. They say that water is needed in their area for economic development. Environmental officials say hog waste from a spill in Onslow County is moving down the New River towards Jacksonville. The collapse of an earthen dike at oceanview farms Wednesday sent 25 million gallons of waste across roads fields and into two creeks that feed the river. Officials are also investigating whether the owners of the farm violated a waste management program that they had agreed to follow last night's rain was more bad news for tobacco farmers across the state. The highly destructive blue mold has now spread to tobacco plants and at least

22 coastal and Piedmont counties because of the rain farmers have not been able to top their plants which helps guard against the fungus. Observers say the current blue mold outbreak could be much worse than the 1979 outbreak which cost the industry millions of dollars. Well tobacco farmers and the rest of the state may not get any relief tomorrow either. Highs will be in the mid 70s in Boone and 80 in Nashville. The rest of the state will see temperatures in the mid 80s with Charlotte Fayetteville and Wilmington all expected to hit 85 degrees. Cloudy skies will remain and there's a 40 percent chance of thunderstorms across the state. In business news the state attorney general has cleared the way for public hospitals to form a state wide alliance to attract large managed care insurance contracts. Consumer advocates warn that some alliances between healthcare providers may violate anti-trust laws. Another biotechnology firm plans to set up shop and Research Triangle Park by a Massachusetts drug firm plans to build a 50 million dollar manufacturing plant.

The facility will be used for research and development as well as manufacturing of a drug that the company hopes will slow the progression of multiple sclerosis. Wall Street end of the week on a down note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed about four points lower at forty five eighty five point eighty four. Three hundred twenty eight million shares changed hands on the big board. The Standard Poor's 500 index closed down a point. Now the Nasdaq composite index ended the day about two points lower. And now for some stocks of North Carolina interest you. Earlier

today I was able to catch up with the busy folks manning our legislative bureau in Raleigh shedding light on what lawmakers did this week. TV's legislative correspondent John Mason. I asked him about the agreement reached between the Republicans Democrats and Governor Hunt regarding smart start. All three sides came together everybody said it's a wonderful agreement nobody really blinked any more than anyone else did and they got an agreement on Smart Start and that allowed them to move out the first of three budgets that will be passed in this session. The budget that moved out as with Smart Start as a part of it is called the continuation budget. Both the House and Senate passed that one this week. And so now they can move on to the next two budgets one is the expansion budget that will be expanding current programs and any new programs that can be funded. And that's also where if there are going to be any raises for teachers and state employees that's

where that race will come through and then the final budget is called the capital budget and that funds new building projects. But there are a lot of happy people as this week wound up because. It been a lot of back and forth and grumbling as I said about the lack of agreement on Smart Start So when it finally came together this week a lot of happy folks around here in downtown Raleigh. So it's sort of a big sigh of relief then in regards to smart started. People feel like they really had to compromise more than they wanted to. I think the feeling I'm getting Mary Lou is that everybody compromised a little bit but nobody had to really give in more than anyone else. Like I say everybody declared victory on this one and walked away smiling. They had a news conference in the middle of the week where they announced this and it was just a back slapping fest everybody was just as happy as they could be and proud to work with their friend across the aisle and it was all smiles all around. Well John that you had brought up the budgets and basically those three different types you tell me about what can we expect next in this budget process as we sit here on a Friday evening. Well as I say this week the House and Senate both passed the budget agreement for the for the

continuation budget. And that includes a one hundred seven hundred seventy million dollars less in spending than the governor recommended in his original budget recommendation. About 600 state positions will be cut some of those are live bodies some of those are vacancies and the cuts to the U.N. system were not as deep as those originally proposed by the House plan. So that's the budget that's already passed that one's done. And as I say the expansion budget is next and that is where if there are going to be any pay raises for teachers and state employees that's where that will be. However there's a little bit less money left over for that expansion budget than some folks might have thought. So the chances for a teacher or a state employee pay raise maybe dimmer or certainly the size of the pay raise may be smaller than many folks would have hoped. Well you know we are going to really be watching that aren't we John also interested in basically anything else going on this past week or anything that we should really be paying attention to in the coming week as far as legislation. Well there are a lot of interesting and tough issues still on the table that aren't necessarily directly a part of the budget negotiations. The campaign reform slash

term limits bill that the Senate has been working on will be up next week. The senators have combined those two issues the House leadership isn't happy. The Republicans in general are happy that the term limits issue has been combined with campaign finance reform but that's the way the bill is going to leave the Senate and so little remains to be seen whether that anything will be worked out on that today or rather this week the Senate. Took off its calendar a bill that would have tightened up driving while impaired laws. And the House sent back to committee a bill that would have raised money to speed up the construction of highway loops around urban cities. There are a lot of there are a lot of controversy over Bill still remaining to be dealt with Mary Lou and just depends on how much they want to do before they get their summer vacation started. Well let's talk about that summer vacation then. Any word as to when the session might be ending or I know it's probably a lot in the rumor mill there. The rumor mill is where it is and of course North Carolina doesn't have a set length to its legislative session so it can go as long as it wants to go certainly the

the agreement this week and the movement of the first part of the three budgets will greatly increase the pace or the or the desire to get out of town here but as I say there are a lot of controversy or bills left interesting bills left. And it depends on whether they want to stay and fight it out on those or whether they want to go home and work on those in the show in the so-called short session that happens next spring. OK John Well thank you so much for joining us and I hope you and the whole crew down there has a great weekend thanks again. Thank you nearly well and for all the latest information on what the legislature did this week watch legislative week in review now that airs tonight at 10:00 and repeat Sunday afternoon at 1:30. A new study finds that race more specifically skin tone makes a difference in who gets jobs in the United States. That's the finding of six million dollars worth of research called a multi-city study of urban inequality. The study was paid for by the Ford Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation. Two of the study's co-authors join us tonight. Dr. James Johnson Jr. is a professor of business geography

and sociology at USC Chapel Hill. He is also the director of the urban enterprise core at the Kenan-Flagler Business School. Dr. Johnson is joined by Dr. Walter C. Farrel of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. And welcome to both of you gentlemen. Glad she's going to be here. Let me first of all Dr. Johnson find out from you what was the purpose of doing this study. The purpose was to assess the impact of the nineteen eighties on the socio economic well-being of the U.S. population during the 1980s for the first time since World War 2. What we observed was a growing gap between the haves and the have nots in America particularly in urban America. A growing gap in terms of the social and economic well-being and along racial lines and a growing gap in geographical terms in terms of the difference between quality of life in central city communities and the suburbs. This was an effort to assess. Who won and who lost if you will

in the 1980s. So it's an 80s perspective type of look at that. That's right. Dr. Farrah let me ask you know there were four cities chosen to collect data from right in its Los Angeles Atlanta Boston and the fourth city is Detroit. Yes. Why were those cities specifically chosen for this study. Those cities was chosen specifically bid to be representative of what is occurring socially and economically and multiply ethnically in urban America. And so after an exhaustive assessment of what is going on in urban America we came up with these four cities. There's been some prototypes represented thing representing in their totality or in their sub communities urban areas across this country. OK. And that's to say that many people will say well what's Cary North Carolina or what's Asheville North Carolina How's that compared to L.A.. But you're saying scientifically this will

sort of fit in to the formula. Absolutely. We're really saying when it comes to Los Angeles is that it's on the leading edge of a set of economic and demographic forces that will ultimately envelop our urban communities and thus we have a snapshot of things to come in the carries in the ash fields and greens Barros and high points North Carolina and other cities. OK. How did you Dr. Farrell How do you actually conduct this study is it at random. There was a scientifically selected sample that was stratified in a random way by race by ethnicity and so she can Amec status of communities within those cities. And so in that way we could pull out subsections whole sections of cities and contrast them with other urban areas across the country. OK and there were many sort of things that you were looking at right now and many different again formulas that you were plugging your data into. But you compared men with equal educational backgrounds and job training skills and the only difference I

understand that was found was skin tone. Is that correct Dr. John one of the difference and the most significant difference is one along skin tone whereby there was. Action effect between race and skin tone especially for black men. Dark skinned black men were much more unlikely to be working and their light skinned counterparts than white men. OK so the most difference was found between white and black men. It's dark skinned dark black man and white man. OK. Were women considered in this study women were considered in the study. We have Matt reported the results. But I can give you a foreshadowing of things to come. We find the same race and skin tone effect among women as we do among men. And Dr. Farrell tell me then what some of these results were besides the actual maybe being more specific about this skin tone aspect if you would then were you personally surprised by some of the results of this.

Not at all because the findings are skin tone differences parallel some of the research which we also currently engaged dealing with 5 year old kindergarten students black white and Hispanic and we found that negative characteristics socially in the school setting were associated with minorities who had were of a dark skin complex in contrast with whites whether when arges themselves were making the selections or whites they pointed to. Dark skinned black Hispanic children who were viewed negatively by teachers who were being viewed negatively by other students and who were having negative school experiences. So this parallels the adult findings. So I mean how so did you approach kindergartners and say well like what was a question for example we had six project of questions where we asked the kindergarten youngsters to point to the student who the teacher likes best. These two students were either a dark skinned white a dark skin a black a light skinned black light skin white and consistently The darker the dark black was selected as the

person the student that the teacher did not like. When we asked the same student to point to the student that the teacher didn't like it was either a light skinned white or dark skinned white and a light skinned black. And so skin tone mattered in the way individuals were being treated in the school setting as perceived by youngsters at five years of age. Interesting in this mirrors the study that you have just conducted. And Dr. Johnson tell me your perception of the results and the findings. I was much surprised I think my argument has always been is that this notion of skin tone is kind of ingrained in our culture in American society. I can ask you a series of questions and I think it will be driven home. What what color is Angel food cake white. What colors devils in black. What color has to good guys wear white. What color has the bad guys wear black. This kind of distinction of what's good and

what's bad is related to what we're talking about here in terms of skin tone. Kids learn those kinds of distinctions early in life. And the little nursery books that they bake they read early on. So it was not a surprise to me in terms of what we were finding what is significant however is the impact that it is having an urban America on family structure on other aspects of the quality of life where you have large numbers of prime working age black men of darker hue who are jobless who are idle for all practical purposes neither at work nor in school. And my grandmother has an old saying a lot of people's grandmothers have an old saying about an idle mind is a devil's workshop. And thus when we begin to talk about crime and the like we have to also look at the way the economy the way the labor market treats dark skinned black men. Discriminatory word.

Interesting interesting results and maybe lots to be learned for our society. Gentlemen thank you so much for being our guest like you would like to hear from you if you have any questions or comments about North Carolina now please call 911 died 5 4 9 7 8 0 8. Our North Carolina now gardening expert Kim Hawks traveled to eastern North Carolina to visit a very special public garden that has historical significance as well as much beauty and plant diversity. She toured the Elizabethan gardens in many a with horticulturist de Velde tree renown for the new year. This is something going.

I see what the open Holland Line kind of place down to the plane once a month. Spring Summer Fall. Wow that is really incredible. Want to take a look. Let's go to part with the wonderful fountain statue where I want to put in wonderful years. What exactly is a park air through every tremor had this and what is this. We're looking at this door a few upon highly time. That's a crystal bowl series pansies do well here right.

Writing novels I have a very unique form. Tell me about how you kind of called parting hollering and what do you do. We just come out above the old cut from last year thinking we get a lot of people asking if you know what do you sandpaper on this or you're not hoping that the bark is a fuel from a bark and it sheds itself twice a year. Oh hon and I think the sandpit aka the so smooth it is very soothing. This 900 year old Italian time Monday hears all kinds from Halifax That's where 90 this town was built back in Michelangelo's time wound. I'm going to tell you an old old live oak right now. Kim 500 years ago it was here when the kids

all go up in here and she would have made it look like this has been an incredible afternoon here in the garden. Thanks so much. Thank you. I encourage you to come to be wary in the diversity of plants. The Elizabethan gardens would be a great place to visit in route to summer vacations on the Outer Banks. It's located just off Route 64 on Roanoke Island the gardens are open from 9:00 until dusk. Admission is three dollars for adults one dollar for kids over 12 and free for anyone younger than that. For more information call the phone number there on your screen. And here's what we're working on for Monday night's program. Well look at sentencing guidelines in our state and campaign finance reform. Don't forget tonight at 8:30 on NC people host Bill

Friday will have as his guest Dr. James Mohler to discuss the serious disease of prostate cancer. That program is rebroadcast Sunday at 5:30 p.m.. A big weekend for some 36 young women from our state competing for the title of Miss North Carolina finals for the weeklong competition will be tomorrow. So good luck to all those beautiful young women. We'll see you back here Monday at 7:30 have a great week and good night.