Wake County Taxpayers Association Newsletter

It's been awhile since we mailed our Newsletter to all those listed on our membership rolls. While our organization has continued to be very actively involved in efforts to keep taxes low and stop wasteful spending, we have not been financially able to do regular mailings to everyone, as we'd like to have done.

This correspondence is to serve several purposes:

1. We want to bring you up to date on happenings.
2. We want to inform you of a very important upcoming event and ask for your commitment to be a part of this event.

Convention Center:

Perhaps you heard our radio spots designed to put pressure on the Raleigh City Council and Wake County Commissioners to hold a referendum on whether to spend $734 million to build a new downtown convention center and subsidize private developers (by some $20 million) to build a new hotel adjacent to the proposed convention center. While we were not successful in getting the officials to bring this huge spending proposal to a vote, we know that we were right in our efforts to do so. The officials have greatly abused the privilege to finance expenditures by using "Certificates of Participation" rather than general revenue bonding, which requires a vote. This use of “COPs” was not what was intended by the legislation allowing their use. COPs were only intended to be used to fund items of an emergency nature (such as purchase of emergency equipment, etc,) We believe they made a grave mistake in not allowing citizens to have their right to vote on this expenditure.

Light Rail:

The proposed "light rail" is another billion-dollar boondoggle that is being forced on us without a chance to vote. We will do everything possible to try to derail this project: but the chances are very slim, and the adverse effects of this huge bankrupting project are very grim. One of the effects is the taking of the properties away from folks along the proposed route ... a grave threat to the individual property rights that were so long a great American guaranteed right.

Property Rights:

In an effort to help our citizens to understand this and other very serious threats to individual property rights, we have scheduled an extremely important seminar for Thursday evening, March 18, 2004. There will be no admission charge and we are working to make it as convenient as possible for all of you to attend. Our plans are to have it at the McKimmon Center at Gorman Street and Western Blvd., where adequate, convenient parking is available without charge.

The speaker will be Mrs. Kay McClanahan, a founder of the South Carolina Property Rights Watch Organization. Mrs. McClanahan is a former, much honored member of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (equivalent to the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation). She is an expert focusing on the grave threat to individual property rights facing us today. Kay received a lengthy standing ovation when she spoke recently on the subject to a group of leaders at a John Locke "Center for Local Innovation" event. We found her message to be so important that we wanted do what we can to have her message heard by as many of our citizens as possible. The March 18th seminar will be the opportunity to do that. It is scheduled to begin at 6pm and will last just a little over one hour, with an important question and answer session following her speech. We consider this a must hear event! Please mark your calendar and plan to be there. For additional information check our web page (WCTA.org) or call 790-8918, or use the enclosed form to let us know if you will be there.

Annual Membership Dues:

And, we are asking that you consider renewing your membership fee ($25 a year per family) which will help us in funding this event. If you are able to make any other contribution it would be greatly appreciated. If this is not possible, we still urge you to attend ... there will be no charge for admission.

For your convenience a form for membership renewal and/or for letting us know of your plans to attend the March 18th event is enclosed. Please respond as quickly as possible to enable us to make adequate preparations for the event. Also please invite all others whom you think might be interested. I stress again ... this will be "must hear" message.