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amlico County Commissioners will be taking a second vote on Monday morning on whether to hire a lobbyist to represent the County at the legislature in order to stop tolls on local ferries.

At the Board’s February 20 meeting, a motion to spend $10,000 to hire a lobbyist died on a 3-3 tie. One opponent called it a “waste of money” on a lost cause, while proponents argued the power of a lobbyist was needed to reverse last year’s legislation and keep the ferries toll free.

At the Pamlico County Commission meeting Monday night February 20, Commissioners Jimmy Spain, Roy Brinson and Carl Ollison voted against hiring a lobbyist. It ended in a tie vote and didn’t pass. Another vote had been called for Monday, February 27

This past Monday night’s vote was deadlocked because the board’s 7th member, Commissioner Ann Holton, was absent from that meeting. At the special meeting called for 9a on February 27, Holton will be in attendance.

Paying For Representation In Legislature

Contacted this week, Holton indicated she was planning to vote to hire the lobbyist, Joe McClees, but not gladly.

“I don’t want to spend county money like that,” said Holton. She said that the county wouldn’t be in the position of having to pay someone $10,000 to fight the tolls, “if our representative had been looking out for our interests.”

Both House Representative Norman Sanderson and State Senator Jean Preston had voted last year for the budget that included the toll mandate. Neither offered amendments at that time to try to keep the tolls from being applied to the Minnesott-Cherry Branch and Aurora-Bayview commuter ferries.

The tolls are due to hit on April 1. Grassroots toll opponents in the county are pinning hopes on getting a delay from a legislative committee that meets in Raleigh on March 9.

On Monday of this week, Pamlico County’s Manager Tim Buck got word that officials in Beaufort County were planning to hire the lobbyist to try to fend off the tolls on the Bayview-Aurora route. Hyde County was planning to do the same, regarding the Sound ferries whose rates are due to go up. The combined pricetag for Beaufort and Hyde counties: $30,000 to make the tolls go away.

The three commissioners — Christine Mele, Kenny Heath, Paul Delamar — who voted Monday night to spend $10,000 to hire a lobbyist to stop the ferry tolls.

At the County Commission meeting on Monday night, Commission chairman Paul Delamar tried to make the case for Pamlico County hiring the lobbyist as well, for $10,000.

Debate: How To Fight Tolls v. Whether To Fight Tolls

Delamar said that hiring a lobbyist would increase the chances of getting the Legislature to reverse itself on the tolls. Winning the necessary votes of lawmakers far from Pamlico County, Delamar argued, was what a lobbyist could do. “I don’t know that there is anybody from Pamlico County that can appeal to a legislator from Charlotte and Raleigh in a manner that will be effective to solving this problem.”

To those put off by the idea of paying for the representation, Delamar suggested it was not the time to be “highminded,” but rather, to get the job done.

Christine Mele, who represents the Oriental area on the County Commission, concurred that a lobbyist could be in a better position to get the job done. A lobbyist, she said, “has contacts.. He’s got an entrance in to their offices. He knows all the people already.”

Commissioner Christine Mele, one of three commissioners who voted to hire a lobbyist.

Kenny Heath, representing the Arapahoe and Minnesott Beach area, near the ferry terminal, also favored hiring the lobbyist.

But as became clear, those three votes weren’t enough this past Monday night. The three other commissioners in attendance opposed hiring a lobbyist.

Lobbyist Opponent: Waste Of Money For Lost Cause

Commissioner Roy Brinson, who represents western Pamlico County, said that he didn’t think a lobbyist “would do as much good as Representative Sanderson can do when they get back in session.”

In an interview last week Sanderson said that he was just one voice of 120 in the State House and that he didn’t try to make a deal to exempt the local ferries from tolls last year because he wasn’t “that kind of politician.” Sanderson attended the Monday night meeting and spoke of hopes of having the Legislature revisit the tolls in May.

“If that won’t help,” Commissioner Brinson said, of relying on the Representative, “I guess we’ll give it up.”

That air of resignation was echoed in comments by Commissioners Jimmy Spain and Carl Ollison.

Carl Ollison said that with the toll booths under construction, the tolls looked to him like a “done deal.”

Commissioner Jimmy Spain.

In his remarks, Spain said he didn’t think the tolls were right — he and other commissioners last year passed a resolution against them — but he said it was “a lost cause” to fight them now. Spain nixed the idea of hiring a lobbyist and said the county should “use our legislators.. at no cost.”

Spain, whose district includes Bayboro, said the county was “treading water” financially and spending money on a “lawyer or a lobbyist would be a total waste of your tax dollars.”

Proponent: How To Attend The Gunfight

Delamar, the Commission chairman, said he begged to differ. “As sure as we sit here and don’t spend any money and don’t spend any additional time on this,” Delamar said, the tolls are “going to go through.”

County Commission Chair Paul Delamar pressed for having a lobbyist work on the county’s behalf to stop the toll on the Minnesott Beach ferry. He said that the county’s representatives in the legislature didn’t get the job done last year and that now, “the people will pay” either by hiring the lobbyist or paying the toll.

With a lobbyist, he said, there might be some trading and deals made — “processes,” as Delamar put it — to get the votes necessary to stop the tolls.

“Guys, we’ve been outdueled once, are we going to be outdueled again?” he asked, “Are we going to go in to another gunfight with a knife?”

After that motion to hire a lobbyist died in a 3-3 tie, an identical 3-3 tie also killed a motion to have the County’s attorney spend up to $5,000 to investigate using the courts to fight the tolls.

Following the meeting, Delamar said he was surprised that three Commissioners would oppose the lobbying or the legal route.

Noting the turnout of 500 people at last Wednesday’s DOT toll hearing, — a huge crowd by Pamlico County standards — Delamar said he thought that the strong public opposition to the tolls at the hearing and since would have “galvanized” a majority of the County Commission to take action. “Maybe their constituents said something different,” Delamar sad, “than what I’ve been hearing.”

Interviewed after the meeting, Commissioner Carl Ollison said none of his constituents had contacted him. If the tolls go in, he said that people from Mesic, which is in his district, can drive around through New Bern. He said he had not known that the tolls could be between $4-$7 on the Minnesott Ferry and $10-12 on the Aurora Ferry.

Toll opponent Greg Piner, who attended Monday’s meeting said he thought the hire of a lobbyist for $10,000 was a good investment toward avoiding the tolls. He calculated that $10,000 was what 50 people would spend in a year making two roundtrips each month on the Minnesott-Cherry Branch ferry.

Take Two on the Lobbyist Vote on Monday

At 9a on Monday, February 27, the Pamlico County Commission will take a second vote on the question of hiring the lobbyist. With Ann Holton present at the meeting, the motion is expected to pass by at least a 4-3 majority.

The lobbyist to be hired, Oriental native Joe McClees, would be paid $10,000 by Pamlico County to persuade lawmakers to kill the toll but also would work to coordinate other lines of attack, such as what legal action the County might take.

Possibility of Legal Challenge

One legal gambit may be based on the argument that the ferry routes are highways and as such can’t be tolled as easily as the Legislature tried to.

On the State of NC’s own highway maps, both local ferry routes are part of NC Highway 306; it stretches from Bayview across the Pamlico River to Aurora, down the spine of Pamlico County to the shores of Minnesott Beach and across the Neuse River to Cherry Branch. As ferry-travelers know, 306 then ends several miles later at Highway 101.

Whortonsville resident Bruce Brown has pointed out, at both the DOT hearing and at Monday’s County Commissioners’ meeting, that by state statute (GS 136-89.187) tolls can’t be imposed on state highways without the consent of a local body such as the Rural Planning Organization. The RPO based in New Bern has not been consulted about the ferry tolls on the Neuse and Pamlico River, much less approved them.

§ 136-89.187. Conversion of free highways prohibited. The Authority Board is prohibited from converting any segment of the nontolled State Highway System to a toll facility, except for a segment of N.C. 540 under construction as of July 1, 2006, located in Wake County and extending from the N.C. 54 exit on N.C. 540 to the N.C. 55 exit on N.C. 540. No segment may be converted to a toll route pursuant to this section unless first approved by the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) or Rural Planning Organization (RPO) of the area in which that segment is located. (2002-133, s. 1; 2006-228, s. 3; 2008-225, s. 5.)

Meanwhile, several attorneys have discussed the legal challenge that might be made with that statute, and at least one other. So far, no plaintiff has filed suit.

In order to get an injunction to stop the tolls, a lawsuit would likely have to be filed in a court in Wake County, because the Department of Transportation is based there, and it is DOT which imposes the tolls that the Legislature mandated.

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Other Stories on The Proposed Toll:

Public Hearing Wednesday on Minnnesott, Aurora Ferry Tolls – February 13, 2012

Pamlico County Turns Out For DOT Ferry Toll Hearing – February 17, 2012

How Pamlico County Got Stuck With Ferry Tolls – February 20, 2012

County Commission Votes Monday on Toll-Fighting Lobbyist – February 24, 2012


Posted Friday February 24, 2012 by Melinda Penkava