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Focus on Representative Sanderson

Several speakers implied some of the blame for the toll lay with Representative Sanderson, who was at the hearing. (Senator Preston who announced recently she is not seeking re-election did not attend Wednesday’s meeting.) The criticism ran along the lines that, unlike the Outer Banks Representatives who kept their ferries free, Sanderson had not tried to stop the tolls for the Minnesott and Aurora ferries.

Lee Duer of Pamlico County.

There were suggestions that the lawmaker try to fix things now. Pamlico County resident Lee Duer asked that Representative Sanderson “do the right thing and introduce legislation to rescind or revise that portion of House Bill 200 (the budget) to make it fairer to the people of Pamlico County.”

Oriental Town Commissioner Larry Summers was a among those asking State Representative Norman Sanderson to take action. Summers asked if Sanderson or State Senator Jean Preston would introduce bills to postpone the tolls for three months. That could put the issue before the legislature when it reconvenes in May.

During two minutes of comments before the crowd, Representative Sanderson did not commit to working to repeal the toll for the local ferries.

“The only thing that anything might possibly can be done,” he said, “would be at the Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight committee which meets, I think the the 14th or 15th of March.” (The legislative calendar says that it meets on March 9 at 9a.)

State Representative Norman Sanderson (R-Pamlico-Craven) at Pamlico Community College’s Delamar auditorium Wednesday night.

“Nothing can be promised at this point because it is an appropriations issue,” Sanderson said, “but if anything can be done, if enough people show up to that meeting to help drive home the concerns that we have maybe something possibly can be done.” The state Representative later said in an interview that he alone could not change the committee’s mind.

To the audience, Sanderson defended his vote for the budget which slapped the tolls on the local ferries. “I voted yes,” he said, “and I’ll tell you why. Pages 1 through 500 whatever of the budget did a lot to put North Carolina back on a positive track. It lowered taxes, cut the size of government. It reduced spending.”

The budget that put tolls on the commuter ferries would, Sanderson said, “end up saving the State of North Carolina a lot of money.”

State Representative Norman Sanderson and his wife Linda at Wednesday night’s hearing. Jean Preston, the area’s State Senator who also voted for the tolls, did not attend. She recently announced she would not seek re-election this fall. After one term in the House, Sanderson is running for Preston’s Senate seat.

At that, some in the crowd called out that such savings would be, “on our backs.”

It was a point that toll-opponent Greg Piner of Oriental elaborated on when he had his turn at the microphone. “Don’t try to raise revenue on the backs of the poor people of eastern North Carolina and then brag about not raising our taxes,” Piner said. “Because you raised ‘em.”

Greg Piner at Wednesday’s DOT hearing on tolls. Piner spoke about commuting from Pamlico County to Cherry Point for 33 years. That amounted, he said, to 17,000 trips on the free ferry, before he retired. Behind him at the table were DOT Deputy Secretary Paul Morris, Ferry Services chief Harold Thomas and a consultant with CDM Smith which prepared the analysis of the system.

Piner questioned why the Legislature was so insistent that tolls on a commuter ferry be charged as a way for the Ferry Service to raise an additional $3 million dollars a year. It amounts, he said, to 45 cents per North Carolinian per year. He said the river ferries should continue to be funded entirely thru the highway tax — which ferry riders already pay into when they purchase a gallon of gas. Charging a toll on ferry commuters, Piner said, was “like trying to get blood out of a stone.”

The DOT officials said they would take in to account the comments made at the Pamlico hearing before deciding what to charge for a toll. Few at Wednesday’s hearing stated a preference for one of the four pricing options. Instead, speakers tried to make the case for why the local ferries shouldn’t have any toll at all.

Bruce Brown of Whortonsville cited a NC Statute that state roads may not be tolled. State highway maps show that Hwy 306 exists on both sides of the Neuse River. The ferry route is shown as a line of 306 going across the river. As such Brown said, it’s a highway and by law a toll can’t be charged. (The Pamlico County Commission has put Brown on the agenda for Monday night’s meeting and will consider that information.)

Bob Miller of Oriental called it was “morally reprehensible” to tell people in Pamlico County to pay ferry tolls to raise a few million dollars at the same time DOT was spending $685 million on Hwy 70 upgrades between Goldsboro and Havelock. Pamlico County residents, Miller said, were paying for those improvements through their gas tax payments so that, “people in Raleigh can get to the beaches.”

Michael Speciale, a Republican who is seeking Sanderson’s House seat representing Pamlico County, (as Sanderson is running for Jean Preston’s State Senate in the fall) asked whether the tolls could be avoided if the DOT made cuts elsewhere.

The DOT officials responded that they had made cuts as part of the budget process last year. And as he did throughout the night, the DOT’s Paul Morris reiterated that the mandate from the legislature was clear: the money had to be raised through tolls charged on the Minnesott and Aurora ferries (as well as higher tolls on three other routes, and no tolls whatsoever at Hatteras-Ocracoke and Knott’s Island on the Outer Banks.)

Ed Bryant of Pamlico County asked about the cost of implementing the tolls. The answer from DOT was that it would cost $1 million — in toll collectors’ salaries and intrastructure — in order to collect $4 million in tolls. The DOT said that the Legislature mandated that $5 million be generated, not netted.

Several speakers questioned if the toll would in fact send some current ferry riders away. Morris spoke about “elasticity” — how much a rider would think reasonable to pay for a ferry ride before being stretched so thin as to decide to drive around. A few speakers warned that ridership would fall and one suggested the tolls were a step toward the state phasing out some routes altogether. (Morris said after the hearing that DOT has already been cutting back on routes.)

Dollars to Donuts? Darryl Wiard of Florence said a toll would cut down on his travels back and forth across the river. He also suggested the DOT consider selling “coffee and Krispy Kreme” donuts to raise the money the Legislature wanted to see. A DOT official said the Ferry Service had once sold food on board the ferries, but lost money on it. It was, however, considering a private contractor to sell food on board.

Robert Cayton, vice-chair of the Beaufort County Commissioners, told the DOT that 98% of the cars on the Aurora-Bayview ferry were in-state and already paying taxes toward the DOT and the ferry service. He said that he understood it wasn’t the Ferry Service or DOT that was behind the imposition of tolls, but rather the Legislature.

A Democrat who will be running for Norman Sanderson’s state House seat, Robert Cayton asked that the DOT panel go back to Raleigh and “recommend that the North Carolina General Assembly repeal the law” that imposed the tolls.

The DOT’s Deputy Secretary Paul Morris said he couldn’t. The DOT, Morris said, is “essentially handcuffed by state law and not permitted to petition the General Assembly.” He said he couldn’t even offer information, unless asked for it, to the Transportation Oversight Committee meeting on March 9.

Left on the floor after the hearing Wednesday, a penny. Pamlico County resident Ray Reilly flipped them in the air as he spoke at the DOT hearing and suggested that if the tolls begin on April first, travelers should pay in pennies.

In January when DOT announced it was holding four hearings on the tolls, Pamlico County was not on the list. After that was reported here at TownDock.net and readers called and wrote to DOT, the hearing that took place Wednesday night was added to the list.

By Pamlico County standards, Wednesday night turnout was huge, accounting for 4% of the county’s population. It was more than double the crowd that turned up for a hearing at Ocracoke (where the subject was a hike in fares for the ferries that cross from Cedar Island and Swanquarter.)

Despite that crowd, DOT officials offered no hope that they’d not charge a toll on the two commuter ferries serving Pamlico County. Morris said DOT would come back to the Delamar Auditorium at PCC in mid-March to announce how much the tolls would be on the local ferries.

Coming out of the meeting Wednesday, several of the speakers and members of the audience seemed ready to carry on, perhaps even more forcefully than before the hearing. Larry Summers of Oriental says he’d like to see busloads of Pamlico County residents descend on the Legislature’s Joint Transportation Oversight Committee meeting on March 9. And several speakers, including Minnesott Beach mayor Josh Potter, are urging residents to contact the 20 members of that committee.

Josh Potter is Mayor of Minnesott Beach and was one of the last speakers. He told the audience to contact the Joint Transportation Oversight Committee’s 20 members before its March 9 meeting at the NC Legislature. That committee, Potter said, “is the only place we’re going to have any relief from this” and at least get the tolls postponed til the full General Assembly can take it up when it meets in May.

Emails of Senators and Representatives on the NC Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight Committee:

Phillip.Frye@ncleg.net
Grey.Mills@ncleg.net
Bill.Rabon@ncleg.net
Frank.Iler@ncleg.net
Rayne.Brown@ncleg.net
Jerry.Tillman@ncleg.net
Don.Vaughan@ncleg.net
Fred.Steen@ncleg.net
Chris.Carney@ncleg.net
Warren.Daniel@ncleg.net
Malcolm.Graham@ncleg.net
Rick.Gunn@ncleg.net
Kathy.Harrington@ncleg.net
Ralph.Hise@ncleg.net
Neal.Hunt@ncleg.net
Clark.Jenkins@ncleg.net
Mitch.Gillespie@ncleg.net
Ric.Killian@ncleg.net
Danny.McComas@ncleg.net
Jim.Crawford@ncleg.net
Tim.Spear@ncleg.net — Represents Ocracoke where the Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry remains free.
Bill.Owens@ncleg.net — Represents the district where the Knott’s Island Ferry remains free.

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Posted Friday February 17, 2012 by Melinda Penkava