Gov. Pat: Bev’s a disaster, but I’m keeping a lot of her people.
Pat McCrory, fresh off his rout of Walter Dalton in the governor’s race, is putting out the word that we shouldn’t expect “major personnel changes right away.” Wait a minute. I thought Bev Perdue was a disaster — a complete nightmare for North Carolina. We tossed her out, but we’re keeping her accomplices in this four-year-long nightmare?
The transition team has been touting WorkforPat.com, but if you go there you’ll find very little detail about what jobs candidates are being sought for.
The good folks at NC Spin were speculating on their first post-election show that McCrory would hold over a lot of the top folks at NCDOT. Some of our readers and sources from the Charlotte area are wondering if one of those holdovers will be deputy secretary for transit Paul Morris, who has been an outspoken proponent of the controversial proposed $452 million Red Line transit project for the Charlotte area. The Red Line is popular with local pols and the Chamber crowd, but has been highly criticized by taxpayer advocates and various conservative activists and groups. Our in-coming governor has been a huge proponent of publicly-financed mass transit solutions in-state and across the nation.
Norfolk Southern, which will be providing a lot of the infrastructure for the proposed Red Line, has slammed the proposed project as “fatally flawed.” The D.C.-based Cato Institute has described the Red Line proposal as “an expensive, risky project that is likely to produce few benefits for anyone other than the contractors who build it.”
Unless he wishes to be a one term gov. Mr. McCrory might want to be careful about how he spends our money. Charlotte is only one part of this state.
Never have trusted this guy. The only time he ever sounds like a conservative is at the annual NCGOP convention.
The two times that Jim Hunt followed a Republican governor are instructive.
The first time, following Holshouser, the Hunt transition team sent out letters to all holders of exempt positions (Exempt from the State Personel Act, and therefore subject to replacement for any reason – policy making and supporting positions) asking for resignations effective at the begining of the new administration. Many of those slots are actually held by non-political technocrats, and they had a miserable Christmas wondering if they would have a job. Hunt caught an earfull on that.
The second time after Martin, the Hunt transition team said they wanted all cabinet Secretaries, deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, general counsels, and public affairs directors gone when Hunt took office. This was a well targeted list, as all of those positions should be the poltical appointees of the incoming administration. That also left them time to look in detail at the division directors, section chiefs, and other lower positions before making moves there to replace personnel as desirable, and that was done over several months. Of the initial targets, most were let go by the incoming Hunt cabinet secretaries on their first day. At Transportation, the GOP secretary fited those people for Hunt before the Hunt people arrived. At Human Resources, the outgoing secretary negotiated a week delay, so that the Hunt people had those officeholders availible to answer questions for the incoming leaders. At Crime Control and Public Safety, the GOP officeholders stayed in office for several weeks, as it took that long for the Democrat secretary to be sworn in.
There are many positions on the exempt list held by non-political technocrats, many, probably most registered Democrat, and those probably should not necessarily be replaced. If they are in a position that is critical to a policy area the new administration is going to put a major emphasis on, then they should want their own people in them. However, there are NO circumstances where the people in the positions that Hunt wanted gone on day one should remain. THose are all key policy making positions, and the state does NOT need Purdue policymakers staying on at those levels.