Report: Controversial budget item re: Dare Co. had Keith Kidwell’s name on it.
We told you earlier about a mysterious provision in the secretly-negotiated state budget that stripped Dare County towns of their power to regulate the construction of new low-income housing within their town limits. No one would admit to owning it. County leaders and municipal leaders say they didn’t ask for it. Well, it appears WUNC has done a little detective work on the matter:
Six towns in Dare County have filed a lawsuit to block part of the state budget bill that bans them from regulating a new affordable housing development.
Most residents of the Outer Banks are aware that the area has an affordable housing problem. As coastal real estate prices go up, the people who staff the area’s schools, restaurants and shops are getting priced out.
Dare County Commission Chairman Robert Woodard frequently hears those concerns.
“We get phone calls after phone calls after phone calls,” he said at a recent meeting. “And I want you to hear the lady and the child on the phone crying that they don’t have a place to stay.”
The state legislature recently allocated $35 million to Dare County to build new affordable housing. But the contractor hired by the county to build a 400-unit development has faced opposition over the locations it’s considering for the project.
One of the proposed sites is in Nags Head near Jockey’s Ridge State Park.
“The town and the community felt like the property they were looking at was not the right location for it,” town manager Andy Garman said. “And so the town has gone back and looked at its zoning with respect to where the appropriate locations for multifamily would be.”
Garman said he got no warning that state lawmakers were thinking about taking away the town’s power to decide. But a provision buried deep in the recently enacted state budget bill stated that the Dare County affordable housing project will be exempt from local zoning regulations. That means no public hearings and no opportunity for the community to shape the details of what the housing development would look like.
“That would not allow us to regulate any projects regarding in any aspect of a project in terms of height, setbacks, density, lot coverage, all those things that the town’s planned for fairly carefully,” Garman said.
Dare County Commissioners got an earful about the law at their latest meeting.
“Dare County needs affordable housing,” Nags Head resident Debbie Carrara said. “And you can’t win — not really win — without the support of the towns, and bulldozing doesn’t count as winning.”
But County Manager Bobby Outten said Dare County leaders didn’t ask legislators for the exemption. “We didn’t ask anybody to lobby for that,” he said. “We didn’t get involved in that. We didn’t have anything to do with having that.”[…]
Thanks to WUNC, things are getting a little clearer about who might have orchestrated the insertion of this item into the state budget:
[…] A draft version of the budget provision obtained by WUNC lists Rep. Keith Kidwell, R-Beaufort, as its sponsor. He represents part of Dare County and didn’t respond to an inquiry about his role in the process.
House Speaker Tim Moore confirmed that the language was added at the request of legislators from the area. All of Dare County’s legislators, with the exception of Kidwell, have told media outlets they weren’t involved.
“There were apparently some issues, I guess with zoning, so they wanted language put in there so the housing could be built,” Moore said.
Moore’s office later emailed a statement that said he’s willing to repeal the budget provision — and take back the $35 million allocated for the project.
“If local communities no longer support addressing the affordable housing crisis in the Outer Banks, then I support repealing this provision and redirecting the funds to other state priorities,” he said.[…]
Now, those are some lawyer-like weasel words. I don’t think anyone said anything like that. It sounds like local folks don’t appreciate having their rights and responsibilities snatched out from underneath them in such a secretive, underhanded manner.
MORE:
[…] Opponents of the law suspect that the developers themselves lobbied lawmakers. Partners in the company, Coastal Affordable Housing LLC, include Jordan Hennessy, a former staffer at the legislature, as well as Aaron Thomas and his Robeson County construction company, Metcon.
Hennessy donated $4,500 to Kidwell’s campaign last year and $5,600 to Moore’s campaign. Thomas also donated thousands to Kidwell, Moore and other Republican lawmakers last year.
Some speakers at the county commission meeting, such as Wanchese resident Amy Stone, mentioned Hennessy, who is also involved with a company that got a dredging contract from Dare County.
“He is a principal in the corporation, and he will personally benefit financially from that piece of legislation,” Stone said. “It is at best unethical, at worst, possibly illegal and may be corrupt.”
Hennessy did not respond to a request for comment.[…]
Once again, it appears”business” in Raleigh all boils down to secretive, sweetheart deals and cash. THIS CROWD does not appear to be any better than the one we threw out in 2010.
Simply playing musical chairs with the same ol’ inside-the-beltline charlatans will not fix the problem. We need to extract some weasels — in both parties — and replace them with people of integrity. We need to reform the system so freedom and individual rights win out, and cash is no longer KING. (Wishful thinking, I know.)
But there are bound to be some people out there devoted to actual public service and honestly doing what they promised their home folks. (Aren’t there?)
Kidwell leading the grift. Disappointing but not surprising. He needs to join the long list of GOPe types getting primaried.
https://www.outerbanksvoice.com/2022/02/24/dare-board-picks-two-partners-for-essential-housing/
There are more direct beneficiaries to the $35 M pie. Including the local Real Estate Board Chief.
Kidwell is PHONY. I am telling you, my generation is tired of the old PHONY types who want to talk about Freedom, but try to use government to tell everyone else how to live. The guy hosts a poker night, yet he speaks out publicly against gambling. I am betting money would flow to a credible opponent willing to challenge him in a primary.
Where are you REAGANITE? How about you RADER? Tell us again how Kidwell is a staunch, principled conservative who is above reproach. According to his Facebook posts, Kidwell recently had a fundraiser hosted by the Hennessy guy and that would not be reflected in any listed donations. How about some swamp talk for the old attention whore, Kidwell?
Keith Kidwell was elected by a conservative base. Keith Kidwell, spoke of his conservatism and faith in God. Keith Kidwell has turned out to be a self-serving turncoat at many levels. He is a false face. He has stabbed his supporters in the back on more than several occasions because of his childish ways and submitting himself to the “Corrupt Dollar”. I’m my opinion, Kidwell, you are a disgrace, a loser and you should be an outcast. You and your co-conspirators, threw every Dare County town under the bus an backed up over them. Now each town is spending tax dollars to fight your corrupt ways. Kidwell you should resign.
This budget provision was added in the SENATE budget, not the House. It is NOT in the House passed version of the budget. Since Kidwell was a leader in the opposition to the casinos in the House, he would not be in a position to get “Casino Phil” Berger to do him any favors on the Senate version of the budget. In fact, Berger would likely have been doing all he could to screw Kidwell since Kidwell was a key opponent of Berger’s casino wet dream.
And who in the heck trusts anything coming out of UNC, anyway?
Reaganite, you are either purposefully being dishonest or you are ignorant of fact. The Kidwell provision WAS NOT in the version the Senate offered, which was published on 5/16/23. Additionally the SPEAKER of the HOUSE is the one that indicated it was a request from the “delegation” not Phil Burger. Your hero is busted, boomer. I have included proof in the links below. Read it and weep.
Here is a direct link to the Senate PCS of the House Bill 259. This is the Senate’s version of the budget before it went to conference committee.
https://webservices.ncleg.gov/ViewBillDocument/2023/5668/0/H259-PCS40484-NExfrap-3
This is the link to the main page, so everyone can see for themselves. The Senate offered their version on 5/16/23. https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2023/H259
The Kidwell provision did not show up until the conference report came out on 9/20/23. Again, people can look for themselves instead of taking your inaccurate statements as fact.
That was still a juncture when Berger was furious at Kidwell, and probably the height of Berger’s anger at Kidwell, because the casinos were down in flames and Kidwell played a big role in that. Berger would never have agreed to it if it was a matter of helping Kidwell. It had to have come from a source who had not royally pissed off Berger right at that juncture.
I totally agree that this provision totally sucks, and conforms to Democrat policy nationally of reducing or eliminating local government zoning powers in order to put low cost housing in middle class neighborhoods. The person in the General Assembly most in bed with the Democrats on that is Berger’s favorite staffer, progressive Millenial Brent Woodcox, head of YIMBY, an organization dedicated to that very policy.
In budget matters, Berger was very controlling and would not have given Kidwell the time of day, but would be very open to suggestions from Woodcox. This provision is right down Woodcox’s street but out of character for Kidwell.
How a moron like Kidwell got elected in the first place is beyond me.
Reaganite, if I am wrong, I will apologize. Being you are defending KK, please explain why he has been silent on the issue. The Outer Banks Voice, an online site, posted an article on September 27th. Hanig and Sanderson both responded, both responses were troubling but denied knowing. KK was on vacation and unable to respond and still, as of today, has yet to respond. I would guess the Voice has tried to contact him, more than once. I’m not sure where Ed Goodwin is, he represents half of KDH, all of KH, SS and Duck. KK represents the rest of Dare. Jordan Hennessy and Doug Brindley both donated to KKs campaign. These 2 are stake holders in the consortium, Coastal Affordable Housing aka CA$H.
I know Kidwell took a long vacation after the budget passed and may not have been available for a comment. BTW, “stakeholder” is a globalist term, highly favored by Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum, and one I only use if it has quotation marks around it.
The key thing that shoots down the Kidwell theory is that this provision appeared in the SENATE budget at a time that Kidwell was very much in the doghouse with Phil “Boss Hogg” Berger due to Kidwell’s role in shooting down Berger’s casinos. Berger was certainly not going to be doing Kidwell any favors at that juncture.
IMHO, that progressive twit who works for Berger, Brent Woodcox, is the most likely suspect. This ties in perfectly with Woodcox’s leadership in his outside organization YIMBY (Yes, In My Back Yard) which promotes low cost housing in middle class neighborhoods. Berger was the one who okayed this going into the budget, so it was someone who had Berger’s ear who put it there.
Ed Goodwin actually HAS commented:
“I had no knowledge of [the affordable housing provision] and nothing to do with it.”
https://www.outerbanksvoice.com/2023/10/11/story-identifies-suspects-in-affordable-housing-whodunnit/#respond
There is a link in the original article that shows the bill draft with Kidwell’s name on it.
Kidwell: Pay to Play. The Dare BOC, OBAR,Duke Geraghty, and Hennessey all played a role. Kidwell’s stamp is on this piece. Time to face facts.
Those “fact check” organizations are usually affiliated in some way with Soros, so that term immediately raises questions. This video is a good parody of that industry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmKPbYbAnKE&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.beaufortcountynow.com%2F&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ&feature=emb_imp_woyt
How can you contend that Phil Berger would give Kidwell ANYTHING right at the time that Kidwell played a major role in killing Berger’s top project in this legislative session, the casino deal? That makes absolutely no sense.
I understand some are still mad with Kidwell from when he took the wrong side in the state GOP chairman’s race after one of the supporters of the conservative choice stupidly attacked Kidwell in the middle of a widely circulated post supporting Kane. I wish Kidwell had not done waht he did in response, but that is no reason to ignore the surrounding circumstances of this budget that would have stopped this provision dead in its tracks if it had been Kidwell pushing it. That budget was negotiated personally between Berger and Moore, and Berger at that juncture had a real hard on for Kidwell, and Moore was not exactly going to be carrying water for him much either.
Hey FactCheck, should Doug Brindley be added to your list? He was in a position to have a, never ending stream, maybe river, of new income, if all “their” fabulous plans became reality.