Two problems in state government were washed away Aug. 27, just as remnants of Tropical Storm Fay swept Raleigh’s gutters clean the same day. The N.C. legislature overrode the governor’s veto of a bill, and now unnecessary stops, tickets and fines for towed recreational boats should end. An hour earlier at the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, the agency’s commissioners named an executive director for its professional division after a delay of 13 months.
The events leading up to both actions were strange, but we suppose typical these days, for state government.
Gov. Mike Easley and the N.C. Highway Patrol often painted the boat-towing bill (HB 2167) as a proposal that would increase danger to public safety when clearly, except in the most extreme instances, it wasn’t. Towing of wide loads (house trailers, 18-wheelers, construction equipment) has been done on state roads for years with few problems. The only difference is those tow packages are classified as commercial vehicles, while fishing and ski boats were recreational tows. But to support the governor, the Highway Patrol set up a suspect demonstration before the vote to show “dangers” to children riding school buses posed by over-wide boats.
But the old law didn’t allow towing wide boats on weekends, holidays and until noon the day after a holiday. In other words, Easley’s preferred law forced wide-beam towed boats to be on the road exactly when school buses were out and about. The governor, in effect, supported a towing law more dangerous to children than HB 2167. But he apparently never grasped the distinction.
On the other hand, Senate leader Marc Basnight (D-Dare) said before a 39-0 override vote the legislature had found no statistics to show towed boats were a problem, except in rare instances.
And so the House and Senate took 43 minutes in a first-in-history override of a N.C. governor’s veto.
At the WRC, chairman Wes Seegars (an Easley appointee) praised outgoing interim director Fred Harris (37 years of experience), then said the search committee had named deputy director Gordon Myers the new executive director.
We see no problem with that decision. However, it’s still odd Myers was picked instead of Harris, who had more experience and appears widely-admired by the professional staff, including Myers.
Myers most likely can handle the challenge of managing the WRC’s professional division. But whether he can rein in the commission’s politically-appointed leadership is another question. The commissioners have made some questionable decisions in recent months, a time in which Harris, in his quiet way, side-tracked some of them. Perhaps that had an effect on his not being chosen.
Sources have told us Harris wasn’t the first choice of the WRC chairman, who apparently preferred an out-of-state candidate.
We also have been told Mr. Basnight had some influence upon the final choice of Myers, so the Senate leader stymied the governor nor once but twice in the same day. The deluge of veto votes by representatives and senators also showed the power of the people — or Basnight — to set things right for sportsmen.
The problem remains that WRC commissioners answer to no one, except a governor reluctant to discipline his appointees.
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