Greensboro's Paid State Lobbyist Cam Cover Bills For The Last 2 Years

Below is a list of all the bills charged to the City of Greensboro for 2007 and 2008 from Cam Cover who is the paid state lobbyist who works for Brooks Pierce Law Firm. According to the memo from the city, Cam Cover CLICKHERE is paid $135.00 an hour but from my blog post last year it seems that she was paid $125.00 an hour last year. Who approved the new payment of $135.00 an hour because as we have seen the Greensboro City Council didn't even know they had a paid lobbyist.

Here is the payments for the past 2 years;

Long Session of General Assembly 2007
January 2007 $2,643.50
February 2007 $4,117.50
March 2007 $5,839.40
April 2007 $6,395.00
May 2007 $9,717.80
June 2007 $6,501.70
July 2007 $10,878.80
August 2007 $630.00
September07 $25.00
October 2007 $197.50
November 2007 $200.00
TOTAL $47,146.20

Short Session General Assembly 2008
January 2008 $285.00
April 2008 $4,097.80
May 2008 $5,238.40
June 2008 $9,127.00
July 2008 $4,687.50
August 2008 $10.00
October 2008 $837.50
November 2008 $750.20
December 2008 $635.00
TOTAL $25,668.40

GRAND TOTAL for 2 Years = $72,814.60

The city memo also has what the $135.00 an hour paid state lobbyist is doing for the long session for this year. If there is any past history of what she billed to the city and seeing that it was $47,146.20 in 2007, then you are probably going to be close to that amnount for this year in 2009 unless the City of Greensboro can see that this position is a waste of government money and needs to be done away with . Brooks Pierce Law Firm is going to put on a complete cya on why the city needs to have a paid lobbyist . Hopefully citizens of Greensboro can say to the City Council that this is a complete waste of taxpayers money.

If you also want to add another wrinkle to this issue in that Cam Cover is also a paid lobbyist for the North Carolina Cable Telecommunications Association which in reality is the lobbyist for Time Warner Cable. As we have seen in the past few weeks Time Warner wanted to test a new broadband pricing scheme in Greensboro and you have a Mayor who wants more competition in Greensboro and you have a lobbyist who works for Time Warner who will fight to have no competition in the Greensboro area. It will be interesting to see where that might come to play in the future.

Here is a few links below on post from last year on Brooks Pierce Law Firm and Cam Cover on Triadwatch.

CLICKHERE with a title "Greensboro City Council Members Barber and Wade Didn't Know About Their Paid State Lobbyist, Amazing"

CLICKHERE with a title "Brooks Pierce Law Firm + Greensboro City Council = $72,909.64 Payday"

CLICKHERE with a title "City of Greensboro + $125.00 an hour Lobbyist + Brooks Pierce Law Firm = Conflicts of interest