Public Notices in North Carolina Needs to Be Open To Weekly Newspapers With One Simple Fix

There has been a lot of talk about public notices in North Carolina with N.C. Senator Trudy Wade trying to get legislation passed to revamp public notice laws to 2015 standards not 1949 standards. There was a time where the only form to advertise public notices was in the local paper but now with the invention of the computer, smart phones and internet it is time to think differently.

Let's take some small steps in this process and the obvious is to get some wording taken out of the North Carolina General Statute. Here is what is written in the North Carolina General Statute 1-597
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§ 1-597.  Regulations for newspaper publication of legal notices, advertisements, etc.

Whenever a notice or any other paper, document or legal advertisement of any kind or description shall be authorized or required by any of the laws of the State of North Carolina, heretofore or hereafter enacted, or by any order or judgment of any court of this State to be published or advertised in a newspaper, such publication, advertisement or notice shall be of no force and effect unless it shall be published in a newspaper with a general circulation to actual paid subscribers which newspaper at the time of such publication, advertisement or notice, shall have been admitted to the United States mails in the Periodicals class in the county or political subdivision where such publication, advertisement or notice is required to be published, and which shall have been regularly and continuously issued in the county in which the publication, advertisement or notice is authorized or required to be published, at least one day in each calendar week for at least 25 of the 26 consecutive weeks immediately preceding the date of the first publication of such advertisement, publication or notice

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Now as we see from this legislation that dates back to the 1940's it makes public notices have to be done in "Paid Subscribers" . Paid subscribers are papers like the Greensboro News and Record,Carolina Peacemaker, High Point Enterprise and Jamestown News in Guilford County.

 

We have a plethora of weekly papers that can provide public notices in Guilford County and they charge NOTHING to pick up a weekly paper but are locked out of the process because of this law that states it has to be a paid paper. Yes Weekly, Triad City Beat, Rhino Times and Northwest Observer are a few of the weekly papers in Guilford County that do a good job of informing us on local politics and should be able to provide public notices in this county. A great example of the absurdity of this law is the Northwest Observer which covers cities like Oak Ridge, Summerfield and Stokesdale and provides their papers for  FREE at no cost to the consumer . The cities I referenced have to go through the Greensboro News and Record to provide their public notices, when in reality it would be to the benefit of the citizens in Northwest part of Guilford County to get their public notices through the weekly Observer than News and Record because more citizens are getting home drop off of the weekly than subscribers to the News and Record in this part of county. State Representative John Blust tried to make his point on this but went on deaf ears to the state representatives who are scared to piss off the local newspapers to get negative press on them and to keep their monopoly on public notices because of outdated state law.

 

My suggestion as you can see in the above state law 1-597 is a small step but needs to be done in a county like Guilford who has weekly papers who can provide this information. We need to get a bill passed either local bill or statewide to take out "PAID SUBSCRIBERS" from the state law so that weekly papers can have a chance at providing this information to the citizens of Guilford County.

 

This is a small step to take out 2 words in a law but am sure the lobbyist and their state cheerleaders will fight this till the end. We will see what happens but hopefully we can get some traction with weekly newspapers all over the state and get a bill passed to take out "PAID SUBSCRIBERS" from NGS 1-597

 

 

Hypocrite TREBIC CARTEL Member Lawyer Tom Terrell delays Friendly Hobbs For Other Reason?

Looking at the Triad Business Journal today 1-8-2015, Halpern has asked for a 60 day continuance to a major rezoning case off of Hobbs Road and Friendly Ave. but in reality he is asking for a delay until his Triad Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition "TREBIC CARTEL" cronies on the North Carolina State level will try to get Protest Petition completely off the laws in this state and screw established neighborhoods in Greensboro and other places in this state.

The reason we call Tom Terrell lawyer for the developers a hypocrite is because when it is beneficial to his clients he will use this tool called a protest petition but when he needs the votes on council he wants to completely do away with this N.C. State Law. Here is a blog post on TREBIC TOM's blog talking about his hypocrisy with help from local developer Marty Kotis HERE

TREBIC Tom writes this in Triad Business Journal
"In an email copied to the Triad Business Journal, attorney Tom Terrell — who represents Halpern — said the continuance is being sought "so that it can consider alternative designs that are consistent with the offered conditions."

This is total bull shit because all he is doing is  delaying the votes he does not have to see if the State of North Carolina will do away with Protest Petitions and only needs five votes to pass the Greensboro City Council instead of 7 with Protest Petition. There was a article out today in the Greensboro News and Record that said both Council members Hoffman and Hightower are NO votes on this rezoning and TREBIC CARTEL Tom can count and know he doesn't have the votes to pass but delay this get help from cronies in Raleigh and all I need is 5 instead of 7 like the old days where King Zoning Stud Henry Isaacson had enough councilmembers in his back pocket to get 5 votes each time.

Now with this Friendly and Hobbs rezoning we have seen both TREBIC CARTEL Tom Terrell  try twice and King Zoning Stud Henry Isaacson try once to rezone this to no avail . When will these developers ever quit No means No on this property let it stay residential as it should be . There is plenty of places all over Greensboro for this development to happen and the corner of hobbs and friendly is not it.

This case will be delayed more than just 60 days believe me it will be delayed till they can get the law abolished on state level.We will see a continuance after a continuance from TREBIC CARTEL MEMBER Tom Terrell.

We also have local Village Idiot John Hammer from Rhino Times chiming in on this rezoning case stating this

"Before Trader Joe’s pulled out, the smart money said that the rezoning request would have definitely passed the City Council.  There was some question as to whether it would have passed with the seven votes to overcome the protest petition, but those who count votes said a solid seven were there.
 
There are a couple of considerations for those who oppose the rezoning from Residential Single-family R-3 to Conditional District-Commercial-Medium CD-C-M.  One is that the protest petition is going away.  The state legislature intended to do away with it last year and it will certainly meet its demise in 2015.  So the neighborhood has more clout now than it will if this is defeated and comes back up next year when, without a protest petition, the rezoning request will need only a simple majority to pass.  And it looks like, with a seven-member council also on the horizon, that could be four votes.


Lawyers like Tom Terrell and Henry Isaacson use these delay tactics like a playbook and they will always count votes well before these rezoning cases come before council and if they do not have the votes they will delay or completely take it off the books. We will see where this goes but to me it looks like Tom wants a little help from my CRONY friends at the state level who don't know shit about this law and only are getting spoon fed information from TREBIC CARTEl lobbyist on how bad this law of Protest Petition is but in reality it works just fine.

I know about Protest Petition because our neighborhood used it and it actually worked out for the better for both sides of our rezoning case. Protest Petition is a state law that needs to stay or neighborhoods all over North Carolina will get ramrodded by developers and their TREBIC CARTEL members like we see in the triad area of North Carolina


If you want to read more on protest petitions CLICKHERE

and on this blog under protest petition CLICKHERE