• • This Week at the General Assembly
• • Legislative "Hardy Boys Mystery"
• • Bills Introduced This Week
• • Bills on the Move
• • Joint Regulatory Reform Committee Public Meetings

Week 9 of the 2011 Session saw the passage of an important deadline in the House and Senate.  Legislators were required to make their requests for legislation by the end of this week.  NCHBA is happy to report that all of the items on our legislative agenda have already been introduced or are being prepared for introduction by legislative staff. 

Issues taking top billing this week included changes to the state health plan to require state employees to pay monthly premiums, the ability of municipalities to provide Internet broadband services, a number of local annexation issues, and recognition of an unborn child as an additional victim if a pregnant woman is murdered.

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Reconstruction-era Governor William W. Holden will have to wait a little longer for his pardon. Holden was impeached and removed from office in 1871 after attempting to crack down on the Ku Klux Klan. The Senate had been scheduled to debate a measure this week that would have pardoned Holden, but debate was pushed back after a report about Holden was anonymously placed on Senators' desks.

“It was just a scurrilous thing,” Sen. Neal Hunt, R-Wake, said. “It was saying Gov. Holden was a bad man.” The unsigned two-page document claimed Holden was “a bitter, unscrupulous and arrogant demagogue.”  

Senate rules allow only a senator (or his or her assistant) or a member of the principal clerk’s staff to place items on senators’ desks. All such items must conspicuously display the name of the Senator responsible for the item.  Although there are a number of cameras in the Legislative Building and, particularly on the Senate floor, the one camera that should have caught an image of the person placing the information on the Senators’ desks was not working at the time the “crime” occurred.  The pardon bill has been referred to committee until the mystery is solved!

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HB 436 Economic Disclosures for Sanitary Districts would require members of a sanitary district board to file a statement of economic interest as prescribed by the State Ethics Commission.

HB 439 Cornelius/Davidson Tree Ordinances modifies the authority for these towns to allow tree ordinances to apply to residential lots.  NCHBA defeated an identical bill in 2009 and will be happy to do it again!  

HB 454 ERC to Study Construction on Slopes directs the Legislature’s Environmental Review Commission to study issues related to safe artificial slope construction.  NCHBA opposes!

HB 461 Cornelius ROW Ordinance would allow the city to regulate utility boxes placed in the right-of-way.  NCHBA opposes! 

HB 464 Sanitary Districts/Public Utility would require a sanitary district to be subject to regulation by the NC Utilities Commission.

SB 395 Property Insurance Rate Review Board would create a citizens’ property insurance board to protect the interests of NC citizens in the property insurance rate setting process.  

SB 419 Campaign Finance and Regulatory Reforms would repeal the authority to provide for public funding of campaigns in NC.

SB 425 Ecosystem Enhancement Program Changes would reorganize the EEP and make changes to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund.

SB 427 NC Water Security Act would require local governments to include water efficiency in their water supply plans and would require the NC Building Code Council to adopt a rule functionally equivalent to the Water Efficiency Provisions of the International Green Construction Code.  NCHBA opposes!

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SB 22 APA Rules: Limit Additional Costs was signed by the Governor TODAY and is now Session Law 2011-13!

HB 62 Prohibit Boylston Creek Reclassification passed 2^nd and 3^rd reading in the Senate and was ratified.

HB 92 Repeal Land Transfer Tax awaits the Governor’s signature.

SB 107 Tax of Improved Property in Roadway Corridors passed 2^nd and 3^rd reading in the Senate and heads to the House.

SB 165 NC Turnpike Authority Corridor Selection was signed by the Governor and is S.L. 2011-7.

SB 368 Modify Public Swimming Pool Requirements passed in the Senate and is now in the House Environment Committee.

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Special thanks to NCHBA members in the Charlotte area for your excellent comments at the Joint Regulatory Reform Committee's public meeting held last Monday.  You told your stories and made your voices heard.  Committee members thanked us for the great participation from our members, and they will remember your comments! 

The next public meeting will be held on Monday, March 28, at Guilford Technical Community College – Jamestown Campus in the Koury Hospitality Careers Center Auditorium, 601 High Point Road, Jamestown, N.C.   We are asking all our members in the Triad area to show up and tell your stories.  If you can’t make the meeting, please submit your comments to regreform@ncleg.net  or use the NC General Assembly’s online form at http://www.ncleg.net/Applications/RFC/?id=3.

See you next week.

PS -- We're now on Twitter. Follow @NC_Homebuilders to get updates from the N.C. General Assembly throughout the week, as well as lots of other NCHBA news.

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