News

CAMPAIGN FORUM: 48th NC Senate Dct.

By Bill Moss, Published: October 25, 2014

State Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Republican, and challenger Rick Wood, a Democrat, responded to questions during a forum last week sponsored by the Council of Independent Business Owners of Asheville. The 48th Senate District includes Henderson, Transylvania and southern Buncombe counties.

Opening statements

Apodaca: I am married to a former educator, Lisa Apodaca, and I have two sons, Brandon and Tate. I have lived in Western North Carolina since 1976 when I went to Western Carolina University, having left the area for only a year and a half. Love Western North Carolina. I think we're making progress in Western North Carolina and I would love to have your vote to go back down and continue working for Western North Carolina.

Wood: The chief finance officer for the North Carolina Department of Public Education said last month that funding for classroom activities such as textbooks, classroom teachers, teaching assistants, transportation, etc. has been reduced b y $1 billion. We cannot build a world-class economy by funding our schools as a third-class enterprise. I want to change that. they said the ax cuts they enacted would create new jobs but just the opposite has happened. According to the N.C. Department of Commerce new job announcements are down 30 percent from the previous year. New investment announcements are down 60 percent. They said the tax cuts would generate more state revenue. Just the opposite has happened. Last week the state budget officer announced that state revenue was down $313 million for the first three months of this fiscal year. That puts the state on track for a $1 billion deficit, which will mean more draconian for education, protecting the environment and things that ought to be done to improve our economy.

Fracking

Do you favor fracking?

Apodaca: "I approve of fracking as long as it's done safely and by standards set forth. I do not think you'll see fracking in Western North Carolina. This is a myth brought forth by the radical environmentalist movement. Fracking exploration is more in Lee and Harnett counties. But it ties in wonderfully with the problems we have at Lake Julian. We're not able to convert Lake Julian to all-natural gas because we do not have the capacity of natural gas in Western North Carolina. We ran into this problem when we were trying to help out the Evergreen plant over in Canton who wants to convert from coal to natural gas. So to me that tells us we need to find other sources of fuel and I think natural gas explanation is a great way to do that."

Wood: I'm not a radical environmentalist but I am strongly against fracking. I would have voted against fast-tracking fracking, for a number of reasons — noise, traffic, smells, possible loss of clean drinking water. but one of the biggest issues is that fact that land — land is important to people here in Western North Carolina — and there are circumstances where you lose control of your land and not have a choice, where you could be pooled and not have a choice and they could frack under you if you're in that pool. I'm not just opposed to it in Western North Carolina but the entire state. Certainly we need to try to wean ourselves coal. ... why in the world would you want to pass legislation that includes the requirement that you can't reveal what the chemicals are that's being used in the fracking? It's against the law. You could go to jail. It's crazy legislation."

School spending

We hear about the Legislature cutting $500 million from education. What's your position and what are the facts according to how you see it? If elected how would you fund education in the future?

Wood: There's some disagreement on whether the cut was $500 million or what depending on the semantics of the wording of all the bills and so forth. but the bottom line is I am strongly opposed to the cuts we've seen to public education in the last four years. It would take me longer than two minutes to go all through all of it — the cut in teacher assistants, textbooks, technology, transportation, really terrific cuts, that's one of the main reasons that I'm running. I'm a 40-year educator that's served on the Henderson County School Board the last six years. I've seen first-hand what's happening to our school system. It's not fair to our children, to our teachers, it's just a real problem. And you can say because the total amount spent on education is slightly more, we're doing great. We're not doing great. We're not doing great at all. There's several thousand more students. We're 48th in the nation in per pupil funding. I would rescind the second round of tax giveaways would be one way that would help. I'd have to take a look at the budget with new eyes and find how we could find more money for education.

Apodaca: No. 1, the $500 million figure we've seen in every TV ad that's run in North Carolina is bogus. Of all the places, the Washington Post and the (Raleigh) N&O both fact checked and said that was untrue. It was an accounting mechanism used. How many people in this room employ people. How many people in this room employ as many people as they did 10 years ago? Oh, my. OK, one. That's my point. We have gone through the worst economic time in the history of this country next to the Great Depression, and some people say we were pretty close to there, and we have had to make hard choices, and we made hard choices. Since 2011 when we came into power, we had to make choices to balance the budget, to do the best we can going forward to get us back on the road. We're beginning to go down that road. My two economic development guys (from Henderson and Buncombe counties) say they're as busy as they've ever been working with companies looking at this area to come into. So let's not forget who pays the taxes, how we pay the taxes — it's economic development. Per pupil spending. The state of North Carolina is ranked eighth in the country for the amount of money out of our general fund we put towards education. So you ask yourself how could we be 48th. Well, folks, we have to look at home. It comes down to the local areas and the amount of money they put into education. I am tired of getting blamed for what's happening with education. My wife's a schoolteacher, myself and my children all graduated from public schools.

Economic development

Do you favor economic development incentives?

Apodaca: In a perfect world we wouldn't have them. I remember when we had the Dell plant in Winston-Salem, and it failed, as a matter of fact, but the good news is they had callback provisions within that and they paid back the incentives that were given to them. The reality of the situation is now if you're going to compete you have to give incentives. Until Congress, outlaws incentives then we have no choice, because when we compete against South Carolina and other states, we want to be in the game, we have to give incentives. But we have to be careful. Taxpayer money, we must put strict requirements on it, make sure they perform as they're supposed and if they don't they have to pay back. But we can "not" give incentives.

Wood: WRAL posted in a story that said since 2009 some 90 percent, $500 million, of the job incentives announced have gone to the state's wealthiest counties, despite the fact that the stated purpose of this incentive program was to help rural counties get job. That's not right.