This past Tuesday, several members of the Chamber spent about 6 hours in Raleigh meeting with our local delegation and several members of the administration.  Here are some highlights of the meeting:

• The budget was all the talk. The Speaker of the House had called the house into session at 9:00 am that morning and told the House members that the session would not end until all the amendments to the House budget bill (H200) had been heard.  I understand the session went well into the evening.
• Secretary of Cultural Affairs, Linda Carlisle, was concerned about her budget that had been cut 23%. However,  in a late move the House reduced the cuts to 15%.  Cleveland County gets money for the arts through the Department of Cultural Affairs and the Scruggs Center and Don Gibson Theatre have also been recipients of grants form this department.  Secretary Carlisle is in charge of all state historical parks and with this being the 150 Anniversary of the Civil War, it would be ashamed if we had to close those parks.
• NCDOT had some good news for us.  Right of Way acquisition for sections one and two have begun with construction of phase 1 to get underway in 2012 and construction of phase 2 to begin in 2013.  That sounds promising.
• Secretary of Commerce, Keith Crisco, was not able to meet with us very long as we were invited to the House floor to meet the Speaker of the House, Tom Tillis.  However, Secretary Crisco did go with us and told the Speaker that "Cleveland County had the most aggressive economic development team in the State of North Carolina."  Pretty high accolades coming from the state's chief economic developer.
• President Pro Temp of the Senate, Phil Berger, was very gracious with his time and listened to our concerns as they related to several pieces of legislation.  In particular, we expressed our reservations about the proposal to funnel the next two payments from the tobacco settlement into the General Fund.  The Chamber's Board of Directors is on record in opposition to this move and we once again explained our reasoning to Senator Berger.  He was very nice but informed us that the monies would be going to the General Fund for the next two years.  Oh well, we tried.

It was a good day and Senator Clary and Representative Moore's staffs were very helpful in setting up all the appointments and making sure we didn't get lost.    Many thanks to them for their help.  We would also like to express our thanks to Senator Clary, Representative Moore, Representative Hastings and Representative Hager for taking time out of a very busy day to be with us.  Next year I hope more members will go.