Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style" urges readers to avoid the passive voice — the active voice is more direct and vigorous.

The classic writing manual didn't mention that the passive voice creates mystery, Joseph Neff reports.

An example of the passive voice is the following sentence: Former Gov. Mike Easley and his wife were given a $137,470 discount on their Cannonsgate lot on Bogue Sound.

R.A. North Development, the company that developed Cannonsgate, gave the discount. But who was the person behind it? The passive voice hides the identity.

The passive voice shows up in other Cannonsgate matters.

Ace Smith, Easley's spokesman, the former governor "was assured he received the same offer as everyone else."

Who assured Easley?

Smith declined to say.

Richard Stanley, the closing attorney, told Dome that he was instructed to put the 25 percent seller's discount into the closing documents.

Who instructed Stanley to do so?

Stanley declined to say.

Stanley wrote a letter about the deal to the Carteret County News Times.

More after the jump.

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A federal grand jury wants to hear from two state environmental officials who handled permits on the Cannonsgate land project, a development in coastal Carteret County where former Gov. Mike Easley acquired a soundfront lot in 2005.

The officials have been asked to appear today.

Questions have swirled around the permitting process since reports in The News & Observer in May showed that real estate broker McQueen Campbell, a friend of Easley, bragged in writing that political contacts helped secure the wastewater treatment plant permit in half the one year's time he said it should have taken, J. Andrew Curliss reports.

In an interview, Campbell would not say what he meant by political contacts, other than to say he knew "who to call to get all these things done."

State records show the plant permit at Cannonsgate was granted faster than most, but not to the degree Campbell was claiming. It was part of an express review available to all developers. It was granted in 64 days.

The average of similar sized plants was about 110 days.

More after the jump.

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Federal authorities are looking into a former land deal by Gov. Mike Easley, according to the company that marketed the property.

Easley purchased a lot in the Cannonsgate development for $549,880 at the end of 2005, according to property records. It was assessed at a tax value of $1.2 million a year later, though it would sell for less today.

Separate reports in 2006 by the Charlotte Observer and the Carolina Journal, a publication of the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, compared the Easley sale with others nearby and concluded that he got a good deal.

The project was developed and marketed by brothers Randy and William Allen, whom Easley appointed to the state Wildlife Resources Commission. Another Easley appointee, transportation board member Lanny Wilson, helped finance the project with a $12.5 million loan.

All three were major campaign contributors to Easley. (N&O)