Rep. Grier Martin is focused on raising state workers' salaries.

The Raleigh Democrat said that his biggest budget-related goal this session will be to bring teachers' salaries closer to the national average and give state workers a pay raise.

He does not think Gov. Mike Easley's proposed 7 percent pay raise for teachers and 1.5 percent raise for state employees is enough, though he declined to give a specific percentage that he would like to see.

"We need more," he said, "but we've got to figure out how we're going to pay for that too."

Apart from the budget, Martin said he hopes the legislature does not rush a comprehensive transportation fix. He said that it's too big of an issue to solve in a short session, though he hopes the legislature will make progress on finishing Interstate 540 and providing light rail in the Triangle.

"We do not need to be solving the transportation issue (in the short session) because that is a problem that requires careful, well-informed thought and doesn't lend itself to a quick and dirty solution," he said. "We'll just screw it up."

Clarification: Martin said he supports a transportation bond this fall, but not an overhaul of the entire system in the short session. 

U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge says high gas prices are hurting consumers.

In an event at the Raleigh Times this morning, the Lillington Democrat said that an economic stimulus package would help ease the pain of rising gas prices.

"I don't know where the threshold is," he said. "I always thought it was three dollars (a gallon) and it got to three dollars and people kept buying it. We now find out that people have to drive to work, so what they did was cut out the extra cup of coffee."

Etheridge said that mass transit is currently "not an option" in the Triangle area, but he stopped short of saying that a regional rail system is needed.

"I think we need alternatives available," he told Dome. "We've got to find ways to move people cheaper."

Dome asked if higher gas prices don't have some benefits as well: Encouraging people to buy more fuel-efficient cars and promoting alternative transportation, among other things.

But Etheridge said Congress is meeting those goals by raising the fuel-economy standards on cars and trucks and providing funding for biofuels.

Richard Moore unveiled an energy plan today.

The Democratic gubernatorial candidate called for promoting alternative fuels and energy sources, the state government more efficient and improve mass transit.

To promote alternative energy, Moore called for making the state government a leading consumer of alternative fuels, reforming utility rates to encourage conservation, encouraging research and condcuting long-range planning on energy generation.

He also said he would improve the energy efficiency of state buildings.

"The time to begin planning for a cleaner energy future is now," he said in a statement. "We can become a national leader in conservation and alternative energy, creating new businesses and an agricultural model that will ensure the prosperity of rural North Carolina for years to come."

Previously: Moore convenes global warming panel.

A delegation of Raleigh officials rode Pat McCrory's pet project this week.

Sixty civic leaders and politicians traveled to Charlotte to ride the Lynx Blue Line, the 9.6-mile transit line a decade in the making that launched in November.

The $472 million trains have been packed with 12,000 riders a day so far, well above forecasts, Bruce Siceloff reports. It's already spurred new development expected to increase city property tax revenue by $8.5 million per year by 2011.

The project was applauded by leaders as diverse as state Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat, and Tony Gurley, a Republican on the Wake County board of commissioners. They also saluted the city—and McCrory's—efforts to defeat a repeal of the half-cent sales tax that funds the project.

"It was beautifully done—and, frankly, Wake County struggles with that," said Ross.

Still, McCrory rarely talks about the train—not to mention the tax—on the campaign trail in the Republican primary, perhaps because of fear of criticism from fiscal conservatives.

One of Pat McCrory's biggest accomplishments in office has been a transit tax.

In 1997, the longtime Charlotte mayor lobbied the legislature to allow Mecklenburg County to charge an additional half cent.

That August, the legislature approved a bill to allow a referendum on the sales tax, but only after adding a provision allowing 14 rural counties to charge a $5 vehicle registration fee.

McCrory was elected for a second term a few months later and staked his political reputation on passing the transit tax. In November of 1998, Mecklenburg voters approved it by 58 percent.

The money—which now amounts to about $77 million a year—is used to pay for buses and a recently opened light-rail line.

The tax was challenged in a repeal last November, but 70 percent of voters backed keeping it, with support especially high among black voters and newcomers to the city. The Lynx Blue Line rail line began serving riders two weeks later.

* African American voters were a key factor behind the landslide support earlier this month in Charlotte for a half-cent sales tax for mass transit. (Charlotte Observer)

* The nation's top transportation official was in Morrisville on Monday to announce federal funding for school bus seat belts. But the numbers show children are already safer on the bus than off. (N&O)

* Reacting to what he called a growing number of gangs, N.C. House Speaker Joe Hackney appointed a 14-member committee Monday to study the issue. (Charlotte Observer)

Carter Wrenn is not optimistic about a transit plan.

In a post on Talking about Politics, the Republican political consultant notes that a Speical Transit Advisory Commission is studying trains and buses as a mass transit plan for the Triangle. But he argues they intentionally left out how to pay for it.

Wrenn says this reminds him of the Triangle Transit Authority's 1995 plan:

This sounds more and more like the old TTA: Sell everyone on the sizzle – then worry about the money later. Instead of asking: 'What can we afford? And what is a reasonable cost to pay for a mass transit system with a limited number of riders?'

He says the state should figure out how to pay for a system first, then design it.

One quibble: The TTA plan was not technically "light rail," which denotes lighter trains that use overhead electrical power — think trolleys — but a commuter rail running on traditional tracks.

North Carolina now faces its second sales tax revolt in two years.

Opponents of a half-cent sales tax in Mecklenburg County used for transit projects have gathered enough signatures to put a repeal on the November ballot, according to the Char-O.

In February of 2006, Dare County voters overwhelmingly rejected a one-cent sales tax levied for beach replenishment projects in a similar referendum.

Ray Midgett, a Southern Shores resident who used to work as a state auditor, led the effort there.

Under the 1971 law that created the first local option sales tax, opponents of a tax can force a special election on it by gathering the signatures of 15 percent as many voters as turned out in the most recent gubernatorial election.

In Mecklenburg, that amounted to 48,669 signatures.