Beverly Perdue said Wednesday that she would strip most specific decisions from the state Board of Transportation.
Perdue was speaking to The N&O's editorial board and she outlined eight executive orders she would issue on inauguration day.
Perdue said she would be able to use an executive order to convert the transportation board, which now approves contracts, spending and projects, into a panel focused on long-term planning.
"I want to take the money out of the board. I want to transform the way DOT does business," she said.
She would not promise to ban fundraisers from the board, saying her proposals would make their influence moot. Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, the Republican nominee for governor, has said he would not appoint any of his fundraisers to the board.
Two board members — Louis W. Sewell Jr. and Thomas Betts Jr. — who are also Perdue fundraisers have resigned from the board this year.
"It seems to me the best way you can tell what someone is going to do in the future is to take a look at what they're doing right now and what they've done in the past," said Jack Hawke, a strategist for McCrory's campaign. "The lieutenant governor has used the Board of Transportation as her finance committee."
More, including Perdue's other proposals, after the jump.
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McCrory has promised to appoint transportation professionals to the board. He said he would charge them with developing a long-term transportation plan.
"It doesn't take a change in the law," Hawke said. "It doesn't take a change in anything other than a governor who's willing to make a commitment to make appointees to the board who are there for their experience and their professional training to help develop a long-range plan for the good of North Carolina."
Board members may still be required to vote on specific projects by law. Perdue said she would work to change the statue. Until then, she would require board members to sign a sworn statement declaring that they have no vested interest in agenda items.
Perdue's other executive orders would:
* Establish an organization to raise money that gubernatorial candidates could use to campaign without having to raise money.
* Direct state agency heads to develop goals and standards that she could use to assess their work. She would make regular, unannounced visits to state agencies to asses progress toward those goals.
* Alert state agency heads that she would conduct a performance review every month with at least one agency head.
* Direct agencies to prepare information about contracts and grants to be posted on the Internet.
* Establish live town halls, to be held at least four times. She would also create an on-line electronic town hall.
* Change state policy to state that all e-mail messages will be kept while the state develops a plan for long-term retention.
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Mavretic: "You cannot trust" Perdue
Clearly the reason that the mainstream media has not picked this story up is due to their democratic leaning. If the shoe was on McCrory's foot, Beverly's opponent would be fried by NC's press around statements like:
- Her word you cannot trust (you want us to trust her with her plans for the DOT when she has not even fessed up regarding her association with Sewell and others?)
- Her entire political career has been based on flip flops (She continues to demonstrate this and that may be due to what the Observer has concluded is no internal compass)
- She used attacks by surrogates that were proven to be unfounded to attack her previous opponents (I'm sorry, she's doing most of the negative ads herself despite her pledge to be "positive Bev")
Who's proven over and over again that she cannot be trusted now or as our next Governor?