Opinion Roundup: Revised amendment language, 'Silent Sam' arrests, population decline and more

Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: Republicans advance new versions of proposed constitutional amendments, UNC police issue arrest warrants for 3 after Silent Sam, rural N.C.'s shrinking population, tick-borne meat allergy on the rise, scrapped plans to provide safe drinking water and more.

GARY ROBERTSON: N Carolina lawmakers return for second run on 2 amendments (AP reports) —In a special session announced with one day's notice, the House agreed on two new amendment proposals with ballot questions that GOP lawmakers say will comply with the majority's ruling on a three-judge panel this week.

TRAVIS FAIN: House passes new constitutional amendments language (WRAL-TV reports) — GOP leadership said the changes working their way through this hastily called special session will address the court's concerns, though Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement Friday that the new language remains "deceptive, unconstitutional and wrong."

LYNN BONNER: Republicans advance new versions of NC constitutional amendments (Durham-Herald Sun reports) — The rewritten ballot language has a much more expansive explanation of the proposed changes. The House passed it with no votes to spare, 72-34. Proposed constitutional changes need 72 House votes and 30 Senate votes to make it to the ballot. The Senate is scheduled to vote Monday.

JIM MORRILL & LYNN BONNER: Ex-GOP Gov. Jim Martin: Revisions to one contested amendment good; the other, not so much (Durham-Herald Sun reports) — Former Gov. Jim Martin, who led four other governors in opposing a pair of proposed constitutional amendments, Friday endorsed one of them after the N.C. House redrew it. But the former Republican governor said he continued to have reservations about the other.

North Carolina refused to act on Confederate statues. So protesters did (Washington Post) — The events Monday night, in which a crowd of about 250 students, faculty members and local residents stormed the statue and used ropes to bring it down, can be linked to the arrogance of state lawmakers in enacting a law that tied the hands of local officials in dealing with an issue of great community concern.

MARK SCHULTZ & CAMILA MOLINA: UNC-Chapel Hill planning for Confederate statue rally Saturday, tells public stay away (Durham-Herald Sun reports) — UNC-Chapel Hill is preparing for a possible rally Saturday in response to this week’s toppling of Silent Sam. The university issued a statement Friday urging people not to attend.

JODI GLUSCO: 3 face arrest after 'Silent Sam' toppled (WRAL reports) — UNC police made clear that the three people, who each face charges of misdemeanor riot and misdemeanor defacing of a public monument, were not students or otherwise affiliated with the university. As the investigation continues, more arrests may come, police said.

CARLI BROSSEAU: Police chief reacts to tattoo on cop near Silent Sam: It ‘will not occur again’ (Charlotte Observer reports) — Chapel Hill’s police chief says he regrets that one of his officers has displayed a controversial tattoo on his forearm while on duty because of “negative interpretations of that tattoo.”

LINDELL KAY: City awaits monument report (Rocky Mount Telegram reports) — With the toppling this week of Silent Sam in Chapel Hill, Confederate monuments have been cast into the spotlight once again. And local eyes are again turning toward the Falls Road monument, with some residents seeing history and some residents seeing hate. The large granite monument to the Confederacy on Falls Road at Battle Park was erected in 1917 on private land, which was gifted to the city in the 1970s and rededicated to all fallen soldiers from Nash County.

Feds charge 19 with illegally registering, voting in 2016 (AP reports) — Federal prosecutors in NC say they're charging 19 people with registering to vote or casting ballots illegally because they weren't U.S. citizens. Prosecutors said Friday that nine people who are citizens of Mexico, Nigeria, Japan and other countries are charged with felonies for falsely claiming U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.

DASHIELL COLEMAN: Prosecution possible in Gaston voting case (Gaston Gazette reports) — A state report found 12 cases of possible illegal voting in Gaston County in the 2016 general election. It’s a small portion — nearly 97,000 local votes were cast — but such cases could face potential prosecution under North Carolina law. Eleven of the cases involved suspected voting by felons and one suspected instance of voting by a non-citizen.

ALFRED CHARLES: ‘I committed a serious crime,' Laura Riddick, ex-Wake Register of Deeds, now headed to prison (WRAL reports) — Citing a mental condition that caused a compulsion to hoard money, Former Wake County Register of Deeds Laura Riddick pleaded guilty Friday to charges that she stole nearly $1 million from the office she managed over several years. Riddick was hit with six felony counts of embezzlement by a public officer after investigators concluded that she skimmed over $900,000 from cash receipts that flowed into her office between 2010 and 2017.

ANNA DOUGLAS: Small Baptist church takes on NC city — and wins (Charlotte Observer reports) — After a small Baptist congregation says it felt unwelcome in a NC city, elected officials there took action this week to quell the controversy and avoid going to federal court.

Republicans tried to smear this NC candidate again. This time, it wasn’t nearly so funny (Charlotte Observer reports) — Republicans sure must be uncomfortable with Erica McAdoo. McAdoo, you might remember, is a Democratic candidate for House District 63 in Alamance County. It’s a race that’s rated as competitive, which might explain why Republicans tried to smear McAdoo earlier this month with a comical attempt at opposition research that backfired.

MICHAEL ABRAMOWITZ: UNC president confident in ECU chancellor and BOG chairman (Greenville Daily Reflector reports) — North Carolina’s university system president said that East Carolina University’s chancellor and the UNC Board of Governors chairman, at odds this year over several issues, share her complete confidence and full support. “I like to think (system leaders) have a whole lot more in common than divides us, primarily an affinity for and an understanding of the needs of rural students,” President Margaret Spellings told the Daily Reflector.

FERREL GUILLORY: Where population declines, a devilish dilemma for North Carolina (EdNC reports) —In communities with a shrinking and aging population, and invariably with a weak tax base, should the state take over struggling schools? Or should schools be merged or consolidated? Or can the state support and strengthen current schools, which ones, at what cost, and along what education strategy?

ALEX GRANADOS: Red4EDNC spreads its message across the state (EdNC reports) — Monica Wilkerson, the English Department Chair at Leesville Road High School in Wake County, has been teaching in NC since 1993. Standing in front of her school, she explained that she was proud to call herself a teacher back then. The state was a leader in public education, and she said politicians of all stripes were united around support of public schools. “Then slowly, a wave of cynicism and criticism enveloped our state,” she said.

JARED WEBER: Tick-borne Meat Allergy Has Risen in North Carolina (NC Health News reports) — On an average midsummer afternoon of 2017, Susan Davis noticed that a large tick had latched onto her waist. She had been walking her dog, Onyx, in the woods surrounding her Chapel Hill home earlier that day. Davis, an audio journalism consultant, plucked the tick off quickly. Though a “very itchy red mark” remained where she had been bitten, she wasn’t worried. Growing up in the Midwest, she’d had plenty of experience with ticks. A few weeks later, at a friend’s dinner party, Davis ate a meal she said she’s had countless times: a burger, salad and corn on the cob. That night, though, at about 1 a.m., she woke up in extreme discomfort.

PATRICK FERLISE: 10 years ago, Matthew Gfeller died from a high school football injury. His family honors his life by pushing for research into brain trauma (Winston-Salem Journal reports) — It was a freak accident — the odds were at least 100 million to one. That’s what doctors told Bob and Lisa Gfeller in August 2008, when their 15-year-old son, Matthew, died from injuries sustained on a routine football play during the fourth quarter of Reynolds High’s season opener against Greensboro Page at Deaton-Thompson Stadium. It was a block, which likely caused their son’s head to jolt backward, tearing a blood vessel and causing his brain to swell.

NC Republicans and Democrats had a plan to ensure your child’s drinking water is safe. What happened? (Charlotte Observer) — There’s at least one way to better ensure safe water. Test it. Last year, a group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers tried to do just that for schools across North Carolina. House Bill 825, a truly bipartisan effort, required water to be tested for lead at the state’s public schools and many day care facilities. The bill recognized that lead levels appeared to be higher at schools built more than three decades ago. In turn, lawmakers laid out a thoughtful, tiered plan in which older schools would be tested first. What happened?

EMERY DALESIO: Utilities pivot from power plants to grid work for profits (AP reports) — Electric utilities are pouring billions of dollars into a race to prevent terrorists or enemy governments from shutting down the power grid and everything that depends on electricity in America's hyper-connected society. Duke Energy already is collecting grid modernization charges in Florida, Ohio and Indiana. But North Carolina regulators this year wouldn't approve the company's proposal to start charging the average household an extra $3,000 to $4,000 over the coming decade to bury power lines and modernize electricity delivery systems.

JOYCE ORLANDO: Father, son veterans travel country together (Gaston Gazette reports) — George and John Melton share many things - genetics, veteran status and now travel. George, a World War II veteran, and his son John, a Vietnam War veteran, recently came back from a trip to New Orleans, La., and last year the two flew to Washington, D.C., together with the Soaring Valor program George may not be the 20-year-old that marched across the European Theatre in 1944, but the soon-to-be 94-year-old gets around carrying a painted cane, stopping every once and a while to tap it and make sure the ground is level.

Kernersville deserves a visitors’ center (Winston-Salem Journal) — Korner’s Folly in Kernersville is one of the most uncommon and eclectic homes in the country, never mind the state. Recently-approved plans for a visitors’ center there could provide a little extra oomph to attract more tourists and keep the showhouse open for decades to come.

ISSAC GROVES: Caswell collector finds ‘Holy Grail’ of arrowheads in front yard (Burlington Times-News reports) — Gordon Godwin loves arrowheads. He has about 1,000 in his collection gathered from fields around Alamance and Caswell counties, but to find the prize of his collection — a Clovis point — he hardly had to go 100 yards from his door. “I’ve collected all my life,” Godwin said. “This was what I’ve always looked for, and I found it in my fricking front yard.”