One Stop Voting Begins Today

4A
THE BUTNER-CREEMOOR NEWS
EDITORIAL PAGE
THURSDAY
October 18, 2012
Complaining about
the actions of elected
officials on the local,
state, and national level
is becoming a popular
national pastime. Sadly,
many of the loudest
whiners are citizens
eligible to vote who, for
some inexcusable
reason, choose not to.
Granville County
voters are fortunate to
have One Stop Voting,
which begins today, that
offers convenient voting
sites and hours, even two
days of Saturday hours.
The two sites, the
Commissioners’ Meeting
Room at Creedmoor City
Hall and the Thornton
Library Conference
Room in Oxford, are
well-known and easy to
locate.
Choosing which
candidates to support
should not be difficult.
Those seeking office
have reached out to the
public with their
positions on the issues,
and appear to be
available to answer
relevant questions.
Any prospective
voter should try to seek
out current or future
leaders who, first of all,
share his or her value
system, as evidenced by
actions rather than words.
Then, wise voters should
research the candidates’
opinions on the issues to
find matches for their own
views.
How do you feel about
tax rates and government
spending, education,
employment opportunities,
crime
prevention, environmental
issues, and a host
of other issues? Does an
incumbent have a record?
What private sector
experiences have
influenced a newcomer?
The answer will differ
for each voter, but the only
way to make a mark on
your community is to go to
the polls and cast your
ballot.
One of the best and
surest ways to express
satisfaction or dissatisfaction
is to exercise
our important rights of
freedom of speech,
freedom of assembly, and
the right to vote for the
candidate or issue of our
choice.
It’s time to stop
complaining and not
waste the birthright that
our forefathers have died
to defend.
Letter To The Editor
TIME TO VOTE
To The Editor:
The time is once again upon us, time for us to apply
one of our nation’s greatest strengths, the one paid
for by human determination and sacrifice. It is time
for us to go in a booth and decide who we want to
represent us.
Throughout our history men and women have
fought and many have given their lives to ensure us
the right to vote is among the rights we enjoy.
Our right to choose those who govern is a beacon,
a shining example to the rest of the world. People
around the world envy us and yearn for the right to
vote.
Negative campaign ads make it difficult to know
the candidates and issues. Character assassination
and fabrication seems to be the norm now days. So
take the time to learn who and what you believe is
best for all of us.
For, the time is now to exercise our precious right.
Do not make excuses not to vote. Those who gave
their all so you can vote did not make excuses. Vote,
if for nothing else, do it as a tribute to them.
Please, go to the polls and vote for the candidates
of your choice.
Terry Turner
Butner
Letters To The Editor Policy
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verification. The phone number will not be published.
❑ Because of space limitations, poetry generally cannot be published.
❑ Letters endorsing political candidates or stating positions on referenda will not be
published in the two issues immediately preceding an election.
❑ Generally, the paper will print only one letter from the same writer within
60 days.
❑ The Butner-Creedmoor News reserves the right to edit letters for grammar and
length and to edit or reject letters that are libelous or, in management’s opinion, of
questionable taste.
Cowell Seeks Second Term
In Bumpy Post - 2008 World
In the post-Great
Recession world, being a
state treasurer is no path
to wide and lasting
popularity.
In North Carolina,
the state treasurer is
responsible for investing
the state's $75 billion
pension fund. Invariably,
that means rubbing
shoulders with
investment bankers and
hedge fund managers.
In other words, the
treasurer wheels and
deals with the same folks
that New York Times
columnist Maureen
Dowd derisively refers to
as "the masters of the
universe," a collection
that includes those whose
cockamamie housingfinance
schemes helped
wreck the economy.
So, it should come as
no surprise that Democratic
State Treasurer
Janet Cowell has had to
endure some criticism (a
good bit of it from this
column) during her first
term in office.
Most recently, Cowell
took a publicity hit for a
pension fund investment
in the ill-fated Facebook
A V IEW
F ROM
R ALEIGH
By Scott
Mooneyham
The Raleigh Report
B y dying on shaving
agency was
October 12, the 219th scandal.
not Friday’s
ECU’s medical school, he
anniversary of the Friday’s
idea. In fact,
used the legislature’s
university’s founding, controversial
he and his
enhanced attention to
UNC President Emeritus
T HE R ALEIGH R EPORT
board fought
health education to fund
William Friday once decision
against it.
expansion of the Chapel
again turned a seeming signaled
But when the
Hill medical school and
defeat into a victory. that no
decision was
the establishment of "the
It was, some were matter
made, Friday
most ambitious AHEC
saying, just like h o w
demanded
(Area Health and
Presidents Jefferson and popular
By excellence
Education Centers)
Adams, dying on the a n d
D.G. and provided
program in the nation."
same day, July 4, 1826, profitable
the strong
Link writes that the ECU
Martin
the 50th anniversary of university
leadership
controversy demonstrated
"Friday’s ability to
the nation’s founding. athletics
that made
Friday’s death leaves may be,
our multicampus
state
adapt to new circumstances."
the state with a vacancy t h e y
in the role he played as cannot be
university
5. The long
the state’s public elder allowed to corrupt or the envy of every state in
controversy with the U.S.
who was wise and supplant the university’s the union. His actions in
Department of Health,
energetic, our trusted mission of education and taking charge after the
Education and Welfare
prophet and pastor. service. Friday’s action restructuring showed an
over desegregation.
Friday did not become also gave notice of his effective administrative
Almost forgotten today,
our state’s prophet by decisiveness and resolve. style. According to his
Link writes, "Managing
divine ordination. He 2. The Speaker Ban biographer, William Link,
the desegregation
earned it through hard Law of 1963. For all his "That style embodied the
controversy became the
years of bruising friendships and political qualities of Friday's
greatest challenge of Bill
struggles in the public savvy, Friday was unable personality: gregariousness
and
Friday's leadership and
arena. He did not always to stop the General
certainly one of the
win, but he had an Assembly from enacting sensitivity, idealism and
gravest tests the
amazing ability to do two the law that prohibited cold-hearted efficiency,
University of North
things: (1) turn apparent "known members" of the and unassuming accessibility
and constant
Carolina had encountered
defeats into important Communist Party from
in its two centuries of
and lasting victories, and speaking on university communication with the
existence."
(2) after even the campuses. Nor was he state and national power
Once again, Friday’s
bitterest battle, reach out able to persuade the structure. Friday had an
resiliency in responding
and turn his opponents state’s leadership to make innate interest in people to what could be
into friends and allies in a quick turnaround. But, and an inherent ability to characterized as a series
common endeavors. in the end, his behind-thescenes
maneuvering 4. The establishment strengthening the
relate to them."
of defeats, resulted in
Here are some
examples:
of a medical school at East university and solidifying
1. The 1961
Carolina University. his reputation for steady
crackdown on athletics.
leadership.
Some hard-core athletic
William Friday’s
fans may not have
forgiven Friday for
cancelling the Dixie
Classic basketball
tournament after several
N.C. State players were
implicated in a point-
initial
public
offering.
In a
$ 7 5
billion
portfolio,
t h e
state's
$4.1
million
l o s s
m a y
have
been
next to nothing, but it
caused some to question
why fund managers
would be putting money
into something that many
sophisticated investors
avoided.
In her first term,
Cowell, 44, fired her chief
investment officer (who
was put into that job by
her predecessor, Richard
Moore) because of ethics
questions. The treasurer
also provided ill-timed
raises to top investment
officials while rank-andfile
state workers received
no pay hikes.
Cowell, though, seeks
a second term touting the
relative stability of the
state pension fund and
helped bring down the
law, leaving a widespread
consensus on the value of
free speech.
3. The 1971 merger of
all the state’s public
colleges and universities
into the University of
North Carolina. People
forget that bringing
campuses into one state
the state's
g o o d
standing
when it
comes to
borrowing
money.
She has
put new
ethics
policies in
place and
established
new internal
controls for better review
of investing decisions and
policies..
Last year, Cowell set
aside potential political
risk by agreeing to take
on the thankless task of
overseeing alwaysvolatile
state employees
health plan.
Her Republican
opponent is a certified
public accountant from
Elkin, Steve Royal.
Royal, 61, raised
eyebrows recently by
proposing the creation of
a regional currency where
North Carolina would join
with other states to create
an asset-backed currency
to use if and when the
U.S. dollar began to fail.
Friday initially fought a
new medical school there,
but when he recognized
its inevitability, according
to Link, he determined to
make it "as fine a school
as you can make it."
While pushing for
adequate funding for
Royal described the
"auxillary currency" as a
"form of insurance."
Given that North
Carolina and other states
don't have any secret
stashes of gold or silver
laying around, it isn't
clear what that asset
would be.
Cowell called the idea
far out of the mainstream
and a threat to
undermine "everything
we have worked so hard
to build."
Royal also has said
that he wants more
pension fund dollars
managed internally,
rather than allowing the
investments to be made
by outside managers who
handle billions in
investments for multiple
institutional investors.
Royal comes into the
race having never held
public office. He had also
raised very little money
through the middle of the
summer.
It may not matter.
With so little voter
attention, the race is
likely to be a referendum
on Cowell's first term,
Royal's qualifications or
lack thereof, or some
combination of the two.
victories are too
numerous to mention.
But it is his powerful
example of turning
defeats into lasting
achievements that will
always inspire me.