John G. Frye, county financial services director, said July was the fourth month to show a modest increase, a sign that the economy is picking up after a sluggish year and a half.
“We seem to be making some modest improvement. That’s really good,” Frye told Pilot Light.
After a whopping decline of 22 percent in March, sales tax collections showed increases of 4 percent and 6 percent in April and May. April and December are the largest collection months in Moore County.
The N.C. Department of Revenue submits monthly collection reports and mails checks to counties and municipalities on a quarterly basis. The revenue comes from three local option taxes — one one-cent tax and two half-cent taxes.
DEADLINE — Today is the last day for unregistered Moore County residents to register if they want to vote in the Nov. 5 general election.
Registration books will close at the end of the work day.
At latest count, Moore County had 50,629 registrants, including inactive voters. The total includes 17,583 Democrats, 23,121 Republicans, 68 Libertarians and 9,857 unaffiliated, according to the Moore County Board of Elections.
N.C. 211 — Design concepts for the N.C. 211 widening project will be discussed at the Tuesday meeting of the Countywide Surface Transportation Committee. The 2 p.m. meeting will be held at the Village Assembly Hall in Pinehurst.
Craig Young, design engineer with the N.C. Department of Transportation, will be the speaker.
Since the committee’s last meeting in September, Moore County has officially become a part of a regional planning organization, along with Lee and Chatham counties and the rural portion of Orange County. Regional planning organizations represent the new trend in developing highway improvement plans through DOT.
State Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett presented the RPO charter during a ceremony held at the Triangle J Council of Governments office in Research Triangle Park on Sept. 20. Attending from Moore County were County Manager W. David McNeill Jr., Planning Director Nancy Roy and Carol T. Thomas, clerk to the Board of Commissioners.
RACER — The governor’s office said that Gov. Mike Easley will don a race uniform and drive a Winston Cup stock car solo at top speed around the Lowe’s Motor Speedway before Sunday’s UAW-GM 500 in Concord.
Easley decided to take to the track after NASCAR hinted that it might move the popular race to another state.
The news release said the governor practiced alone a few days ago by driving Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 car for 30 laps around the track at speeds as high as 170 mph. The car was equipped with a restrictor plate that limits speed. The governor plans to drive three laps in the pre-race ceremonies marking NASCAR’s decision to keep the Winston all-star race in Concord next spring.
EDWARDS — U.S. Sen. John Edwards has called for the creation of a new domestic intelligence agency to replace FBI units that have been blamed for intelligence failures before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“The law enforcement impulses of the FBI consistently trump intelligence needs. Instead of attempting to turn the FBI into something it isn’t, we should establish a new agency that is focused on gathering intelligence about terrorist threats here at home,” Edwards said Monday.
Great Britain, Canada and other western democracies already have agencies similar to what Edwards is advocating. The new agency would be part of the Justice Department, he said.
Edwards said the new agency would be designed to safeguard individual liberties.
“We have to recognize potential risks to our liberties and address them squarely.” Edwards said. We cannot chill the right to worship in peace or the right to disagree with the government. But today we have the worst of all worlds: an FBI that has done a poor job of securing vital domestic intelligence, led by an attorney general who’s doing an even worse job of protecting our civil liberties.”
Edwards made his proposal in an address on foreign policy and terrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
