It sure was a pretty day for the end of civilization as we know it, or whatever description you’ve settled on to define the historic takeover of the state General Assembly and various other whuppins delivered to Democrats through the collective will of people who cared to vote.
If you were one of the many who cast a ballot on Tuesday, you may have been deceived into conflating high turnout here in one of the state’s bluest blue dots as indications of a mighty bulwark rising against an angry electorate bent on ousting incumbents.
The immediate reaction among officialdom here is publicly muted; but in private, there is deep worry about the university, whose champions now sit in the minority. And there is a broad expectation that a slate of conservative bills relating to everything from the death penalty to a constitutional amendment on marriage will finally reach the floor of the North Carolina House.
Closer to home, the defeat of the Sales and Use Tax is already starting to have repercussions. Proponents may have put a lot of sweat and dollars into its passage, but on the ballot it was still a yes-or-no question on a tax in one of the most anti-tax years in recent memory.
What’s next is on the minds of many, particularly the officials who will have to craft a budget and the ones who will have to vote on it. A robust economic rebound is probably not going to happen and certainly not in time to shore up federal, state and local finances.
In Orange County, where two referendums on new sources of revenue have been defeated in the past two years, the urgency to move on economic development, fix up old schools, shore up emergency services and increase support for libraries will be tempered by the cold, hard fact that property taxes are the only solid source of funds now available to accomplish those aims.
We urge that the commissioners and other local leaders not give up in looking for an alternative way to meet the goals of the community.
There is some probability that there will be another go at the sales tax. Another suggestion worth revisiting is the idea of a county nonprofit to provide additional support to civic functions like libraries and clinics. This idea, proposed two years ago by County Manager Frank Clifton as part of a comprehensive review of county finances, could tap the enormous generosity and community spirit with which we are blessed.
We may have to rely more on each other in the season to come. There is little doubt that “generosity†won’t be among the terms defining the new slate of leaders heading to Raleigh and Washington, D.C.