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I went to a candidates' forum this evening at the Church of Christ at Brooks & Rosedale. All six at-large candidates were in attendance, as well as district D councilman Thomas Crowder and school board candidate Anne McLaurin. We were each afforded an opportunity for an opening and closing statement, and were each asked four questions taken from the audience. It was an excellent forum and one of the liveliest yet. One of the things that really struck me was how most of the candidates seemed to take for granted that taxes and fees would need to be raised in order to pay for infrastructure investments and greenspace acquisition. Among this group the impact fee seemed to be the favorite vehicle for doing this. I was the only candidate who suggested that we look first at stretching our municipal dollars through activity-based costing. I believe it incumbent upon us as good stewards to aggressively explore ways to give the taxpayers a dollar's worth of services for a dollar's worth of taxes before we look to raise revenues through higher taxes and fees. In another answer I gave regarding the Dix property I mentioned that the state owes Raleigh close to $11 million from when Governor Easley withheld tax revenues back during the last recession, and that these funds could serve as a downpayment on Dix.

Councilman Russ Stephenson and I had one exciting exchange when he mentioned me by name and said that Mayor Coble had tried to introduce some efficiencies during his term and that it had been a failure. In my closing I responded that activity-based costing hasn't yet been attempted by the city, and that he couldn't tell me what it costs the city to fill in a pothole or to deliver an hour of RTN programming. We will bring more efficiency to the city's fiscal operations only when we begin to understand what it costs to deliver government services.

In closing I stated clearly that I am a strong fiscal conservative: one who is pro-free markets, and who doesn't support giving subsidies to business. I'm captive to no special interests. I also reiterated that I am not reticent to make big investments, such as Dix, when the opportunities present themselves.

In short, it was a wonderful forum and I am grateful to the good folks at University Park for inviting me. Two ladies came up to me afterwards and pledged their support. Even where disagreement existed all the candidates were civil and of generous manner. This is campaigning at its best!