Metro mayors lobby for city interests at N.C. General Assembly

Mayors from across the state gathered in Raleigh to lobby legislators Wednesday, as the General Assembly considers bills that could divert sales tax money from cities, limit the economic incentives cities receive and prohibit cities from setting design standards for houses.

“There’s been a disconnect, I think, between what can be successful for cities and what the legislature believes can be successful for cities,” said Huntersville Mayor Jill Swain, the chairwoman of the Metro Mayors coalition. “Sometimes, yes, there has been an adversarial relationship.”

The group – established by Gov. Pat McCrory while he was Charlotte mayor – is focused on proposals from the legislature that could affect a city’s ability to grow. The group planned to spend Wednesday meeting with and lobbying legislators and McCrory. Chief among those issues is economic incentives, considered by many to be key to luring companies to relocate.

N.C. Commerce Secretary John Skvarla told the group there’s still little movement on incentives in the state Senate. The House passed a bill that would expand incentives grants and extend the program through 2020. A competing bill in the Senate would lower the state’s corporate tax rate while limiting the amount of incentives money that can be used to draw companies to Mecklenburg, Wake and Durham counties.

“I was very surprised that it’s taken this long,” Skvarla said of the incentives debate. The McCrory administration had hoped to pass incentives legislation at the beginning of the legislative session this year. “This long session, it might be a really long session.”

Some mayors expressed frustration with the legislature. Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said a proposal in the Senate to eliminate municipalities’ ability to regulate the way homes look goes directly against the trend of organizations such as the AARP evaluating a city’s desirability based on such factors.

“The legislature seem to be unaware, as they’re proposing laws that limit our ability to do that,” Kleinschmidt said. “It seems as if in recent years we’ve seen legislative initiatives...which have intended or unintended cons for us to grow our economic base.”

Those who support the bill have said such restrictions raise the cost of housing and unfairly restrict property owners from doing what they want.

Kannapolis Mayor Darrell Hinnant asked where the “organized opposition” to programs such as restoring the state’s historic tax credits for restoring old structures comes from. Such credits are especially important to the state’s smaller cities, many of which are former mill towns and have historic downtown structures that would benefit. The House has voted to restore the credits, which the McCrory administration supports, while the Senate has not.

“From our investigation, we can’t find much organized opposition,” said Hinnant, asking how cities could press the issue.

Skvarla said the opposition isn’t from a single group, but rather gets to a “theoretical debate” in the legislature: Should the state have special tax credits for different areas to encourage growth, or cut taxes across board?

Charlotte has had a strained relationship with some Republicans in the General Assembly in recent years. The legislature tried to transfer control of Charlotte Douglas International Airport from Charlotte City Council to a new, regional commission. The legislature’s repeal of the business privilege license tax, which Charlotte and other cities had previously collected, has contributed to the city’s $21.7 million budget shortfall for the coming year. And the General Assembly is considering a sales tax overhaul that could redirect sales tax revenue from urban to rural areas.

Charlotte Mayor Dan Clodfelter, a former state senator, didn’t attend Wednesday’s Metro Mayors session. A spokeswoman said he is out of the office for the rest of the week.

Swain told the Observer that despite the proposed changes, she doesn’t want the fight over incentives and sales tax money to be cast in urban-vs.-rural terms.

“We firmly believe it shouldn’t be urban vs. rural,” said Swain. “I personally hate that phrasing...everyone should benefit.”

This story was originally published April 29, 2015 at 12:05 PM with the headline "Metro mayors lobby for city interests at N.C. General Assembly."