Agency has a long record of financial waste, bureaucratic failures that have harmed hurricane survivors
Pryor Gibson, whom Gov. Roy Cooper has previously leaned on to fix a different troubled agency, has been assigned to ReBuild NC, which has blundered its way through a hurricane recovery program for more than four years.
Cooper appointed Gibson as his senior legislative advisor in December of 2022; he had been the head of the state Division of Employment Security. This week, ReBuild NC rank-and-file employees learned Gibson will have a role in their agency’s operations, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation.
Laura Hogshead is the director of ReBuild NC, also known as the N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency, and publicly has taken responsibility for the program’s many failures.
- What prompted this move?
- What are Mr. Gibson’s duties/roles? Will he be assigned to NCORR full-time? Will he supervise anyone at NCORR? If so, who?
- Will he interface with the legislature, and if so, in what capacity? And if so, how will his role differ from that held by the existing legislative liaison?
- Candidly, a year ago Richard Trumper was moved from OSBM to DPS, to address NCORR’s many challenges. Now it appears, at least from the outside, yet another person — Mr. Gibson — has been brought in to try to right the ship. What outstanding issues will Mr. Gibson be tasked with addressing? What power does he have to make or suggest personnel changes? What does his presence say about the current leadership at NCORR?
Please click here, or the story’s title, for the governor’s office response to these questions and more.
North Carolina's election-denying lieutenant governor met privately with Ginni Thomas, the right-wing conspiracy theorist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, shortly before declaring that President Joe Biden "stole the election."
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, now the frontrunner in the state's Republican gubernatorial primary, took part in a private meeting with Thomas weeks after the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to a copy of his official schedule produced through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Daily Beast.
It's not clear what the pair discussed in their March 30, 2021, meeting or who else participated, but the lieutenant governor's calendar note indicates that he met with Thomas and the Frontliners for Liberty group that she runs.
The city of Durham won a federal grant Thursday of $4.86 million to build 20 new high-speed charging stations for electric vehicles.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the grant is part of a national push to build what they’re calling "alternative fuel corridors" for supply-chain trucks as well as personal vehicles. He said the Biden administration wants half the cars and trucks on the roads to be electric by 2030 – and that’s going to require a lot more chargers in a lot more places.
“The truth is we couldn't run all of those vehicles of tomorrow on today's grid and today's charging network,” Buttigieg said. “We've got to make sure that the infrastructure is there, the same way we've got to make sure the roads and bridges are in good shape.”
Buttigieg said the 20 new high-speed charging stations funded by the federal grant aren’t just for travelers passing through. He hopes they’ll also encourage nearby residents to make the switch to an electric vehicle.
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