Szoka and Dees Battle In Redrawn House District 45 | Eastern North Carolina Now

   Publisher's note: The author of this political post Leslee Kulba, who is a contributor to the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Cumberland County district has been targeted by Obama campaign

    RALEIGH     Republican John Szoka is promoting a limited government message in slightly Democratic House District 45 and suffered a curious intraparty betrayal after the spring primary, but political observers believe his contest with Democrat Eddie Dees is tight.

    Redrawn House District 45 now occupies the bulk of Cumberland County that encircles, but does not include, Fayetteville. It is the former turf of five-term incumbent Democrat Rick Glazier, who was double-bunked by redistricting into House District 44.

    Now a swing district with an open seat, District 45 is home to a large demographic of military interests at Fort Bragg that has been targeted heavily and visited by the Obama campaign. But Szoka, an Army veteran, should have voter appeal as well due to his military service.

    Dees, a teacher and former mayor of Hope Mills, and Szoka, a small business owner, have different prescriptions for an ailing economy and education that follow party lines.

    Szoka is making his second bid for the General Assembly. In 2010 he came in a strong second place to incumbent Democrat William Brisson in what was then House District 22. That district leaned more heavily Democratic than District 45 does.

    This year, Szoka won the GOP primary with almost 58 percent of the vote.

    But in an odd political twist, his Republican primary opponent, Diane Wheatley, a former county commissioner and school board member, publicly endorsed the Democrat Dees instead of her party mate. Wheatley praised Dees for his "full engagement" in numerous community-building initiatives.

    Numerous attempts to interview Dees for comment were not successful. He was sent a list of questions, at his request, in lieu of an interview, but did not return any answers.

    Information for this story was compiled from his comments to the Fayetteville Observer newspaper, a candidate survey he completed for the State Employees Association of North Carolina, and from his website.

    Dees first was elected mayor of Hope Mills by a landslide. He was re-elected for two more terms, but he lost his last bid for re-election.

    Analysts attribute his first strong showing to his commitment to fix a failed dam that drained a popular local lake.

    But $14 million in repairs later, in 2010 the dam burst again and the lake remains dry, although there now are plans to replace the structure. Dees doesn't believe voters hold him responsible.

    Another source of controversy developed when recordings of the Hope Mills town manager and other town officials discussing topics that should have been protected by attorney-client privilege were left on a thumb drive in Dees' mailbox. A town employee eventually was charged with secretly recording the conversations.

    Dees asked the N.C. League of Municipalities for guidance on handling the awkward situation, and has maintained he has no regrets about following its legal advice to turn the recordings over to the district attorney's office.

    Dees feels a sense of success for his terms of public service.

    "As mayor, I saw the population of Hope Mills grow more than 33 percent. The workforce grew, too - without a tax hike - because I know how to create jobs," Dees said.

    He claims the Republican majority in the General Assembly had the opposite effect. Dees blames the "extreme budget cuts" for the loss of 200 teaching positions in Cumberland County, and even more statewide.
North Carolina General Assembly, May 30, 2012: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    His website states, "Even as our state cried out for jobs, not a single jobs-producing piece of legislation was created."

    Szoka has a different take on legislative spending and its impact.

    Referring to a Democratic campaign to "make it look like Republicans hate toddlers," he said he did the math himself on the legislature's decision to cut Pre-K funding.

    Szoka said he fully supports using state funding for special-needs children and impoverished households.

    What the legislators voted against was providing tax-funded day care for families of four earning $51,000 a year. That's $10,000 more than Cumberland County's median income. The program burdens struggling taxpayers unfairly, he said.

    Szoka decries the current expansive scope of government, and highlighted the maze of bureaucracy as he recounted his efforts to find out how those financial thresholds were established. A number of public servants neither knew the answer nor deemed the question important. He believes the formula on which criteria are based uses suspect data.

    Szoka specialized in operations research while serving 20 years in the Army, which, he admits, is "one of the largest known bureaucracies."

    His job was to statistically analyze operations to identify opportunities for streamlining. On one Army assignment, for example, he was able to cut $6 million in recurring annual spending, he said.

    Now, as a hobby, he routinely inspects, and claims to find, flaws in analytical methods applied in government studies. Governing bodies often legislate thresholds with arbitrariness and caprice, Szoka said.

    Applying simple math to another state activity, Szoka concluded the state's economic development spending was a wash rather than a boon. What the state has been collecting in corporate income tax is roughly equal to its "corporate welfare" expenditures.

    Proponents of what Szoka calls "bribing large companies to locate here with huge tax credits" add economic multipliers to their calculations to make incentives look more favorable, he said. But, he said, a survey conducted as part of a 2009 UNC study, commissioned by the state for $600,000, indicated businesses considering relocating would more likely be enticed by a lower tax rate than by the continued practice of picking winners and losers with targeted subsidies.

    In addition to lowering taxes, Szoka would support business by improving infrastructure that benefits the general public, and reducing "unnecessary" regulation with its costs of compliance.     Leslee Kulba is a contributor to Carolina Journal.