It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Tuesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. Got some sad news to pass along this morning. Pat Simmons, the CEO and director of the North Carolina Zoo, located in Asheboro, passed away yesterday after losing a five-year battle to cancer.
She has been with the zoo since 2015 and had more than 41 years of experience leading the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. According to Cheryl Armstrong, the executive director of the North Carolina Zoo Society, Pat laughed easily and often extended her warmth towards everyone. The Zoo Society family will always remain grateful for the wisdom, caring, and friendship Pat Simmons shared with us. As much as we will miss her, we know the good she achieved during her lifetime will not stop now. The kindness, integrity, and moxie that Pat instilled in people who knew her will survive long into the future to help make the world a better place for all of its inhabitants.
In 2024, Newsweek voted the North Carolina Zoo as the best zoo in the country. The Carolina Journal interviewed the now late Pat Simmons at that time, that was August of last year, when she said, I am most proud of the incredible talent, teamwork, and compassion displayed by members of the zoo team every single day. Their hard work and commitment to the zoo's mission is essential to operating at peak performance and allows us to provide the best possible service to our guests and the plants, planets, and animals in our care. I am especially proud of our work with our global and community partners as well as nonprofit organizations to make positive, meaningful impacts on our world for the benefits of present and future generations. In 2020, In 2024, the North Carolina Zoo also celebrated its 50th anniversary and was awarded the Botanical Garden Accreditation, which has only been awarded to a handful of zoos in the nation.
Representative Brian Biggs, the Republican out of Randolph County, said Pat was more than an exceptional leader. She was a visionary who poured her heart into making our zoo one of the finest in the world. Under Pat's leadership, the North Carolina Zoo expanded its mission, strengthened its global conversation programs, and laid the groundwork for exciting new habitats like the Asian and Australian regions that will educate and amaze visitors for years to come. Her careful planning and bold vision ensured our zoo would remain a treasure for future generations. Simmons was a formidable person who left a lasting mark during her time at the North Carolina Zoo.
Colleagues remember her as an exceptionally witty, intelligent, and deeply admired by everyone who knew her. Representative Biggs saying her legacy is not just the habitats she helped build, but the lives she touched along the way. According to the press release, she dedicated her career to inspiring others to become stewards of the natural world and protect the rich diversity of animals and plant life. To achieve this vision, she emphasized the deep interconnections between people, animal, and plants, championing innovative habitat designs, acclaimed education initiatives, and unforgettable guest experiences. Under her leadership, the North Carolina Zoo renowned wildlife conservation efforts expanded significantly, gaining even national recognition and having an impact on the globe.
Representative Biggs wrapped up his comments by saying Pat's influence wasn't limited to animals and exhibits. She led with compassion, humor, and unwavering integrity. She mentored countless staff, supported women in leadership. Across the zoo community and made everyone feel welcome, heard, and valued. She reminded us that protecting nature is not just a duty, but a shared privilege.
So we pass our condolences this morning on to the family of Pat Simmons, the CEO and director of the North Carolina Zoo, who unfortunately lost her battle with cancer yesterday. We've got some additional details on what she did with the North Carolina Zoo, some of the programs that she brought forward. Those are on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com, where it's now 510, News Talk 1110-993, WBT. The Atlantic hurricane season continues through the end of November, just back a couple of weeks ago. Tropical Storm Chantal leaving some devastating impacts in the central part of our state.
Of course, last September, Hurricane Helene ravaging the western half of North Carolina. That brings us into the interesting discussion about hurricane recovery and relief, especially as things go on long term. To walk us through some of those details, Dr. Andy Jackson with the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Andy, you've got a new opinion piece out.
Officials must be good stewards of funding after disasters like Tropical Storm Helene. That ran last week in the Asheville Citizen Times. Tell us how this came about and what your piece talks about.
Well, this came about because there was a report from the Office of the State Auditor on just one comfort station that was set up to help people with showers. There's toilets there. There was some counseling going on. There was a laundry facility. And they had a report on there that said that this one facility was.
Costing about $150,000 a day to operate. And they also found that it was over $200, I think it was about $230 per load of laundry that they were running in order for people to come in and clean. The reason this is a concern is that when you have an immediate aftermath of a storm like this, you don't really care about the cost because when you're in that rescue phase, you've got to help people, you've got to get them into safety, you've got to take care of their immediate needs. But once you start transitioning into that recovery phase, it's important that you use those resources as wisely as you can because the resources are finite. And if you're spending $230 per load of laundry, well, those are resources that you're not going to have for other things as you continue the recovery efforts.
And, you know, unfortunately, the state of North Carolina does not necessarily have the best track record when it comes to these long-term recovery projects. The eastern half of North Carolina is still dealing with the impacts of Hurricane Matthew in Florence. Andy, we're coming on almost a decade of Hurricane Matthew affecting the eastern half of the state. There's still thousands of people without homes, all of that under NCOR. It's been a really messy situation in the eastern half, and I'm sure that's leaving a lot of folks with probably some pretty strong anxiety about how the state's going to handle Helene recovery in the western half.
Yeah, that is definitely a concern. NCOR has chronically mismanaged the rebuilding phase of the recovery after Matthew and Florence. Matthew was in 16, Florence in 18, and people are still living with relatives, and there's still homes that are filled with mold, mildew, a lot of problems that are ongoing. And this is. A fixable problem.
I think that I don't think anybody believes that nine years later there should still be people out of their homes because of this. The problem is that funds were chronically misdirected within ENCORE. They were shifting around. They were basically, shellgame might be too strong of a word, but they were shifting funds from one pool to another pool. And so This was causing there to be, nobody really knew where the money was going or coming from at times.
And so you couldn't plan anything out. You couldn't organize properly the rebuilding funds. And so now we have not only are people still out of their homes, but INCORE is in the red.
Now they're trying to figure out still. The state has helped out a little bit. The General Assembly has helped a little bit, but they're still in debt at INCORE, and they don't know how they're going to finish their mission. And so it's probably for the best that NCOR is being kept out of the area affected by Helene.
Well, and one of the interesting things about Encore is the fact that there's not many contractors that are left willing to work with the entity because of what you're describing, Andy, where payments were being missed, and there's no idea where any of the money's going.
So, you've got these small private business contractors that are working with the state. They're doing work. Checks are coming in 120 days after the work has been done. They don't want to deal with that. There's no reason for them to deal with that hassle.
So, now you've got an issue where there's not even anybody to do some of the work, which only exacerbates the problem that's been created. Yeah, and yeah, this is a chronic problem that goes on because these are businesses in the end. They have to take care of themselves, they have to take care of their workers. And a lot of these businesses, there's a pretty fast turnaround between When they spend the money and they get paid in reverse, because you know, they have contractors that they have to pay, they have building material suppliers that they have to pay, and so they're on a relatively short runway with these things, they can't just wait forever for these kinds of funding things to go through. And once again, if you're mismanaging the money, if you're doing things, and this is what's happened post-Helene, if you're doing things like spending $230 per load of laundry, then you're drying up the fund that could be used for rebuilding efforts later.
So, turning this back here, it really is important that you manage the funds well early on because this is a long-term recovery. It's going to take several years before everything is done with Aline. Hopefully, it's not going to take nine years like with Matthew, but we know it's going to be several years in the future. And in order to ensure that the money is there for people to use, it's best that you use it wisely early on. We'll continue the discussion with Dr.
Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation. Coming up after this, you're listening to the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's 22 minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. Don't forget that if you miss any portion of our show live here weekday mornings 5 to 6, you can check out the Carolina Journal News Hour podcast.
It's available in Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere you get your shows. Just search for the Carolina Journal News Hour, tap the subscribe or follow button, and you'll get a new program delivered each and every weekday morning. Continuing our conversation this morning with doctor Andy Jackson of the John Locke Foundation in a new opinion piece he's got up headlined Officials must be good stewards of funding after disasters like Tropical Storm Halleen. Let me ask you this. The NCORE situation in the eastern half of the state, and many folks would describe it as, in many cases, a complete and total disaster.
Nine years later, you still have mold-filled homes from Hurricane Matthew.
However, maybe looking on the positive side of all of this, Andy, that has been a pretty public story. It was a big black eye for previous governor Roy Cooper. Do you think the state's in a better position to maybe have learned from some of those mistakes so they don't repeat those for what is definitely a much larger and much more complicated geographical area in the western half of the state compared to the east?
Well, you hope so. I think there were a couple of good decisions. First of all, one of his last acts, Roy Cooper, fired the director of NCOR and replaced her with somebody else. Hopefully, that will lead to better management of what will hopefully soon be the final phase of the Matthew and Florence recovery. Also, Governor Josh Stein, one of his early acts, was to make sure that NCOR was going to have nothing to do with the Hurricane Helene or Tropical Storm Helene recovery efforts.
He set up a new acronym organization, GROW NC, and they're going to direct it.
So, hopefully, GROW NC is going to learn from the mistakes of NCORE, is going to spend the money wisely, be efficient, work well with the contractors in these rebuilding efforts so we don't see a repeat of these problems. Andy, this should be relevant to every single listener and every single taxpayer across the state of North Carolina. Up to this point, the General Assembly has allocated more than $1.5 billion to fund some of those efforts in the western half of the state. When you talk about this report out from the state auditor's office, spending $150,000 a day providing people with bathrooms and the ability to do some laundry, this is a major concern for taxpayers across the entire state of North Carolina. It is.
It is. You really need once again, when you're in those immediate first few weeks, we understand that sometimes you're going to spend a lot more money than you normally would in these situations. But you do need to get that thing run as efficiently as possible because We need to spend As much as we can, or at least as much as we need to, to affect the recovery in the areas affected by Helene. But the money you're spending there is money that's not spent in other areas, or it's money that you're going to end up raising taxes on people so that people cannot live their lives and raise their families with their money as best they can.
So it really behooves the state to go ahead and do this right early on so that you're kind of on a good runway going through the rest of this recovery process. Because it's good in the immediate term for people that are victims of this hurricane, because if you're saving the money, you're spending it wisely, then there's still going to be money in the coffers now for other needs that arise for long-term problems. And then for the rest of the state, you're still going to have money for parks. You're still going to have money to keep taxes down, to attract businesses so people can have jobs.
So, really, it's best for everybody in the state that you spend the money that you need to spend. but you spend it wisely and efficiently. Yeah, this puts the General Assembly in a rather interesting position. They're the ones that are essentially writing the checks, the ones allocating that billion and a half dollars. But in terms of day-to-day operations, Andy, they don't really have anything to do with that.
We saw some of that frustration boil over with NCOR. It's managed by the governor. Yes, the General Assembly can hold hearings and they can release reports, but they're in a really tough spot because I'm sure they're the ones hearing from their constituents about slow recovery or money being wasted here or there. But they're not really in a decision-making role with any of this stuff, are they? All right, right.
Well, that's the normal division of labor. The executive branch is in charge of actually, you know, running the programs, you know, spending the money on the ground as it's allocated by the General Assembly. The General Assembly clearly has an oversight function. I think one of the reasons that the former director was fired was her performance during some of those oversight hearings. I'm expecting we're going to have a similar level of oversight, maybe even more granular with Grow NC because the General Assembly has also learned from experience that you can't just write a check and say, okay, we'll check back with you in a few years, see how things are going.
They probably need to be on the ground fairly early, fairly often to make sure things are going well. And because, you know, the nice thing about the General Assembly is they have local constituencies. There are people there that grew up in that area or at least have lived there for a long time. They know the people. And so they're good conduits for what if you have a problem.
With an agency, you contact your member of the General Assembly, your state senator, your state House of Representatives, and they can help out in those ways.
So, in a way, there is a confrontational relationship there, but in other ways, there can be a cooperative relationship if members of the General Assembly working with their constituents can help hammer out, iron out problems that are in the recovery process. Andy, you've got this phenomenal new op-ed out, which I encourage our audience to go and read. Where can they do that?
Well, it's at the Asheville Citizen Times. Unfortunately, it is behind a paywall. I don't know what the subscription rate is. And Asheville Citizen Times, look it up. It's on Hurricane Helene Recovery.
And hopefully, at some point, it won't be behind the paywall, but I can't guarantee it. We appreciate the update and the insight this morning. Andy Jackson with the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. If your job at a healthcare facility includes disinfecting against viruses, you know prevention is the best medicine and maintaining healthy spaces starts with a healthy cleaning routine. Granger's world-class supply chain helps ensure you have the quality products you need when you need them.
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News Talk 1110-993WBT. A major decision from the United States Supreme Court yesterday in a 6-3 ruling will allow President Donald Trump's Department of Education to resume efforts to slash its workforce in half. The decision reverses a lower court ruling ordering the reinstatement of the Department of Education employees, cut loose, and mass layoffs, and ultimately allows Education Secretary Linda McMahon to continue her mission of winding down the department. The Department of Education announced in March that it would be reducing its workforce by half in an effort to streamline the department and cut down on unnecessary bureaucracy. Before the cuts, the Department of Education had more than four thousand one hundred total employees.
A number of senior department officials described it as largely overseeing contractors, adding strings and in many cases, doing duplicate efforts across the department. Senior department officials said at the time the cuts would not impact student aid, the rollout of FAFSFA, that is aid for college students, and funding for special needs students, civil rights investigations, and other functions statutorily mandated by Congress. You had a district court judge that blocked the department's downsizing efforts in May, ruling that the administration needed congressional authorization.
However, with this 6-3 decision yesterday, The United States Supreme Court has lifted that injunction as the litigation continues to play out. The head of the Department of Education, Lyndon McMahon, wrote yesterday in a press release: Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious. The President of the United States, as the head of the executive branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies. While today's ruling is a significant win for students and families, it is a shame that the highest court in the land had to step in to allow President Trump to advance the reforms Americans elected him to deliver using the authorities granted to him by the United States Constitution. The plan ultimately is that the Department of Education would be abolished and the power would be sent back to states and local communities here in North Carolina.
The State Board of Election, the State Board of Education. Excuse me, Superintendent Mo Green, and of course, all of your local county board of educations that are responsible for the variety of public schools seen across the state of North Carolina. We will continue to watch this now litigation continuing up in the federal district court system and let you know any impacts here across the state of North Carolina. We'll keep you up to date right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, where it's now 5:39, News Talk 11:10-993 WBT. Did you know that it's illegal in the state of North Carolina to take a picture of your ballot or what many call it a ballot selfie when election season rolls around?
We've been tracking a very interesting federal lawsuit about a voter here in the state of North Carolina to walk us through some of those details. Mitch Kokai with the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, it's an interesting law and an interesting federal lawsuit that we're watching unfold. What are you tracking? Yeah, the latest development is that both sides in this case would like to see the issue decided without going to a trial.
To give you some background on this, what happened was in August of 2024, a Libertarian voter in Wake County named Susan Hogarth filed a federal lawsuit trying to challenge North Carolina's ban on these ballot selfies. What had happened was she had cast a ballot in the primary election. Then before leaving the voting enclosure, she took a photo of herself with her completed ballot, put it up on social media, and she was contacted later by election officials who said, you should take that down. It violates the law to post a picture like that. It violates the law to take the picture like that while you're voting in an official voting enclosure and then to post the evidence of that.
She didn't like that suggestion, didn't take the post down, and instead filed a federal lawsuit.
Now, as the general election approached, What happened was that a federal court allowed, issued a court order allowing this voter named Susan Hogarth to be able to cast a ballot, take a ballot selfie, and not face any sort of criminal prosecution while this lawsuit was playing out.
So she got to post the ballot selfie for the primary election, got to post the ballot selfie for the general election, but the lawsuit continued. And the two sides, on one side, Susan Hogarth, who not only was a Libertarian voter, but at the time was also a state Senate candidate for the Libertarian Party, ended up getting 2% or 3% of the vote in a hotly contested race.
So that happened. But then also on the other side, you had the North Carolina State Board of Elections, the Wake County Board of Elections, the Wake County District Attorney, and the state attorney general were all defendants in this case. In March, the U.S. district judge overseeing the case let Attorney General Jeff Jackson off. The hook and dismissed the case when it came to him, but rejected motions from the Wake and State Board of Elections and Wake County DA Lauren Freeman to have the case dismissed.
So the suit was allowed to move forward.
Now it could eventually go to a trial, but all of the remaining defendants and Hogarth. Filed paperwork late last week that asked for a judgment on the pleadings, which would mean that there would be no trial. The judge would look at all of the written records so far in the case and make a decision based on that. Basically, all of the sides are saying, you know, we've told you everything you need to know about this case. We don't need to have a new trial.
There doesn't need to be discovery and new evidence. Everyone knows what is at stake here. And so just go ahead and decide the case on the pleadings. And so that could resolve this case in a much shorter timeframe than if it has to go to a federal trial and then have the trial, have more briefing based on the trial, and then have the judge have to weigh all of that decision.
So it'll be very interesting to see what happens here. The plaintiff, Susan Hogarth, is working with FIRE, a group that works on individual rights and free speech rights and free expression.
So this is an issue that the FHIR group found. For individual rights and expression has been fighting in other states as well because other states ban ballot selfies. And so this is part of a national campaign to say that if you want to post a photo of your ballot with you and your ballot, that you should be able to do so, that it's a free speech issue. On the other side, the state folks are saying, no, the reason that it's banned is that we don't want to allow for something that would help vote buying schemes or vote coercion schemes. The written arguments that came out basically from this side, in this round, from the state, Relied on that argument that this is a legitimate state interest in trying to prevent some of these negative activities that go along with voting.
And on the other side, Hogarth and her legal team are saying: no, this is free speech. This is a free expression issue. The state's arguments don't hold water. It'll be interesting to see what the federal judge decides now. You mentioned that this is a similar situation in many other states.
Again, the big concern, at least from the state standpoint, is you have some nefarious group paying people $5, $10, $15, $50, $100 to vote for a specific candidate. They could. Obviously, verify that if somebody was able to take a picture of their ballot. The fact now that this is in federal court, depending on that decision, Mitch, could this have some trickle-down effects on other states like North Carolina that have similar laws on the books? It would not have a direct impact because this is challenging a state law, not a federal law.
So, if other states have different laws, it would not affect them.
Now, if FHIR wins this case, because FIRE is interested in this from a national perspective, certainly they would use the decision in this case to help bolster their cases in other states, saying, Look, you know, North Carolina, we just had this case. Here's what the judge said in striking down North Carolina's law, and you should do the same thing with your state's law. But in terms of having any direct impact on other states, it would not. It would only apply to North Carolina. And I think it's interesting to try to read the tea leaves from what the judge said in the earlier order.
Basically, the state's argument is: these are long-standing laws, they meet a legitimate state interest, so you should dismiss this lawsuit. The judge didn't buy that. The judge looked at what happened to Susan Hogarth and said, Look, there's a legitimate case. Here to be made. And so I think that bodes well for Susan Hogarth.
It doesn't decide the case in her favor, but it certainly says that the judge in this case is willing to look beyond the state's argument that it's a legitimate state interest, so throw out the case. I think that gives Susan Hogarth and Fire some confidence that they might be able to win this.
Now, of course, the state could always appeal if they lose to the Fourth Circuit. And who knows what the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals would say. The only way that this case could directly have an impact on other states is if this case gets through the Fourth Circuit and then got to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S.
Supreme Court decided what to do about ballot selfies. But if that happens, we're several years probably away from that. It's obviously a very interesting story. We'll continue to track its progress and development. We've got a lot of details and background this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Good morning again. It's 5:53. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Stock 1110-993 WBT. Chapel Hill native Keith Siegel, just four months after his release from Hamas captivity, is speaking out once again.
this time urging action for the remaining hostages as high profile meetings and conversations continue between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump and Netanyahu on July the 7th met to discuss and negotiate a deal between a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage deal, according to Reuters. Israeli officials are continuing talks with Hamas, the president commenting on those yesterday in the Oval Office.
However, the Chapel Hill native told BBC News recently, quote, I believe he has a lot of strength, power, and ability to put pressure on those that need to be pressured on both sides in order to get this agreement, to get the deal signed and get all of the hostages back and bring this war to an end. Senator Ted Budd, one of our two senators here in North Carolina, made a similar statement in June when the bodies of Judy Weinstein and Gaddy Haggie were released to Israeli Defense Forces. As that has been a top-button issue for Senator Ted Budd. Siegel was released on February 1st after 484 days in captivity as part of the fourth wave of hostages being released under an Israeli Hamas ceasefire agreement at the time. Siegel said it is one of the highest priorities and urgency issues to get all of the 50 hostages back as soon as possible.
We cannot let Hamas continue to threaten people and to kill and murder people. And I think Hamas is responsible for the deaths on both sides. Siegel is not only a Chapel Hill native, but also the first American hostage to be released from captivity under the ceasefire agreements that started earlier this year. Siegel and his wife Aviva were taken into captivity on October the 7th among the 253 hostages captured by Hamas. His wife, Aviva, was released after just 51 days in captivity.
As just mentioned, Keith Siegel was in captivity for 484 days. This is not the first time that he has spoken out on behalf of his fellow captives since his release. Just one month after that in February, Keith Siegel was on Capitol Hill with his wife advocating for the release of the remaining hostages. He has also shared multiple video messages on social media advocating for the release of those remaining hostages using an account called Hostages and Missing Families Forms. Siegel said in one of those videos, I love country music and I love pancakes on a Saturday morning, but that was my previous life.
I was held for 484 days in unimaginable conditions. Every single day felt like it could be my last. Reuters reported that the Trump administration continues to meet with individuals throughout the Middle East, including Steve Witcoff and other delegates continuing to meet with both sides of the conflict in the Middle East to discuss the ceasefire agreements, additional individuals that have been held hostage being released. Matt Mercer, the communications director for the North Carolina Republican Party, told the Carolina Journal: North Carolina Democrats are out of touch with reality and apparently obvious to the real suffering that one of our fellow North Carolinians endured. Keith Siegel's detailing of his brutal treatment at the hands of Hamas is real, and Democrats who accuse Israel of genocide and the end of U.S.
support would cause more death and less peace around the world. We have been watching Keith Siegel and been following his comments regularly since his release earlier this year. You can read additional details on his backstory by visiting our website, CarolinaJournal.com. The headline, Released NC Hostage Advocates for Those Remaining in Hamas captivity.
Well, that's going to do it for a Tuesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on News Talk 1110 and 99.3 WBT.
