Ex-Governor Mike Easley and some of his aides have found themselves in a real quagmire lately. Among a lot of corruption scandals and other shenanigans financed by the people of North Carolina is a sweetheart land deal provided to the ex-governor. Its no secret that waterfront land in Carteret County is very valuable and will likely continue to appreciate in value over the long term.

However, land in the Cannonsgate development seemed to escalate so high so quickly it really should have  caught the attention of the authorities before it got so out of control. I mean some of these lots changed hands several times in a matter of weeks. Each time going for more and more. Then these lots were sold to out of state investors at radically inflated prices.

The governor was allowed to purchase his lot at an extremely low price. Investigations reveal he received around a 25% discount on his lot as compared to what similar lots were being sold for in the development. But that’s not what irritates me the most.

What really irritates me is the notion that his cronies were able to “push along”  CAMA permits. This is wrong on so many levels.

First other developers in Carteret County aren’t able to push CAMA permits along. In fact some of the smaller folks I know have been denied permits for such things as paving their parking lots, re-building walkways down to the beach, and other nonsense. Yet these corrupt individuals were able to lean on the departments, and officials entrusted with protecting our wetlands and beautiful coast to benefit them.

This whole thing stinks. I truly hope some heads roll. It is not fair for government officials to have ANY kind of involvement in this sort of business. As you can see the rules get bent and in some cases broken. This makes for an uneven field of competition between private builders. It’s almost like government sponsored enterprise, and we all know how that turns out.

The biggest issue to me is that apparently if you know the right people, or have a deep enough pocket you can buy your CAMA permit and the folks in charge of enforcing the laws that protect our fragile coastline will turn a blind eye. I think the investigation should start with the ex-governor Easley and start working downward. Hopefully all these crooked, corrupt officials pay the price for their actions.

I’m pretty sure the land that is Cannonsgate was in the past regarded as wetlands and couldn’t really be built on. But I guess if you can build your own sewage station then you can just bulldoze a wetland and start selling lots. It will be interesting to see who else is going to get wrapped up in this mess.