Has been 15 years since North Carolina voters last approved borrowing for infrastructure. Since that bond referendum in the year 2000, we have grown by over 2 Million People. North carolina is in the big time now and we need to prepare for the future. The connect nc bond would be spent on a variety of project. S 1. 2billion cob spent on new or updated buildings in the unc and Community College systems. 309million would pay for water and sewer infrastructure in rural areas. 179million would be used to support agriculture. 100million would be spent on upgrades at state parkthe North Carolina zoo. And 79million would go to modernize National Guard armories and regional centers. The debt would be repaid over 20 years using money the state there will be no tax increase for any citizen in North Carolina. Reporter nc state chancellor Randy Woodson said the education spending will help attract the best and brightest students for decades to become the states work force for the next generation. There is an old saying that if you dont keep moving, you will eventually get run over. The connect nc act will keep North Carolina moving. Joining us tonight is former state Supreme Court justice bob orr. He is the cochairman of the campaign to support the bond and we have mark here also. We din viet bond opponents to appear tonight. More than half a dozen of them actually but they all declined or had schedule conflicts so well explain their concerns as can. How did you get involved in this grant project . The governor called me and we had a brief conversation and he asked me to help. Folks, each person representing to a certain extent the constituency groups most impacted by the bond referendum and it is a great team. Jim rose of yadkin bank who is on the Community College board, dr. Joan perry who is on the bothered of governors. At t North Carolina. Retired Brigadier General david National Guard. I think the university and Community College investments are pretty selfexplicit. They are going to a lot of engineering type of things. I think some things that people may not understand as well is water and sewer money set aside, that is going to a fund that will then be called upon by smaller communities. Can you explain that a little bit . I think the concept is what weve been doing in the Clean Water Trust fund and that is it and towns that have particular needs in water and sewer apply money. You look at the issues in michigan. You are well aware of the need for clean water. Process. That segment mentioned agriculture. That money is not going necessarily to farmers and or farmland preservation. That is going to nc state for apartment research, spectator slowdown it not. Virtually all of the projects are capital project. S have i to get the title correct. The Plant Sciences initiative complex at nc state. The bond proceeds would be a portion of the fund raised for this. But North Carolina has an Important Role in the Agricultural Community and so it is critical both academe you growth standpoint that this state of the art facility be built. I wanted to ask also about National Guard. This is one of the smaller allocations in the bond package but from what weve heard from especially the governor in that event that we just talked about, one of the most badly needed. Can you talk about where that money would go. I think there are three or four specific facilities that will be upgraded with i think 75 million, roughly 75 or 80 million, four National Guard facility that will enhance training, readiness for state emergencies, whether it is weatherrelated or some sort of security issue. We havent invested as a state in the National Guard instruct while and these are another piece of the Public Safety bit is upgrades for state troopers or state law enforcement. That speaks to one of the strengths of a bond issue like this, that there is a Little Something in if t. For everybody, every geography of state. That is also a big issue with this. Can you speak to what is what has been a big criticism. This seems less like a a pryoritization. Chancellor at we were a few months back and he was talking about how, when the Science Building was originally constructed in the 70s, there were only like a dozen nursing majors. There was nobody in engineering. Now, they have over 2,000 students enrolled in nursing and Health Related programs and one of their missions as a Regional University is to try and provide badly needed Health Personnel into the lower income regions. That is western North Carolina. And so critics may say well, that is not needed. But certainly in the context of the school and the particular constituency they are is badly needed. And so i think each of the projects across the state has value to that particular institution and the people they but youve heard people say what about the could . Is that an urgent need. Is the state of North Carolina going to fall into disrepair without upgrades to the zoo. Weve made a Huge Investment over 40 years since the zoo was located in ashboro. It is a major attraction in the state. And it is not a large part of the bond package. Most going to educational institutions, Community Colleges. But tourism is an important part of the economy and whether it is celebrating the anniversary of the opening of Mount Mitchell this year, we have 15 million visitors to our state park. Not sure what the numbers are at the zoo. But that is an economic generator where weve made an investment and we continue to do so. We need to go to a quick break. But when we come back and you are on the record, well talk a concerns that weve heard from welcome back to on the record. Not everyone agrees that the 2 billion bond proposal is a good investment. Some are calling it a political piggy bank, a Christmas Tree of pork barrel spending. A few of those critics have formed an Organization Called against the bondment one of its most vocal members is former he says connect nc started out as a bond proposal to pay for roads and voters are being misled. That was originally a transportation bond. People got excited about getting their roads paved. Now, are there any roads even in the bond . I didnt see any when i went through it. Brawley is one two of republicans challenging governor mccrory in the republican primary in march. The organizer of against the bond is nicole revel. We invited her to be here tonight but she was not able to make it. We did talk to her about her opposition to the bond. She said this. Mark, you were the person who spoke with her for a story you did mentioning that a lot of the voters that are going to pay for this havent even been born yet. Of a common theme when ive talked to people who are critical of the bond, whether they be state lawmakers or citizens that it still bears the connect nc name which sort of harkens back to when the governor originally proposed it and it was money to be set aside for transportationtype of issuesism guess how do you answer that criticism that there is still in sort of leftover marketing of hey, it is for transportation but not really. Well, it is not for transportation but there is a huge connect come popent to this. I mean the education component to this. I mean the education facilities across the state serve as the at lift for a Strong Economy for North Carolina now and in the future. I would say about the comment of, well, there are people who arent even born that are going to have to pay for it. Even born that are going to benefit from this who will have state of the art educational facilities v a Community College available to them have Community Colleges available to hem years from now. One of the arguments is that they got more money into the budget regular for transportation so they didnt need for fund it with bond. That is the same argument we hear from a lot of the critics which is, if these are such crucial needs for the state, why arent we saying we need to pay for this out of the general fund. Why do we need to bother foe this . First of all, you cant pay for all of these projects and run a fiscally responsible budget year to year that has to be balanced. And so it is like a business making an Investment Decision longterm to expand or improve inventory and opportunities. That, while the governor has certainly advocated for transportation to be a significant part of the bond, the legislature had an extensive opportunity to explore and examine both pro and con what should go in the bond. It was a bipartisan effort. It certainly took the republicans, the republican leadership, majority, the minority members. Senator dan blue was one of the speakers a bond kickoff. To say this is some sort of bait and switch. This is hike any other piece of legislation that is introduced at the general assembly, there is a good bit of change and modification that goes through it. The public certainly had opportunities to weigh in with the schools, the constituencies groups. Argument is about as fallacious as any argument you can pull out on this. One of the Lawmakers Said look, we are not filling up the seats in the u nc system right now. There is a goodly amount of time when there arent students in the classrooms we have. Why build more. The focus is on stemdriven facilities. The sciences, the engineering where we think the job market for the future is. And lets face it and i am a liberal arts guy. You dont necessarily need a new building to teach english literature. If you are talking about sophisticated scientific agricultural plant genome projects, you need state of the you cant be relying on antiquated, outdated facilities and be competitive. Late me ask this. One of the things we hear over and over is this will not cause a tax increase years down the road. How do we know that . Can lawmakers today really say that lawmakers in four years arent going to raise taxes when they see what the bill comes in to be for all of this . You know, there are no guarantees in life. But the reality is the people who have studied the economics of this, weve gone through the recession, weve come out of the recession. I think i saw recently we are about 600 million ahead on the budget projections, revenue prodecks for this year. This is spread out. Projections for this year. The cost of this is spread out over 20, 25 years. Existing bond debt that we have and all of the projections are that there are more than adequate funds to pay for these bonds over the fixed period of time that they are issued and not require any sort of tax increase for them. We have the capacity at this point . Absolutely. We have aaa rating on our bonds and we are at historically low interest rates. Will that continued or not . The idea is to get in there and lets take advantage of that while we can. Just a minute left. Ill give you the last question. One ever another criticisms traveling among both lawmakers and the public, a representative mailed us this morning talking about the transportation, how he could have supported a transportation bond issue. He sends by saying please do not be fooled by the title of the bill and give the contents the section on the bond reallocation. Ive seen this come up with people skeptical of the bond and people able to keep up with what they say. I guess just as what is the reassurance that we wont raise taxes to pay for it, what is the reassurance that what we are voting on on march 15th is going to be what that money ends up paying for. I think the commitment maid to higher education, all of those groups have been told by the legislature and leadership, here is what the money is going for. I think, in the legislation, and i havent looked at it in a while, there are specific allocations in there. Any guarantee politicians or government, this is as strong a guarantee as you will find. Thank you for joining us. Mark, you will stay with us and coming up after the break. Big news for wral. We are switching our Network Affiliation at the end of february. Over 3 Million People have silky smooth feet that you cant help but the new amopefoot file with diamond crystals and extra removes callouses effortlessly. Yo welcome back to on th record. As of february 29th, wral will end a 30year relationship with we arent going anywhere. We will still be here with you on saturday nights and all of another news, weather and nrveg that you count on will still be here too. But the National Network shows around us are going to look different. Here to talk about the news the station manager, rothschild. Thank you for joining us. Nice to be here. Can you talk about what led to this decision . This is a decision about the future. Wral is a locally owned station that has been able to, over the years, really create a presence in the local market. And cbs was part of that. But looking forward into the future, it became clear that there was a better opportunity for wral to be wral and that being with cbs may not have been the best choice. Nbc is made up of broadcasters. They understand what local broadcasting is and that became so while there will be a little confusion on the programming side, this is an important thing for a locally owned company like us to make sure that wral can continue being who we are. One of the things i think ive seep the most confusion about is sort of people just not understanding the difference between what is a network show, a local show, a syndicated show. The news, on the record, the brain game on sundays, that is football friday. That is locally created content. The stuff like sunday night football, that comes from the network. That is the type of thing that will change. I think the biggest question i saw is what happens to the acc basketball . That will continue. That was part of the conversation, an important piece of it. There are a number of things and youve mentioned lots of them that are who wral is in this community and has been for decades. Basketball, local specials and programs, those kinds of things came into play in the conversation. What it is important for viewers to understand and this wont be easy for some, is that all that is really changing is that nbc is joining the wral family. So that means the today show, the nightly news, cbs prime time, sunday night football, jimmy fallon, programmed programs like that will be joining wral. But wral news, and local program and some of our syndicated shows like dr. Phil and entertainment tonight, those wont be changing. There will be confusion but well work really hard to make sure the viewers know what to expect and when and communicate as clearly as possible what isnt changing and what is coming that we are excited t. And we should probably note will still be available in this market. It is just going to be cbs Network Programming will be moving over to wncn which is currently the nbc affiliate. They are swapping channels essentially. The prime time, morning news, evening news and some sports. One thing that we are excited about in the newsroom is the olympics. Well have the olympics under the nbc mantle. Do any of us get to go to the olympics . You tell me. I dont. The olympics is probably the biggest jewel in nbcs crown. They have an agreement to carry the summer and Winter Olympics to 2032. That is a long time. And we are very excited about it because we think that wrals involvement in local agent athletes as well as the events in in market. We know thousand cover big events. This is a really big one. And what role we that, were still trying to sort through. But it will viewers in the raleigh market will know the olympics are coming and will enjoy them right here on wral, i promise. And this is actually the biggest impact the change has had on us. In the newsroom, the question is how do we southbound to this . It really was not a whole lot. Well keep on doing what were doing. Any change for news other than i think were getting a little bit Better Partnership out of the charlotte nbc has a big hub in charlotte. Nbc, because it is a network that is built on broadcasters and local broadcasters, one of the things they have is their local support of news stations is in charlotte. Is just down the road. And within the industry, it is a Gold Standard for that kind of service. For viewers, what that means is, when we are covering stories outside of our immediate region, we will do much, much better. We will have more support from reporters around the country and world. We have to wrap you up. We are running out of time here. If you have something to say about anything we discussed