Stop the Bill

As you are probably aware by now, the town of Badin has been hit again, this time, for a shot at 30 percent of our annual revenue.

If you remember spring 2017, Stanly County municipalities were hit by a surprise move to take away the municipalities’ Sales and Use Tax. Fortunately, our county commissioners voted down this move after the municipalities lobbied against it.

Senate Bill 531 to de-annex the prison from Badin, 33 parcels from Stanfield and a parcel from Red Cross is coming up for vote.

This year, on June 13, Badin’s new N.C. House Rep. Ken Goodman called the town to see if we knew anything about Senate Bill 531, which had been introduced late Tuesday evening.

The town was completely unaware of this action, had not been contacted by the legislative representative behind it to see if we wanted this action (we unequivocally do not).

The town was given no consideration, and, without being alerted, we would likely not have known about the bill until it passed, giving us no time to respond, and, even now, we have very little time.

If passed, Senate Bill 531 will injure the town’s ability to operate by taking one-third of our annual budget effective July 1. This action would devastate the town, and Badin would be lucky to recover.

Senate Bill 531, besides gutting Badin, shows something else important. It betrays the “spirit” of public service, good governance and transparency.

In fact, it represents what I see as a rare example of the worst of government — an under-handed and mean-spirited abuse of process and public trust.

Badin hopes the citizens of Stanly County will do everything in their power to not allow Senate Bill 531 to pass. We ask for your help in this potentially dire situation.

Please phone a North Carolina State Senator or North Carolina State House Representative or email if you can’t call and ask that representative to keep Senate Bill 531 off the legislative floor.

Stop Senate Bill 531 and thank you for your support.

Anne Harwood,
Mayor
Town of Badin