Tag: N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles

Government Misadventures

When I reported for The News & Observer I wrote  hundreds of stories about North Carolina state government shenanigans.  Here’s how government works sometimes.

* * *

Road graders manufactured by Huber Corp. met specifications and they were the low bid, but the  N.C. Advisory Budget Commission voted 3-2 not to buy them.

Why?

You want the Commission’s reason or the real reason? How about both reasons.

Galion road grader
Galion road grader

The N.C. Department of Transportation already owned 800 road graders made by Galion Iron Works and Manufacturing Co. It didn’t want the Huber machines.  The Galion was a good machine, and those highway boys wanted  more of them.

The Highway Commission proposed splitting the award, half to General Machinery Co., representing Huber, and half to N.C. Equipment  Co., representing Galion, but there were doubts about the legality of splitting the bid — Huber had won fair and square.

So how did the state get out of buying the Hubers when they met specs — Galion didn’t, by the way, not entirely — and Huber’s bid was the lowest?

Easy.

Wasn’t it true that the Galions bought by the state in prior years had not been delivered on time?

Yes, that was true.  And those contracts contained no penalty for late delivery.

Did the current contract contain a penalty for late delivery?

No, it didn’t.

Well, there you go. Isn’t it about time the state began penalizing the winning bidder if it failed to deliver on time?

So that’s how they did it.

The state rejected all bids, put a penalty clause for late delivery in the contract, and rebid it. Nevermind that it was Galion that had failed to deliver on time. 

And, yes, Galion won the rebid.

* * *

OK, here’s one more.

The N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles sent a job applicant a form letter pointing out that he had two, five-year-old speeding convictions on his record  and that “may be a negative” factor– some applicants have clean records.

 The tone was, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” he told me, and they didn’t.

Three months later another man applied for the same type job at DMV. His driving record included four convictions for speeding; two for reckless driving; two for illegal passing; one for driving on the wrong side of the road; and one safe-movement violation and four driver license suspensions.

He got hired.  His father was a Democratic county commission chairman and he had a recommendation from Gov. James B. Hunt’s Office.

When I asked the commissioner of motor vehicles why the fellow with a lousy driving record got hired while the one with two five-year-old convictions was not hired the commissioner looked at me like I had just arrived in Raleigh on a turnip truck.

This one had a sponsor, he said. That one didn’t.

 Coming Monday:  Dixie Dew

The Endless Battle

On hundreds of occasions when I was a newspaperman I went round and round with government officials over access to public records.

Some of them must never have read North Carolina’s public records law, G.S. 132-1, or, if they had, they didn’t understand it.  Basically, the law says that all state and local government records are public — written documents, photographs, tape recordings, everything — unless there’s  another law that says they aren’t, like the laws protecting tax returns, medical records, SBI investigations, things like that, from public disclosure.

They’d say stuff like, “I’ve worked here 25 years and we’ve never released that record,” as if that mattered.

Some wanted to know why I wanted the record.  State law didn’t require me –and doesn’t require you– to tell them and, when you get right down to it, it’s none of their business.

They sometimes tried to overcharge the newspaper I worked for, The News & Observer.

A state Department of Transportation lawyer sent me a letter saying a database we wanted would cost the newspaper twenty-something thousand dollars.

“While this may seem exorbitant…” he said in the letter, proving that lawyers do so have sense of humor.

My favorite encounter over public records involved my request for a copy of an accident report from the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles headquarters in Raleigh.  The report, the DVM clerk conceded, was public. But the accident report index, without which you couldn’t find an individual report, was not public, he said.

Huh?  Says who?

The clerk said that’s what an assistant attorney general who advised DMV on such matters had told him. At my request he asked that attorney to join us.

Sure enough, that was his position: the accident report was public but the index wasn’t. That was so nutty, in my opinion, there was no point in discussing it.  Might as well cut to the chase.

I said, “Bill, The N&O is going to rely on G.S. 132-1, which says that index is public. What law are you going to rely on that says it isn’t?”

He hemmed and hawed but he didn’t cite a statute.

So I asked him again.  He beat around the bush some more.  I said, “Bill, you’re wasting our time. What law are you going to rely on?”

“There isn’t a law,” he said,“but there ought to be.”

I said, “Bill, are you listening to yourself?”

Postscript: DMV let me see the index and I found, and copied, the accident report I wanted.

NOTE:

§ 132-1. “Public records” defined.

(a) “Public record” or “public records” shall mean all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, photographs, films, sound recordings, magnetic or other tapes, electronic data-processing records, artifacts, or other documentary material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance in connection with the transaction of public business by any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions. Agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions shall mean and include every public office, public officer or official (State or local, elected or appointed), institution, board, commission, bureau, council, department, authority or other unit of government of the State or of any county, unit, special district or other political subdivision of government.

(b) The public records and public information compiled by the agencies of North Carolina government or its subdivisions are the property of the people. Therefore, it is the policy of this State that the people may obtain copies of their public records and public information free or at minimal cost unless otherwise specifically provided by law. As used herein, “minimal cost” shall mean the actual cost of reproducing the public record or public information. (1935, c. 265, s. 1; 1975, c. 787, s. 1; 1995, c. 388, s. 1.)

Coming Monday: The Spoon