From the Burlington Times-News (5/19/10): Questions as to whether a local bill now before the General Assembly would allow the city of Burlington to make secret real estate deals and circumvent required public notices about those deals has prompted a meeting between Alamance County's state delegates, a First Amendment attorney and city leaders.
The bill — which Sen. Tony Foriest, Rep. Alice Bordsen and Rep. Dan Ingle agreed to submit for hearings by the General Assembly after a meeting with the Burlington City Council last month — was intended by the Burlington Downtown Corporation and the city as a way to help spur development downtown. The bill gives the city council the power to determine the terms and conditions that land is publicly or privately sold.
What the bill eliminates are requirements that bids for city property be disclosed through legal ads in newspapers. The advertisement of bids alerts the public that land is for sale and allows outside parties to place higher bids on the property.
Intended or not, the bill could allow the city to make backroom, sweetheart deals and brings with it the shadow of a public records case the city lost in 2001, said John Bussian, an attorney based in Raleigh who represents the Times-News and other Freedom Communications Inc. newspapers.