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DOT chief concedes communication failures in I-77 dispute

State Transportation Secretary Daniel Johnson conceded that his agency could’ve and should’ve done a better job communicating with Charlotte residents about the plan to add more toll lanes to Interstate 77. Along the way, “we had a lot of robust engagement on the development of the project with with local...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

Housing deregulation: If at first you don’t succeed …

Rep. Jeff Zenger and his allies are taking another stab at making local governments loosen their restrictions on housing development. A revised version of Senate Bill 445 rolled out this week in the Forsyth County Republican’s Regulatory Reform committee includes provisions that would force cities and counties to allow home...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

House considering data-center restrictions

House Republican have proposed a series of restrictions on data-center development, but are coupling them a restriction on the retirement of existing baseload power plants. The proposal’s embedded in a proposed revision of Senate Bill 730 that cleared the House’s Energy and Public Utilities committee on Wednesday. In all, the...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

Stein hires a housing adviser

Gov. Josh Stein has hired former Urban Institute Vice President Janneke Ratcliffe to serve as his senior adviser for housing policy. Ratcliffe will serve as Stein’s point person for an effort to come up with and implement a statewide housing strategy. An executive order rolled out on Tuesday instructs state...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

Former Durham Committee activist indicted

A Durham County grand jury has indicted the former head of the political-action arm of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People on two counts of embezzlement. Cassandra Shana Stokes also faces a count of obtaining property by false pretenses. The charges allege that Stokes pilfered almost $74,975...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

“WWAD” — the power of the Retail Merchants

Last week’s piece on the North Carolina lobbyists who’ve registered the largest number of clients brought forth an interesting comment from one of them who’s also a loyal Tribune reader. This basically notes that while our method identifies quite a few well-known heavy hitters, it shortchanges the lobbyists who basically...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

House panel advances ABC-law changes

An ABC-law rewrite that could put pre-mixed cocktails on grocery-store shelves has cleared its first committee, but not before getting watered down, literally. The version of House Bill 921 that cleared the House’s ABC committee on Tuesday includes a lower, 9.9.% cap on the volume of alcohol a pre-mixed cocktail...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

Backtracking on Brunswick

It’s looking like legislators are going to walk back a 2019 decision that allowed the Brunswick County Commissioners to farm out most all land-use decisions to appointed boards. Pending bills in both chambers say that going forward, the final decision in all development approvals will rest with the commissioners. House...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

Get to know Rep. Julia Greenfield

Back in 2023, Julia Greenfield was a retired nurse and political activist. That made her a recruiting target for Mecklenburg County Democrats as they looked for candidates for office. She wound up running, unopposed, for the District 100 state House seat after former Rep. John Autry announced he wasn’t going...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

NextEra buying Dominion Energy for $66.8B in stock

Florida-based NextEra Energy is buying Virginia’s Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal worth about $66.8 billion at current market prices. The acquisition will create the single largest regulated electric utility in the world, with roots in four of the country’s fastest-growing states, North Carolina among them. Dominion’s service area includes...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

Leadership conference: housing, healthcare, energy all dilemmas for NC

You’ll have to wait for a fuller account in an upcoming Business North Carolina of Friday’s NC Leadership Conference, but we can quickly offer some highlights. The morning’s first panel focused on North Carolina’s continued population group and saw one participant, Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, D-Wake, say permitting reform has to...

By Ray Gronberg

May 20, 2026

Wake Forest commissioner tabbed for Senate seat

Democratic Party leaders in Wake and Granville counties have named lawyer and Wake Forest Town Commissioner Haseeb Fatmi as the replacement for former state Sen. Terence Everitt. The decision comes about two weeks after Everitt announced his unexpected, post-primary resignation from the District 18 seat. The district covers northern Wake...

By Ray Gronberg

May 18, 2026

State fiscal forecast improves

Fiscal forecasters now think the state government will bring in $1.3 billion more in the 2025-27 biennium to support its general fund than they were estimating just two months ago. A joint estimate from the Office of State Budget and Management and the legislature’s Fiscal Research Division attributes the change,...

By Ray Gronberg

May 18, 2026

Commerce has some questions for employers

Gov. Josh Stein’s administration wants to find 50,000 employers willing to work with the state’s job-training programs. The state Commerce Department has launched a website that allows employers to voice interest in participating — and to volunteer information about what challenges they face in their business, among other things. The...

By Ray Gronberg

May 18, 2026

Farm advocates seek limits on ag-land conversions

Legislators are looking at a couple bills that would make it harder to convert farmland into other uses. The current draft of the 2025 Farm Act includes a provision that would allow local governments to reject special-use permits for non-residential development they think will “have a negative impact on agricultural...

By Ray Gronberg

May 18, 2026