NC Senator Julia Boseman

Senator Boseman is currently mired in controvery. When she was first elected four years ago, she was outed by a conservative group in a nasty mailing for being a lesbian (something Senator Boseman had not been hiding, in fact was quite open about). Luckily, the citizens of Wilmington rallied around her and she became our area's state senator. Now with a new election coming up this fall she is again having things in her past dug up and used against her.

In a bitter custody battle over her son, Senator Boseman admitted to smoking pot before running for office in a deposition (read the story on WHQR here). As the Republican party plans to use this to try to defeat Senator Boseman in this year's election, I hope that her constituents remember that the head of the Republican Party itself had allegations of cocaine use plagued his first run with his response to those allegation being "I don't remember" (here and here) and is a recovering alcoholic. Senator Boseman pointed out to WHQR that despite the admittance in the deposition she still won custody of her son and quickly sought counseling in 2003 to help her deal with her problems at the time.

In addition to this new revelation it has also come out that Senator Boseman failed to pay $5000 in property taxes on a home that she and her partner shared. Senator Boseman did transfer the property to her ex-partner last year. While I do not condone not paying your taxes, I also know how much property taxes in our area have gone up and how difficult it can be in these hard economic times to keep up, especially when one is dealing with the splitting of a long-time relationship and divvying up property.

I think it's key here to remember what Senator Boseman has done for out area and for our great state. In 2007 and 2008 Senator Boseman sponsored 187 bills and was the primary sponsor of 77 of those bills. Most of these bills deal with making punishments of violent crimes against children and women more strict, closing loopholes on gun laws, and enacting new stiffer laws against sexual predators. Other bills include; promoting renewable energy, increasing rescue and fire pensions, marine research funds, as well as many different bills that directly benefit New Hanover County. She is on 10 committees, is co-chair on two of those and vice-chair on another. Her voting record is one that any parent or New Hanover resident should be proud of, with very few abscenses. Granted the 2007-2008 doesn't seem to have many contentious bills on the plate, she still managed to get many of her bills through and voted on some other respectable bills. In short, she has been a good Senator for us and is a State Senator that I am proud of.

First Post

After going to the recent New Hanover County Board of Commissioners meeting to review the tax cut that would allow Titan to move into our fair county, I realized something tragic. I know nothing about local politics. I'm certainly known among my friends for being very political and staying up to date on politics, but those are national and international affairs. Local affairs impacts my family on a far more personal level, and I've been voting for people I know nothing about. I quickly learned while watching the discussions going on that there was one person that I really respected on the board, only to find out that she has not been re-elected. The others seemed intent on not listening to the people and experts who spoke out against allowing Titan to come to our area. For them this was all about money and the experts that spoke about the health of our children didn't seem to matter. I later discover that most of our board are in the pockets of Realtors and builders in the area, and have allowed our area to become over built, taxing an aging sewer and water system, causing spills that are destroying our beautiful wet lands. The damage that has already been done can't be undone, but we as citizens need to keep an eye on our government leaders to ensure that more damage is not done.

This blog is going to be a report of my exploration and research of the local government activities. I hope it becomes a place to build awareness and for others to bring information to light about the goings on in the beautiful Cape Fear, NC area. Feel free to post information in the comments that you have uncovered, or that you would like someone else to look into for dissemination.