Don’t look now, Speaker Jim Black of Matthews has found yet another good cause Down East. This time it is the restoration of the Martin County Courthouse, price tag $1 million. The Speaker on the project:
“I think this is another gem of North Carolina that needs to be revitalized,” the speaker said of the structurally stabilized historic building.
“It’s in the process, of course,” Black continued. “It needs to be finished. I’d like to see this project finished and the Turnage (Theaters in Washington) and any other projects like this that are just what North Carolina is about.”
Pressed on the funding issue, Black affirmed $1 million “is a lot of money, but just look what a gem this is. I mean, a huge asset. … It’s just worth the investment. A million dollars is not a lot of money to save a courthouse like this, with the history it has.”
Asked about whether that million could come from the state, he responded: “Our economy is on the rebound, and we’re getting more money in there. There (are) a lot of needs we have, like education and highways. You know, our historic preservation — you can’t put a price on it. If you don’t renovate, these things just deteriorate more every year. You’ve got this one just in the nick of time, I think, to be able to salvage it.”
The fact that so much work has already been done on the courthouse improves the project’s chances of winning state money from the General Assembly, he confirmed.
“We just can’t let this — just can’t turn it loose,” Black said. “The sooner it’s finished, the sooner it stops costing so much money to bring back to life.”
So while the very busy Mecklenburg County courthouse is in screaming need of a few hundred thousand dollars for more prosecutors, so we can actually take criminals to trial for serious crimes, the Speaker is finding needs left and right. Needs like the $200,000 for his lawyers to keep up with the state’s investigation of the Speaker or $1 million for Black’s Down East political cronies.
