State Auditor Les Merritt is touting his skills as protector of the taxpayer in a series of ads and at an audit-tip Web site.
Yet Merritt has been MIA on the crucial issue of millions in state money spent on the $463 million South line light rail project as well as the state funding slated for the $470 million North line commuter rail. The state provided about 25 percent of the money for the South line and the funding plan for the North line assumes the same.
And just this week, The Rhino Times reported that there is a $555 million gap between what town officials value future development along the North line and what CATS projects. Who is right and what does that mean for the project’s financing, which is wholly dependent on that development?
At one point there were rumblings that Merritt was interested in looking at how CATS has spent its state resources. Now it appears Merritt has been scared away by the prospect of angering Charlotte’s powerful business interests were he to embarass CATS and endanger the light rail building spree now just starting.
In sum, with Democrats gunning for Merritt in 2008, he may not be exactly eager to cross Charlotte’s Republican business elite.
Guess we’d find out if his Web site were flooded with requests for an audit of CATS to protect state and local taxpayers from…wait for it…fraud, waste, and abuse.
