N.C. Coastal group steeling for census results

Business and government leaders from North Carolina's coastal counties are steeling themselves for 2010 Census results that they said could translate to less power and more regulation for the eastern part of the state.

Urban areas - such as the Piedmont with Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point; and the Research Triangle area including Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill - have been growing.

"What it essentially means is the Piedmont is going to get a lot more representatives and senators than we are," said Tom Thompson, e xecutive d irector of NC 20, a coalition of coastal business and government leaders. "We're going to lose and they're going to gain. You're going to see a huge amount of pressure to put more money there."

Thompson, director of the Beaufort County Economic Development Commission, said the expected leap - as much as 50 percent - in population in the Piedmont could result in it gaining up to eight new members in the General Assembly. The coastal region has had only about 10 percent of the state's population, and its numbers are not expected to change substantially.

The nonprofit NC 20, named for the 20 counties regulated by the state Coastal Area Management Act, was formed as an ad hoc group in 2008 to oppose proposed state stormwater regulations. The group was at the forefront of last year's battle against increases in homeowners' insurance rates on the coast. The coalition, helped by lobbyists for the building and real estate industries, achieved limited success.

At its annual meeting in New Bern this week, the group is going to propose funding its own full-time lobbyist to protect the economic development interests of the region, Thompson said.

"We're a minority of the state, and we're a favorite target because of the rich resources we have," he said. "We have got to unify or we're going to be eaten alive."

Three of the state's most powerful politicians are from the East - Sen. Pro Tempore Marc Basnight, a Dare County Democrat, and Gov. Beverly Perdue and House Speaker Pro Tem William Wainwright, both Craven County Democrats - but Thompson said that they still have to contend with the legislature.

"Quite frankly, they can't go any further than the membership will let them go," Thompson said.

Willo Kelly, government affairs director for the Outer Banks Home Builders Association and the Outer Banks Association of Realtors, said that in her lobbying for changes in insurance rates, she witnessed first-hand the distorted perception inland legislators have about the coast.

"They think we get everything we want," she said, and that "we're all wealthy and we live in big houses."

Kelly, a Nags Head resident, said the statewide fight over insurance rates illustrates what coastal counties are up against.

Despite data that she said show that ice storms have caused more catastrophic damage in the western part of the state and that hurricanes have caused more damage in Charlotte and the Piedmont area than on the coast, home-owners in coastal counties were charged higher rates. At the same time, one-third of the state hasn't gotten a rate increase in 17 years.

Scientific data did not seem to influence decisions on the rates, she said, as much as political power did.

"You're an elected official," Kelly said, "and you've kept them low where the votes are."

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com