Two McHenry associates convicted within the past 7 months

On February 5, James Brett Keeter of Gaston County, a Deputy District Director for 10th District Rep. Patrick McHenry, became the second of McHenry’s associates to be convicted of a crime within the past seven months.

Keeter, who registered a .13 on his breathalyzer test, pleaded guilty and was convicted of Driving While Impaired (DWI) near Dallas, NC at 3:50 a.m. on September 2, 2007.

In August 2007, Michael Aaron Lay, a McHenry field director and former campaign aide, pleaded guilty and was convicted in Gaston County in a plea-bargained deal involving two felony voter fraud charges. These charges stemmed from the 2004 NC Republican primary and primary runoff, when Lay lived with McHenry in Cherryville and voted in the 10th District - even though his legal residence was in Tennessee. At the time of the indictment, McHenry made the following statement concerning Lay: “In the end, the facts and the law are on the side of this decent, law-abiding student, and he will be found innocent of this baseless
attack.” (See: www.shelbystar.com/onset?id=21725&template=article.html)

Keeter and Lay are just the latest of McHenry staffers and former associates convicted of crimes. Former Chief of Staff Jason Deans, for instance, has a lengthy record of driving violations, and most notably, in 1995 in Nash County, Deans was convicted of killing an innocent person in an at-fault motor vehicle accident.

I will not hire or will not continue to employ any staffer with a criminal conviction.

Local Farmers Discuss Needs with Sigmon

Congressional challenger Lance Sigmon has found that many “family farms in western North Carolina face extinction, and food costs likely will increase significantly this year if the cost of petroleum products continues unchecked.”

Of course, farmers are telling him that getting a more consistent supply of rain would help with food production, but that all production costs “are affected by the price of oil.” At current prices, “farmers’ ability to break even or survive has been severely jeopardized.”

“I don’t have a solution yet, but I have spoken to several farmers in the area in an effort to understand the full impact of the problem,” said Sigmon, who added that he’s looking to see “what else Congress can do to help.”

Potentially, the shutdown of small farms leads to the sell-off of agricultural land—which results in even more pressure on remaining farms to produce at maximum levels regardless of production costs or acts of nature.

For example, between 1992 and 1997, North Carolina lost more than 100,000 acres of farmland per year to development—the fifth highest rate in the U.S. Since 2002, North Carolina has lost more than 6,000 farms and 300,000 acres of farmland, which leads the nation.

As he campaigns across the 10 counties of the district, Sigmon said he has “become convinced” that the family farm “is very much in jeopardy, especially those in part-time production by ‘sundowners,’ folks who come in after their day jobs and work on the farm until dark.”

“Ultimately, no commodities are more important than food and fresh drinking water,” the candidate pointed out. If you think food is expensive now, wait until we are dependent on foreign sources of food.”

Sigmon, whose wife and daughter own horses, especially understands the increasing costs of buying hay and grain to feed horses and other livestock.

“We got about a 40% cutting of hay around here last year,” offered Maynard Taylor of Icard, a Burke County commissioner, part-time farmer and owner of Tractor & Equipment Co. of Newton. “I know a lot of folks who couldn’t grow nearly enough for their own needs.”

A Republican who’s running for reelection this year, Taylor pointed to the over $100-per-barrel crude oil as the biggest culprit—besides the long-running drought in this area, now at Stage 3 water-use restrictions.

“In the last two years, the cost of fertilizer has almost doubled, because of oil prices,” he noted. “That cost ripples through fuel for farm equipment and labor, too. I don’t know anything that’s gone down in price.”

Ira Cline, a well-known strawberry/blueberry grower in Catawba County, told Sigmon that ever-increasing costs of production force both part-time and full-time farmers to carefully monitor their costs per unit actually produced.

In Cline’s case, he’s been forced to sell off part of his traditional family farm to developers, and his 300 acres of fruit production is only a fraction of the acreage he once farmed. “You can’t afford, any more, to grow more than you can sell,” he said.

A “sundowner” farmer in northwest Lincoln County, who wanted to remain anonymous, echoed Taylor’s thoughts and noted that “oil companies made more than $11 billion last quarter.” He and his wife are retired, drawing pensions and struggling to maintain a rural lifestyle. He acknowledged that he’s not sure his heirs will want to continue farming, rather than eventually sell off the land to developers.

“I certainly sympathize with the problems of these rural people, whose work ethic is the backbone of our district,” Sigmon said. “I will work hard after I am elected to ensure that this vital segment of our economy is not forgotten.”