Editor,

As a former Mooresville Town Commissioner, I have never understood why Chris Carney voted to put the citizens of our town in debt more than $90 million to purchase a bankrupt cable television company while on the town board. It is fundamentally wrong to put local government in competition with private companies. You will lose. Our rates are out the roof, and the debt keeps growing and the technology keeps changing.

Chris is now running to represent us in the N.C. Senate and holds himself out as a conservative. An elected official who votes to put a small local government in debt $90-plus million to buy a bankrupt cable TV company is not conservative.

Now Mooresville has to funnel tax dollars to MI-Connection and compete with private companies in the same business. This year alone, we got hit with MI-Connection needing an additional $1.1 million to make it through 2012. That’s over and above the millions already on the table and the $6 million for 2013. Citizens were up in arms about his consideration to purchase the television company, but it didn’t matter. He voted to do it anyway.

We cannot send Chris Carney to the N.C. Senate. He has done enough damage to last a lifetime at the local level –if we can even survive his lack of good judgment and business sense indicated by his vote.

Chris Carney’s name will be on the ballot for the N.C. Senate. Chris Carney represents big government and irresponsible spending of taxpayer dollars. Another political office will provide him a platform to do more damage to an even larger segment of society. To the voters in Senate District 44, look at the record of Chris Carney. The word conservative does not apply to Mr. Carney.

One thing for sure, Chris knows how to spend taxpayers’ money and how to get more money from us by raising rates on utilities. His record speaks for itself on big spending and bailouts. We do not need politicians like Chris Carney handling our money or making decisions for us.

– Frank Owens, of Mooresville