Head Of NC DOT Wants Citizen Investigated For Speaking Up

From my hometown of Raleigh, NC, we learn that dissent is a means to a criminal investigation

David N. Cox says he was merely exercising his right to petition the government, but a state Department of Transportation official has raised allegations that Cox committed a misdemeanor: practicing engineering without a license.

Cox and his North Raleigh neighbors are lobbying city and state officials to add traffic signals at two intersections as part of a planned widening of Falls of Neuse Road.

After an engineering consultant hired by the city said that the signals were not needed, Cox and the North Raleigh Coalition of Homeowners’ Associations responded with a sophisticated analysis of their own.

They came up with an 8 page analysis that shows that signals will be needed. That bit of citizen action has annoyed the head of the DOT

It did not persuade Kevin Lacy, chief traffic engineer for the state DOT, to change his mind about the project. Instead, Lacy called on a state licensing agency, the N.C. Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors, to investigate Cox.

Cox has not been accused of claiming that he is an engineer. But Lacy says he filed the complaint because the report “appears to be engineering-level work” by someone who is not licensed as a professional engineer.

Remember the days when one could offer advice without some weenie in The Government giving you a license? But, Lacy says he is not trying to shut Cox up. Anyone buying that? And, yes, the state engineer licensing board is actually going to investigate, and it will take 3-4 months. Someone needs to sue the hell out of Lacy as a representative of the NC government for NC Constitutional Rights violations.

PS: Looks like Memeorandum has linked the story up, and, it’s really strange when Matt Yglesias and I agree.

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