North Carolina Sen. Kevin Corbin recently hosted a meeting at the Franklin Chamber of Commerce with local business and planning officials to talk with Sens. Steve Jarvis and Timothy Moffitt about what state and federal regulations stand in the way of Macon County businesses and what the committee could do about them.
Jarvis and Moffitt chair the Senate’s Regulatory Reform committee. Corbin said he brought the new committee’s chairs out to discuss regulations with members of his district, a rare change from the tradition of holding public hearings. The meeting started at 1 p.m. and ran until around 2 on April 11. The senators then headed to Murphy for a similar meeting there.
The meeting, which wasn’t announced until Thursday, drew a good share of local business owners to discuss the effects of regulations, with between 20 and 30 total attendees alongside chamber staff and the politicians’ assistants.
Jarvis and Moffitt said the original joint committee on regulatory reform was able to take 10,000 regulations off the books, and since then around 1,000 have been added back on through the legislative process. Though Jarvis and Moffitt’s committee is only a Senate effort, they wanted to connect with local business owners to see what they were looking for.
The attendees broadly represented local business owners, contractors, realtors and homeowners, but in general they seemed mostly interested in updating regulations or policies rather than removing them outright.
A dentist said that the state’s safety policies on X-ray devices are based on outdated information, and neighboring states have much looser regulations on shielding for these devices without compromising safety.
A contractor expressed a desire for some guidelines on rainwater collection being used for potable water, saying many new construction sites were getting requests to put these kinds of collection systems in but that without guidelines inspectors did not know what to do about them.
A restaurant owner wanted to alter some guidelines on donating leftover food to charity, saying that a lawyer has advised the restaurant to stop donating to avoid legal liability. The owner wanted to be able to donate food in good faith without fear of reprisal.
A homeowner wanted some changes to how roof inspections were conducted to protect homeowners from having to replace a shoddily made roof within a few years of purchasing the home.
A business owner, who was looking to expand, was frustrated with the lack of commercial real estate available in the area and asked if anything could be done on the regulatory front to alleviate the issue. The senators said this was more of a local than a state issue, but that they would look to see if there was anything they could do through the committee to help.
A business owner had recently examined a property with the goal of expanding but had noticed that the building would need heavy updates to be brought in line with both current business needs and fire codes. However, a historical building classification could impede these changes.
A large chunk of reform was demanded regarding the Federal Emergency Management Agency and various requirements to receive aid for rebuilding after a disaster. Namely, the requirement to get flood insurance and the prevention of building back in the path of the flood. The senators said these requirements did not benefit either home or business owners, and that the historic nature of Helene’s flooding warranted exceptions be made for home and business owners who suffered damages.
Corbin said the Murphy meeting saw business owners and community members echo many of the same concerns, about regulations in need of modernization and updates. Some speakers also shared concerns about local and federal issues unrelated to the committee’s goals, according to Corbin.