Two members of the General Assembly who voted to approve a billboard industry-promoted bill allowing more trees to be cut around the signs had connections to the industry.
One is Rep. Stephen LaRoque, a Kinston Republican and high-ranking legislator who has come under scrutiny for how he ran a pair of federal loan intermediary nonprofit groups. LaRoque on Friday provided a copy of an opinion he sought from the state Ethics Commission indicating that it would not be a conflict of interest for him to vote on the bill.
The other legislator is former Sen. Debbie Clary, a Republican from Cherryville who is a longtime political ally of LaRoque. Her marketing business received one of his federal loans. She has since resigned from the Senate but says it had nothing to do with LaRoque.
Clary had a financial interest in a limited liability corporation called Billboards Rock & Roll as of April 2011, according to a statement of economic interest she filed then as a public official. The company was formed in 2009.
LaRoque's two nonprofit organizations, formed to loan federal money to struggling businesses, made loans to two companies for four billboards in 2007 and 2009, he said. He also has a half interest in five billboards, he said. On Friday, N.C. Policy Watch, which first raised questions about LaRoque's finances last year, posted online a document showing that LaRoque's for-profit company listed ownership of $38,000 worth of billboards as of December 2010.
"It was not a conflict because it affects all billboards throughout the state," LaRoque said of the bill Friday. "It would have been a conflict if I did something specifically for one" billboard.
Last June, the Senate overwhelmingly approved the billboard tree-cutting bill. The legislation ran into trouble in the House, where a Republican lawmaker wanted additional protections for trees and wanted to ensure local control. But a committee formed to work out a compromise, which included LaRoque, gutted the protections and restored most of what the industry wanted.
In mid-November, the Joint Ethics Committee in the General Assembly was asked to consider looking into LaRoque's financial dealings. The committee works in secret, and so it isn't known whether it has taken up a formal complaint. But according to its annual report, filed last month, as of Nov. 30 there were no pending complaints.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the federal loan program, denied a public records request from The News & Observer this week because LaRoque's nonprofits are under investigation by that agency. Policy Watch first reported the federal probe this month.
