Complaint questions legality of state aquarium project

A state budget line item for an aquarium at a private development triggered a formal complaint this week from a Democrat who questions the appropriation's legality.

Richard Poole, an attorney and chairman of the New Hanover County Democratic Party, said he filed the complaint online Monday evening with the lobbying division of the Secretary of State's Office. It goes in the mail Tuesday, Poole said, to other potential investigative bodies, including the Pender County District Attorney's Office and the State Bureau of Investigation.

The complaint mentions developer Raiford Trask, state Sen. Bill Rabon,R-Brunswick, state Rep. Holly Grange, R-New Hanover, and former state Rep. Chris Millis, R-Pender, by name. The three legislators have said they requested a six-figure appropriation earlier this year for a new state aquarium at Blake Farm, a large mixed-use project Trask is building in Pender County.

Trask, long a generous campaign donor to North Carolina Republicans and Democrats alike, has said the aquarium was his idea and that it will focus on shellfish aquaculture. Details appear to be unwritten, and there is some disagreement between the players as to who would cover actual construction costs, but }the plan seems to be for Trask to lease the building or the land it sits on back to the state, developing homes and commercial districts around it.

Plans to use state dollars for the project initially ran under the radar in the budget, but }questions arose earlier this month when the budget was tweaked, clarifying the project wouldn't just be studied, it would be designed. There's no indication the state reviewed other potential locations, and the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, which operates North Carolina's four existing aquariums, said it never requested the funding.

The budget simply states that $300,000 is allocated to design and permit an aquarium at Blake Farm. The actual amount available is about $254,000, according to legislative budget writers, though, with the discrepancy due to an error in budget documents.

Rabon, Millis and Grange pushed for state spending that "directly benefits a favored real estate developer with budgeted tax dollars, and raises numerous questions under North Carolina law," Poole's complaint states.

"The questions deserve to be addressed by the appropriate governmental agencies, including the North Carolina Ethics Commission, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Governor's Office, SBI, Wake County District Attorney and Pender County District Attorney," it states.

Efforts to reach Rabon, Millis and Grange by telephone and email were not successful Monday evening or Tuesday morning. Trask is out of the country, according to his office.

The complaint questions whether Trask and Millis, who resigned unexpectedly from the legislature in September, violated state lobbying regulations by pushing for the appropriation and without registering as lobbyists. It also questions whether legislators circumvented state law by "directing a sole-source procurement with no public bidding or consultation with the Department of Administration," which generally oversees state buildings.

The complaint doesn't make allegations but suggests questions for regulators and law enforcement to ask, based largely on media coverage the aquarium plan generated over the last month.

"I didn't want to get out ahead of the facts," Poole said Tuesday. "I think it would diminish the effectiveness of the complaint. But it's interesting. There's a lot there for them to look at."

It's unclear what actions investigators could take. A call to the Secretary of State's Office Tuesday wasn't immediately returned, and other authorities have not yet received Poole's complaint.

The complaint also gets into Millis' job as a civil engineer at Paramounte Engineering in Wilmington. Poole cites an Oct. 15 piece on portcitydaily.com which indicates that Paramounte Engineering told Pender County officials that, if the Blake Farm development is approved, land will be donated for a county park. This suggests a business relationship between Blake Farm and Paramounte, Poole wrote, raising conflict of interest concerns.

That report appears to be in error, though. Paramounte apparently was referring to a separate development also mentioned in the article. Millis said earlier this month that neither he nor Paramounte works with Trask.

The firm does work with Trask's cousin, C. Heide Trask Jr., on a separate Pender County project called Lane's Ferry Landing. Millis said he's not involved with that project and that he hasn't worked on any of Heide Trask's projects.

Raiford Trask said earlier this month that he didn't know Millis' firm was working on Lanes Ferry. Beyond confirming the familial relationship, he declined to discuss his relationship with his cousin and wouldn't provide contact information. Efforts to reach Heide Trask at a number listed for a business of his were not successful, though one of his other relatives did respond and agreed to pass along WRAL News' interview request.

Millis said there's "no developmental relationship" between the cousins, who appear to be from different generations, making them cousins once removed.

"Just because we do work for someone with the same last name, in no way shape or form does that have benefit for Raiford," Millis said. "I don't know if they even speak to each other."