Wilson resigns from turnpike board (News & Observer)
Lanny Wilson is sworn in to testify at a State Board of Elections hearing in October on possible campaign violations by former Gov. Mike Easley and the state Democratic Party.
Lanny Wilson, a Wilmington developer and lawyer who resigned last week from the State Board of Transportation, notified the N.C. Turnpike Authority today that he also has given up his seat on that board.
Wilson was a key money man for the campaigns of former Gov. Mike Easley and Gov. Bev Perdue. He testified in a State Board of Elections hearing that he gave large checks to the Democratic Party that he expected would be in turn given to Easley’s campaign. Funneling the money in that way would violate the limits on donations to individual candidates.
“Just a quick email to advise you that I have submitted my resignation to the appropriate people in Senator Basnight’s office,” Wilson said today in e-mail to David Joyner, the turnpike authority’s executive director.
Schorr Johnson, a spokesman for Sen. Marc Basnight, the Senate leader, said he understood Wilson had notified Basnight’s office of his resignation “verbally,” and “we are awaiting a letter of resignation.”
Wilson served as the turnpike board’s vice chairman, and he championed the authority’s Cape Fear Skyway project, a proposed $1.3 billion road and bridge in Wilmington. He participated by telephone in the turnpike board’s monthly meeting last Wednesday.
Perdue now will find a replacement for Wilson on the Board of Transportation, where he represented Division 3, including New Hanover and five other southeastern counties. Basnight, who had asked Perdue to make Wilson her state transportation secretary, now will pick his successor on the turnpike board.
Wilson previously served four years on the N.C. Real Estate Commission and was former general counsel and vice president of Boney Wilson & Sons Inc.
Posted: Monday, Jan. 25, 2010
