GTP boots man who questions authority.

• Author: Maley, Frank
• Position: Tar Heel Tattler - Longistics Inc. - Global TransPark

Give Duane Long credit for audacity, if not political savvy. Eight months after his Raleigh-based Longistics Inc. won a state contract to run a foreign-trade zone at the Global TransPark, he tried to stage a coup. He asked a state senator to back a plan to transfer management of the Lenoir County air-cargo complex to the state Department of Transportation, relegating the North Carolina Global TransPark Authority to an advisory board.

When it got wind of his plan to make it less authoritative, the authority took just a week to respond: You can't fire us--we're firing you. Its executive committee voted unanimously to cut ties to Longistics. Long and the authority had been at odds over financing a refrigerated ware-house he needed to create a distribution center. He planned to import flowers and export medical supplies.

Long found an ally in Rep. Stephen LaRoque, a Kinston Republican. LaRoque, who says Longistics isn't the only company unhappy with the authority, drafted legislation to transfer the TransPark to the DOT. He showed it to Sen. John Kerr III, a Goldsboro Democrat who says he wasn't interested in changing things but agreed to look at Long's business plan to help him mend fences with the authority.

Logistics' lawyer, Reef Ivey, has a different take: After reading LaRoque's provision, Kerr, who had helped create the authority in 1991, asked what the TransPark would get in return. Long sent Kerr his business plan...