Claim: "(Fracking) would only bring to the state at most about 100 jobs."

Speaker: Bill Faison at Democratic gubernatorial debate Monday

Claim: "The net effect is no new jobs. We have the same number of jobs we did a dozen of years ago and a million more people."

Speaker: Bill Faison at Democratic gubernatorial debate Monday

Claim: "The terrible thing we've all seen this time around is the Republicans taking us to 49th nationally in education spending."

Speaker: Bill Faison, Democratic candidate for governor, at the N.C. Association of School Administrators forum in Raleigh

The Democratic candidates for Governor will have three hour-long debates this week, each airing live on local television stations.

My colleague Mark Schultz has been methodically pecking away at the maneuvering involving UNC Chapel Hill, Carolina North, local business interests and the Horace Williams Airport, which the university has for years said it wants to close in order to develop that land.

Mark's latest installment arrived today in the Chapel Hill News. It reveals that last year, then-Chancellor James Moeser asked two local businessmen to help fund a study of the economic impact of a new airport in Orange County.

The two businessmen, Jim Heavner of VilCom and J. Adam Abram of the James River Group, each pitched in $15,000 towards an eventual $100,000 that the UNC Chapel Hill Foundation paid a consultant.

The resulting report, which Mark wrote about last month, suggests a windfall for Orange County in the neighborhood of $53 million a year. And one local legislator, State Rep. Bill Faison of Cedar Grove, likes that idea very much.

The prospect of a new airport in Orange County has some folks on edge, even though there has not been any sort of indication that a site has been selected.

Mark has also put some questions on the issue directly to new Chancellor Holden Thorp. Read that interview here.