Light-Rail Funding Back In Play; City Budget Vote Looms Down The Tracks
In a repeat performance from last year, funding for Charlotte’s massively expensive expansion of light-rail lunacy is back on track after having been temporarily derailed by fiscal sanity in the N.C. Senate budget. Legislators are slated to vote today on a $20.17 billion budget that restores $25 million in state matching funds for the Lynx Blue Line extension, moving the $1-billion project forward to University City.
The state money provides 25 percent of funding for the light-rail line, with the federal government expected to cover 50 percent and Charlotte Area Transit System picking up 25 percent of the cost with revenue from its half-cent sales tax.
It’s bad enough that the N.C. House, allegedly controlled by fiscal conservatives, has again ridden to the rescue of light-rail madness; making it worse is the potential impact it could have on local Democrats waffling on a proposed tax-hike budget. Recall that Councilmember Claire Fallon, one of four Democrats whose votes helped defeat a proposed 8-percent tax hike budget, suggested the revolt was tied to Blue Line funding that previously appeared at risk. Fallon said Democrats were concerned that about $100 million included in the budget’s capital improvement plan for infrastructure improvements along the Blue Line extension would have been wasted if state funding for light rail fell through the cracks.
There was even speculation that a deal was in the works to restore the state’s Blue Line funding, if Charlotte would scrap plans for a streetcar that gobbles up $119 million as part of the city manager’s proposed $926 million capital improvement plan.
With funding back in play for the Blue Line, and Democrat Mayor Anthony Foxx pushing hard to keep his favored pet project to nowhere in the budget, odds would seem to favor enough Democrat councilmembers having a sudden change of heart and caving on a tax increase that greases the tracks for a misguided streetcar. I’m thinking a budget embedded with something around a 2.6-cent increase, as opposed to the original 3.6-cent hike, which council Democrats will rationalize and champion as a reasonable compromise, trying to sell the same to the public.
Don’t buy it. Keep up the pressure; contact your councilmembers, specifically the ones listed below who previously voted against the budget, and tell them to derail any so-called compromise on a tax hike:
Patrick Cannon: MayorProTemCannon@gmail.com
Claire Fallon: cfallon@charlottenc.gov
Beth Pickering: bpickering@charlottenc.gov
Michael Barnes: barnesdistrict4@aol.com
Andy Dulin: adulin1@carolina.rr.com
Warren Cooksey: warren@warrencooksey.com
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