Foxx Pushing Stealth Lobbying Effort For Consolidation
Democrat Mayor Anthony Foxx appears to be the driving force behind a letter that has been quietly circulated to a select group of “thoughtful” community leaders, encouraging them to lobby Mecklenburg commissioners to support moving forward with a so-called Charter Study Commission to be charged with preparing a report on and plan for consolidating the city and county into a single governmental unit.
The Charlotte City Council narrowly adopted a resolution last fall in favor of forming the study commission; but to become effective the resolution still needs approval from the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, where several commissioners have balked at the idea of consolidation. The county board needs to adopt its resolution before December, or the study commission will be abandoned. That’s apparently prompted Foxx, a major cheerleader and booster for consolidation, to ramp up lobbying efforts as the calendar clock ticks.
Commissioners this week received notice from County Manager Harry Jones, alerting them to circulation of the pro-consolidation letter:
“The purpose of this communication,” Jones wrote in a July 29 email to commissioners, “is to make you aware of a letter that is circulating over the signature of Mayor Anthony Foxx and former Mayor Richard Vinroot asking a select group of community leaders to add their names to a petition encouraging you, the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners, to adopt the concurrent resolution in the timeframe set forth in the resolution and create the Study Commission in January 2013. In the event you receive a petition I wanted you to have the context for it.”
The crux of the Foxx/Vinroot letter, after using a few paragraphs to praise the work of city and county government and extol the virtues of consolidation, culminates with an unabashed lobbying pitch for folks to muscle county commissioners into supporting the consolidation study commission:
We have identified you as one of 25 community leaders with a reputation of being thoughtful and willing to work across partisan lines for the good of our community. Would you add your name to a petition encouraging the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners to adopt the attached joint resolution creating a Study Commission in January 2013?
We hope you will thoughtfully consider the request over the next few days and look forward to your response. If you support creating a Study Commission, please email mayor@charlottenc.gov, or call the Mayor’s Office at (704) 336-2064, to let us know. Otherwise, someone from the Mayor’s Office will follow up with you in the next few days. Thank you for your time and consideration.
It’s unclear whether any city dollars or staff time were used to craft and send the letter, which appears to have originated from the mayor’s office, but recipients include a veritable Who’s Who of local movers and shakers, spanning the spectrum from former and current politicos to preachers and developers, builders and money-movers. To name a few: Hugh McColl and BAC executive Cathy Bessant; Duke Energy’s Jim Rogers; Johnny Harris; Tim Belk; Pat Rodgers; former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gannt; Bishop Claude Alexander; Chamber president Bob Morgan; Pat Riley; UNC Charlotte president Phil Dubois; Leon Levine; CPCC president Tony Zeis; former Commissioners Chair Parks Helms; Ron Leeper; Mel Watt; Malcolm Graham; Erskine Bowles; and former governors Jim Hunt and Jim Martin.
Mecklenburg Commissioner Bill James, no fan of consolidation, was none too pleased to learn of what he called the mayor’s “stealth” lobbying efforts.
“It’s the surreptitious and clandestine nature of it that really irritates me,” James said, noting that most commissioners were unaware of Foxx’s letter until the county manager brought it to the board’s attention.
“It’s using taxpayer resources and government assets to engage in politics,” James said. “They’ve created this sort of A-List of people who are supposed to squeeze commissioners into supporting consolidation.”
And not just any commissioners, James said, but Democrat ones in particular. Commissioners deferred their vote on the study commission because, James said, Democrats didn’t have their party aligned with enough votes for it to pass.
James suspects that the timing of Foxx’s lobbying effort isn’t coincidental, with a movement gaining traction to have parts of south Charlotte break from the city to form its own town.
“The only way to stop these types of shenanigans and power-grabs for consolidation is to defang Charlotte. And the first step for that is to form the Town of Ballantyne,” James said of what others have called the would-be Town of Providence. “Democrats like Foxx and [Commissioner] Jennifer [Roberts] who support consolidation know they have to make it happen as a preemptive strike to what’s taking place with south Charlotte.”
UPDATE: The rest of Foxx’s consolidation solicitation “A-List,” what the mayor’s muscle team identifies as co-called “champions”:
Tom Nelson, Scott Vaughn, Vi Lyles, Patrick Diamond, Dan Murrey, Tim Hurley, Ed Williams, Ronald Carter, Beth Pickering, James Mitchell, Bill McCoy, Patsy Kinsey, Carla DuPuy, John Autry, Ed Driggs, Jennifer Roberts, LaWana Mayfield, Eddie Knox, David Howard, Frank Emory, Joe Hallow, Stan Campbell, Tom Cox, John Fennebresque, Geraldine Sumter.
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