Charlotte-Mecklenburg got hit with conflicting doses of news on the economic front this month. While the N.C. Employment Security Commission last week announced that Mecklenburg’s unemployment had inched downward to 11.1 percent for March from 11.8 percent in February, the marginally good news was tempered by the release yesterday of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, […]
“This is a political lynching and the ones doing it, they ain’t wearing white hoods. They got black ones, if you know what I mean.” That was Warren Turner, from an interview with PunditHouse a few days after he was outed as the councilmember at the center of a sexual harassment allegation brought by a […]
The incessant braying and ballyhooing from Charlotte’s uptown lunch bunch over the purported success of the Lynx light-rail line is brought to task in a recently released Cato Institute policy report, penned by transportation guru and transit realist Randal O’Toole. While sleek trains and streetcars might look grand in full-color, glossy brochures distributed by local […]
Talk of snatching $6.3 million from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ budget to help fill an overall county shortfall of $36 million in current-year funding has been floating for weeks. Commissioners made it official last night, when they unanimously approved the mid-year budget reduction. And despite recent howls that the fiscal correction would have dire consequence on CMS […]
Remember way back when Peter Gorman was hailed as an agent of change after being hired to helm Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, and even conservative naysayers like Commissioner Bill James expressed some degree of confidence in the new chief’s promises to break up the district’s bloated bureaucracy and right-size its fiscal ship. The cheers of optimism lasted […]
Thanks to the sound fiscal policies and stellar management of city government, Charlotte finds itself in the position of proposing pay hikes for its employees – oh, and eliminating funding for school crossing guards and security officers, cutting money for after-school programs, tinkering with police overtime schedules, jacking up bus fares for the elderly and […]
Some called it “educational apartheid,” others “a return to segregation,” and regardless of the catch phrase they used, none were happy with Superintendent Peter Gorman’s initiative that will lump all of the district’s Title I schools into a newly created Central Zone learning community. Title I is educrat code for high-poverty, low-performing schools, the majority […]
The Charlotte City Council has sent a proposal to jumpstart a controversial red-light camera program to its public safety committee for more review. The program, which Charlotte operated from 1998 to 2006, places cameras at targeted intersections, snaps photos of cars running red lights, and issues tickets to the owners. Charlotte abandoned the camera initiative […]
Inspired by a few compliments from some visiting corporate consultants who gushed over uptown Charlotte’s trinkets and toys, Gov. Bev Perdue has apparently gone bat-guano crazy and is in a complete lather to take as much of your hard-earned coin as possible and use it as de facto bribe money to recruit businesses to North […]
The first of what could be a slew of fee increases to come down the county’s pike received tacit approval from Mecklenburg commissioners last week, when they green lighted a proposal from the county’s code enforcement department to hike building inspection and permit fees 4.7 percent across the board, along with targeted increases of up […]
