In a scheduling feat of what can at best be called cruel irony, Mecklenburg Commissioners Chairperson Jennifer Roberts is slated to deliver her State of the County address on Thursday, April 15. Tax Day. Insert knife, twist, pour on salt. Here’s a primer on some buzzwords you can expect to hear from our Democrat-in-Chief: “painful” – […]
If there’s a bigger waste of money than Charlotte’s spiffy, new Wayfinding system and accompanying signs, I’m hard pressed to find it. And that’s saying something, considering the city’s billion-dollar-plus budget that’s stuffed with more pork than a pig farmer’s breakfast platter. In fact, about the only positive thing to be said of the city’s […]
A new community survey lends demonstrable evidence supporting what has to-date been a fairly nebulous, yet pervasive public sentiment: There exists a large disconnect between Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police statistics that show a steady reduction in crime and what many citizens view as the reality of every-day life on the streets. Police Chief Rodney Monroe, almost from […]
The Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners was slated Tuesday night to discuss the governance structure of the public library system and pay levels for its executive administrators. Instead, the meeting turned into an ambush of the Library Board of Trustees. Commissioners, at times in heated exchanges, berated the trustees for not doing enough to inform […]
Before voting Tuesday night to approve a $10.9-million business investment grant for Siemens Energy Inc., Mecklenburg Commissioner Vilma Leake wanted to know how soon she could start landing jobs at the company for her friends. It turns out, not as soon as she thought. Leake, a Democrat, said she “took some young men out to […]
If you think proposals to cram so-called affordable housing into Ballantyne, and now Ayrsley, sparked a firestorm of controversy and gnashing of teeth, just wait until the Democrat-controlled city council’s pitch for inclusionary zoning, currently weaving its way through the council’s housing and neighborhood development and transportation committees, hits the fan. Despite the at-best mixed […]
Or at least you’d think it was from reading the uptown paper of record, which breathlessly proclaimed Monday that “Smog levels may soar into Code Orange range this afternoon” and that “Something is in the air.” Yep, mostly hype and hysteria, along with a wicked dose of unusually high pollen. That’s the greenish-yellow gunk you […]
The budget that Superintendent Peter Gorman says he will present to county commissioners will include a request for an additional $16 million over and above the $317 million in county dollars Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools received this year, while simultaneously including options for cutting $80 million in state and local money. Gorman, who last year received a […]
With Mecklenburg County struggling under crushing loads of debt and facing a massive budget shortfall, Republican commissioners are concerned that their Democrat colleagues may use the county’s threatened triple A bond rating as an excuse to hike property taxes. Similar to a homeowner’s good credit rating, the county’s premium bond rating allows it to borrow […]
While some Mecklenburg residents have been pitching in to raise money for the county’s beleaguered library system, donating nearly $250,000 over the last few weeks, a group of literary scofflaws has been headed down a decidedly different financial path. About 10 percent of folks who use the library owe roughly $176,000 in fines for overdue […]
