With the NASCAR Hall of Fame racing into the red and the chiefs of uptown booster groups making headlines for their exorbitant salaries, the Charlotte City Council on Monday night unanimously voted to review the city’s dealings with four of its so-called financial partners. The council’s budget committee is being tasked with the chore, but […]
A 16-year-old Air Force JROTC student apparently eludes airport security at Charlotte-Douglas International, climbs into the wheel well of a US Airways jet bound for Boston, and plummets to his death from the sky over that city. A Massachusetts prosecutor investigating the case calls it a “major breach of security,” while Charlotte airport director Jerry […]
WBTV is reporting that former CMPD Detective Arvin Fant – he of the plagiarized, lost and destroyed notes that deep-sixed the death penalty in the trial of convicted cop-killer Demeatrius Montgomery – has been suspended without pay, pending a termination hearing before the Civil Service Board. Meanwhile, former rouge cop Marcus Jackson is due in […]
You have to absolutely appreciate the Machiavellian timing on the release of a task force report that finds the city’s public safety plan “financially unsustainable without large budget cuts or increased taxes,” coming as it does well after elected officials, city government and the uptown media and power structure successfully convinced voters that we could […]
Appalling. Instead of a stiff fine or penalty – I’m thinking tarred, feathered and hauled down Tryon Street – former United Way leader Gloria Pace King is set to walk off with a $700K check. Just fills you with the holiday spirit, doesn’t it?
The Charlotte-area unemployment rate shrank slightly in October, to 10.2 percent from 10.6 percent the previous month, while Mecklenburg County’s unemployment dipped to 9.8 percent from 9.9 percent, according to numbers released today by the NC Employment Security Commission. That sounds like good news until you dig into the numbers, at which point we turn […]
The Charlotte City Council is diving headfirst into the microcredit lending pool, unanimously voting this week to shell out up to $230,000 in taxpayer money to help establish a Grameen America Bank in the Queen City. Mecklenburg County officials are also being tapped to contribute a matching $230,000, but have not yet voted on the […]
Not sure where our esteemed city leaders are in their contemplation of forking over $200K to help jump start a local microcredit Grameen America branch in the Queen City, but they might want to check out what’s happening in India before they start doling out taxpayer loot. This from The New York Times: MADOOR, India […]
The braintrust behind the 2020 Center City Vision Plan wrapped its last community forum this week, prepping for a release next month of what promises to be a wish list of wild uptown spending. Still in play, apparently, the mind-numbingly expensive pipedream to cap I-277 with an open space promenade that will better connect uptown’s […]
Faced with falling revenues and rising costs, the Metropolitan Transit Commission this week declared full steam ahead for its now self-professed, out-of-control rail transit building plan. Never mind that there’s no money to pay for it. The 11-mile, $1.2-billion Blue Line light-rail extension to UNCC is short some $200 million. The solution? Fast track the […]
