With half-cent sales tax revenue to run shiny choo-choos all over town plunging like a wounded duck, and likely triggering cuts to bus service and/or higher bus fares, now comes news that ridership for the $521-million Lynx Blue Line is on a steady decline. Transportation and transit guru David Hartgen has the data and Jeff […]
A long-range transportation plan that received approval from the city council Monday night assumes that Charlotte will have two more rail-transit corridors up and running by 2025, which coupled with some long-delayed road-building projects will help the Charlotte region attain air-quality levels mandated by the federal government. One glaring problem with the plan, of course, […]
All it apparently takes to shave more than $250,000 off a government project is for a few dozen people to show up at some city council meetings and a few dozen more sending angry e-mails to elected officials and the media. At least that seems to be the case for a controversial sidewalk project that the […]
It’s difficult enough trying to hold members of the Charlotte City Council accountable when a majority of them occupy seats sprung from grossly gerrymandered districts that virtually guarantee their re-election every two years. The task would become all the more insurmountable with a move to four-year terms, a switch some councilmembers have advocated. Fortunately, that […]
Despite pouring tens of millions of dollars of public money into uptown to help fuel growth in the private sector, the wildly optimistic dreams and schemes that boosters touted for Center City have fallen woefully short of predictions. When the uptown lunch bunch was huddling over linen napkins and pewter goblets during the boom of […]
A controversial set of development guidelines on schedule to become law later this year, along with some equally controversial regulations and ordinances already being enforced, drew heat at Monday night’s city council meeting. And it wasn’t the stereotypical, much-maligned, money-grubbing, big, bad developer who was breathing fire. It was advocates for affordable housing, or more […]
In Iran, they shoot you in the street. In China, they confiscate your computer and toss you in prison. In Charlotte, it’s less extreme but no less insidious. As part of a push to marginalize public dissent during meetings, the city council is apparently tweaking the rules for, ironically, its Citizens’ Forum. At least it […]
Or at least that’s part of the rationale offered by the city’s top spokesperson for the skyrocketing number of, well, spokespersons on the city’s payroll. About half of her time on the job, Kim McMillan explains, is “spent coordinating public records requests from the media,” and she singles out nontraditional media for much of the […]
Facing a potential $9 million shortfall in the city budget, Mayor Anthony Foxx has pounced into action – and hired a newly minted, personal mouthpiece that’s costing taxpayers $70,000 a year. No cheap talk there, folks. The money quote from Foxx: “We’re in such a challenging time, and it’s more important than ever that I […]
