The Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners last month threw its support behind an effort to win a $3.5-million federal grant that would be used to help craft a regional plan to create sustainable and livable communities. The initiative centers on the principles of so-called smart growth, ripe with an emphasis on social equity for housing […]
Want to land a quick and easy $900,000 to teach cocaine-fueled monkeys how to boogie down with weird dances that can be featured on YouTube? Ask the federal government for a grant and you’d probably be in luck. It worked for UNC Charlotte and Wake Forest University, two institutions of higher learning that received hundreds […]
The tensions and controversy embroiling a nation in debate over how to best deal with illegal immigration bubbled to the surface Friday afternoon during a press conference at GOP Headquarters in Charlotte. Republicans Jim Pendergraph, Dan Ramirez and Corey Thompson, all three running for at-large seats on the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, called for […]
In a political shell game of grand and devious proportions, state legislators this week hailed themselves as heroes for saving hundreds of schoolteacher jobs. Problem is, they did it using upwards of $64 million in lottery revenue that was plundered from counties across the state. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, for example, announced this week that the state […]
The Charlotte City Council on Monday night delivered the first installment of a pricey political payoff, when it voted to accept a $25-million federal grant to help build the city’s coveted streetcar project. The total price tag for the route’s first leg, which will stretch all of 1.5 miles, from Time Warner Cable Arena to […]
Despite seeing its massive billion-dollar-plus budget contract over the last two years to a slightly less massive billion-dollar-plus budget, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools posted gains in preliminary results released this week for end-of-grade and end-of-course exams for 2010, while also managing to improve the district’s dropout rate with 70 percent of students nabbing a diploma in the […]
Plastic bags are getting the boot from the barrier islands of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, under a crafty piece of legislation tucked neatly into the General Assembly’s budget plan. The new law, which goes into effect Oct. 1, expands a plastic bag ban that was enacted last year and prohibited large retail stores from distributing […]
If a qualifier of good art is irony, Mecklenburg County received a wicked return on investment. Among myriad construction projects that have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding for public art are two libraries currently operating on limited days and reduced hours because of budget cuts. Two bronze tree sculptures, with a price […]
It’s the place where pipedreams bloom and lollipops and money grow on trees, which is a good thing as nobody has a clue where dollar-one is going to be found to pay this $1.5-million tab. That’s the annual operating cost to run the initial leg of Charlotte’s vaunted streetcar, all 1.5 miles of it, chugging […]
Mecklenburg County stands to lose upwards of $9 million in lottery revenue the state is withholding this year, a disproportionate hit compared to what other counties will suffer from the state’s money-grab. Wake County, for example, is in line to have all of $100,000 withheld from its share of lottery revenue. Mecklenburg County – $9 […]
