After leaving upwards of $11 million in potential advertising revenue on the table over the last decade, when former Transit Czar Ron Tober and the erstwhile braintrust of the Metropolitan Transit Commission perpetuated the charade that exterior ads on city buses was visual clutter that would ugly up Center City, it appears that commercialism might […]
And then spending some more. That seems to be the standard operating model for the N.C. General Assembly, where the Senate recently approved taking on $451 million of non-voter-approved debt for, among other items, building some new engineering facilities for N.C. State and AT&T State. The bond debt doesn’t include funding for operations, once the […]
Economists greeted a dip in the state’s May unemployment rate, which ticked down to 10.3 percent, with an overwhelming blah, pointing out that most of the decline was attributed to temporary government hiring for the U.S. census. That and more than 42,300 folks didn’t so much find a job, as they simply exhausted their unemployment […]
Tossed out for general discussion and debate; feedback and comments encouraged: * Convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by firing squad in Utah last night. Would you have pulled the trigger? Not just philosophically, as in supporting the death penalty; but literally, as in stepping behind the firing line? * Mayor Anthony Foxx has […]
In another round of begging for crumbs when they’ve historically grown accustomed to cake, the library system has landed an additional $730,000 to help restock a budget that was slashed nearly in half for the upcoming fiscal year. The newest loot comes from the small towns of Mecklenburg County, where officials agreed this week to […]
The Executive Board of the South Carolina Democratic Party has upheld U.S. Senate primary election results that saw an unemployed, accused felon that few people had heard of before last week and even fewer people seem willing to acknowledge voting for, topple a former four-term state representative. Barring any unexpected twists – no guarantee in […]
They’re not officially running as a slate, but they sure sounded on the same page. Republican candidates for the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners at a Thursday afternoon presser blasted the board’s current Democrat majority for fiscal irresponsibility that has left taxpayers tapped and derelict management that has led Mecklenburg into perilous straits. At-large candidates […]
Fresh off approving a budget that includes some $71 million in cuts and delivers pink slips for scores of county employees and schoolteachers, Mecklenburg County could find itself hit by another fiscal wallop: losing upwards of $17 million courtesy of a state money grab. The North Carolina Association of County Commissioners has fired off an […]
Mecklenburg commissioners approved a $1.35-billion budget that calls for about $75 million in cuts to programs and services and includes pink slips for nearly 300 county employees. That was Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning, many of those same commissioners were jet-setting to Boston for a three-day junket of fine dining, site seeing, and luxuriating in […]
Not content with pulling a $9.5-million rabbit out of the hat to bolster county revenue projections, county commissioners on Tuesday night worked some more money magic when they trimmed County Manager Harry Jones’ total pay package and simultaneously tossed him a nearly $27,000 pay hike. Commissioners nixed Jones’ performance bonus from future total compensation packages, […]
