Remember way back when Peter Gorman was hailed as an agent of change after being hired to helm Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, and even conservative naysayers like Commissioner Bill James expressed some degree of confidence in the new chief’s promises to break up the district’s bloated bureaucracy and right-size its fiscal ship. The cheers of optimism lasted […]
Thanks to the sound fiscal policies and stellar management of city government, Charlotte finds itself in the position of proposing pay hikes for its employees – oh, and eliminating funding for school crossing guards and security officers, cutting money for after-school programs, tinkering with police overtime schedules, jacking up bus fares for the elderly and […]
Teacher assistants, actually, about 164 of them, set to be fired under the budget recommendation the schools chief rolled out last night. That’s on top of up to 600 teachers and 250 other staff previously targeted for layoffs in Gorman’s proposed budget. Grand total: 1,030 jobs, along with eliminating magnet school bus stops, sidelining middle […]
Some called it “educational apartheid,” others “a return to segregation,” and regardless of the catch phrase they used, none were happy with Superintendent Peter Gorman’s initiative that will lump all of the district’s Title I schools into a newly created Central Zone learning community. Title I is educrat code for high-poverty, low-performing schools, the majority […]
The Charlotte City Council has sent a proposal to jumpstart a controversial red-light camera program to its public safety committee for more review. The program, which Charlotte operated from 1998 to 2006, places cameras at targeted intersections, snaps photos of cars running red lights, and issues tickets to the owners. Charlotte abandoned the camera initiative […]
Inspired by a few compliments from some visiting corporate consultants who gushed over uptown Charlotte’s trinkets and toys, Gov. Bev Perdue has apparently gone bat-guano crazy and is in a complete lather to take as much of your hard-earned coin as possible and use it as de facto bribe money to recruit businesses to North […]
The first of what could be a slew of fee increases to come down the county’s pike received tacit approval from Mecklenburg commissioners last week, when they green lighted a proposal from the county’s code enforcement department to hike building inspection and permit fees 4.7 percent across the board, along with targeted increases of up […]
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 […]
