Here's an update on Charlotte's 2009 Mayoral race.
I'll get right to the point.
Two years ago some members of the Charlotte City Council (they know who they are) promised Charlotte's Black Community a Street Car. Not citywide Light Rail, just a Street Car.
Two years later, Charlotte has a Light Rail but no Street Car, nor any money to help carry out that "Street Car named Desire".
Now with the 2009 Mayor's race fast approaching and the Democrats itching to win, they think their constituents (especially those in Black Communities) are so stupid any old, country bumpkin "tale" will do including rhetoric about Street Car dreams.
Note: Remember these are "North Carolina Democrats" we're talking about.
Hence some of the same ones secretly fighting against President Obama's efforts to reform our nation's seriously dysfunctional Health Care system.
Not regular, effective Democrats like Pres. Obama, VP Biden, former Pres. Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Gov. Tim Kaine, Dr. Howard Dean, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Rep. James Clyburn, Rep. John Lewis, etc.,
What's the cost of this so-called "dream" to improve Charlotte's Transportation woes? $8 million dollars.
You heard me $8 million dollars for a Street Car Engineering study!
WTF??
How did they manage to pull this one over on us? Keep reading.
You see about a couple of weeks ago Charlotte Mayoral Candidate Anthony Foxx (D) proposed that the City of Charlotte should return approximately $4.7 million in Safe Light/ Safe Speed money to Charlotte Meck. Schools.
Let's see Foxx currently employed as an Attorney, has sat around the City Council dais four years. When Charlotte Meck. Schools (CMS) Superintendent Dr. Peter Gorman sued Charlotte for the money back in 2006, Foxx said much of nothing in reference to returning the money at that time, even though CMS won the lawsuit in Federal court.
Suddenly (now that he wants to win the Mayor's race) he gets a revelation and decides to finally give CMS their money, for the "humane" purpose of "helping save Teacher Jobs".
Awwwww, that's so kind of Councilman Foxx. Let me grab my Kleenex because I think I'm going to cry.
Perhaps I was wrong about Councilman Foxx who I previously assumed to be nothing more than a cold-hearted, manipulating, self-serving Politician not to be trusted.
Maybe he really does have a compassionate heart for the needs of Charlotte's hurting citizens.
(This guy's timing for seizing opportunities which benefits him is great isn't it? I wonder why the Republican Council members didn't go for the gold on this one? Hint, Hint: Councilman John Lassiter.)
But Wait a minute!
Two weeks later Foxx along with some of his Democratic colleagues, in the middle of a looming Recession, votes to spend $8 Million dollars on a Street Car Engineering Study for what appears to be a way to "buy" votes from citizens who live in Charlotte's West and East side communities (predominately African-American, Hispanic and Low Income).
Thus while Charlotte's Homeless population has reached 8,000 give or take say one hundred homeless children, while Charlotte's Public Schools continue to lay off hundreds of Teachers and Assistant Principals, while Charlotte Public Schools still remain Racially Segregated with thousands of Minority students failing each year, while Charlotteans continue to lose homes at an alarming rate due to Foreclosures resulting from significant job losses, while Charlotte's Police Dept struggles with half enough Officers to protect us after all we were only recently listed as Forbes 14Th most Dangerous U.S. City.....
Despite all of those important factors, Charlotte Democrats still voted just this week to spend $8 million dollars on a Street Car study.
Even though now get this.....Charlotte currently has NO money to begin Construction on a Street Car project! Can you believe it??
To justify this outrageous spending spree Charlotte Democrats told constituents in case Charlotte does get more Stimulus money, they want to be prepared i.e., "Shovel Ready".
As mentioned above this same scenario (embellishing the truth to get votes) took place two years ago.
The late George Bernard Shaw once said, "If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience."
OK, now here's another mind numbing question.
What if Charlotte doesn't get anymore Stimulus money any time soon to get the Street Car project up and running. What then?
Well at least Charlotte Democrats would have purchased enough votes to win this year's Mayoral election, so all wouldn't be lost now would it?
For the record I AM in favor of the Stimulus money. In fact I do believe it IS helping to heal our wounded Economy.
To be clear I'm also in favor of Light Rail, Street Cars, High Speed Rail, etc.,
However what I'm NOT in favor of are Politicians spending $8 Million dollars for an Engineering Study just to buy more votes, when our city has so many other pressing obligations (Public Safety, Jobs, Housing, Education, Neighborhood Revitalization, etc.,).
In addition President Obama did NOT encourage Governors nor local leaders to go on foolish spending sprees in hopes of receiving endless buckets of Federal Funds.
Since we're on the subject please correct me on this if need be, but isn't making a promise impossible to deliver just to get what you want tantamount to LYING?
If Charlotte City Council members sincerely cared about West and East side citizens having access to a Street Car, then why didn't they propose the Study a year or two ago when our Economy was more stable?
Hey, what do I know? I'm just a concerned citizen. Seriously concerned about Charlotte's future. Surely my voice means nothing.
For more info. on this post check out some facts listed below from your friendly neighborhood Newspaper, The Charlotte Observer.
The Charlotte Observer writers are Gifted Masters at Investigative Reporting.
With exception of the Washington Post, Politico and Huffington Post, few News organizations can beat them in that category.
Its too bad most of the Charlotte Observer's Investigative Reporting often appears to be Biased or One-Sided.
Were it not for that poor business decision, no doubt the CO would probably be as successful as the WashPo, Politico and HuffPost.
Council keeps Street Car Study in City budget
Informal ‘straw vote' is taken before formal adoption of the budget at Monday's meeting.
In the last meeting before budget adoption, City Council voted along party lines Wednesday to keep a $8 million engineering study of a streetcar route.
The decision came despite protests from the council's four Republicans that the city doesn't know how it will pay for the line's construction, a project expected to cost about $373 million. The 10-mile streetcar would run east-west across the city.
“We have no capacity today to figure out how we're going to pay for it,” said Republican John Lassiter.
Democrat Anthony Foxx argued that the engineering study was a key step toward reaching a more exact figure for the cost of the 10-mile route between Eastland Mall and the Rosa Parks Transit Center. He also said that without it, the city was unlikely to get federal money to help build the line. He and the council's six other Democrats supported the study.
“I've never been able to pay for something when I don't know how much it costs,” Foxx said. “This is one area that holds a lot of promise as a growth strategy for our community.”
The vote was part of a series of informal “straw votes” that precede the formal budget adoption scheduled for Monday.
In other such votes, council members made few changes to Curt Walton's recommended $1.87 billion budget. They cut City Council's travel budget in half to about $25,000. And they restored about $88,000 that Walton had cut from some after school programs and the Lakewood Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit charged with building low-income housing.
Mayor Pat McCrory initially vetoed some of the nonprofit organization funding. He said council was being irresponsible in using its “discretionary fund” to pay for those items instead of making cuts to offset the costs.
“I'm concerned if the economy gets hit even harder,” McCrory said. “We better have some money in case there are some really tough needs.”
But McCrory later withdrew the veto, saying he didn't want to hold up the budget over a few thousand dollars.
The council agreed with Walton's proposed 5.2 percent water rate hike, which will add $2.37 to the average $45.92 monthly water bill.
But they voted against his recommendation to change the rate structure for storm water fees, which would have meant a rate cut for people with small houses and hefty increases for people with big houses.
Instead, the council agreed 8-3 Wednesday to an across-the-board, 5 percent increase to the fees. Patsy Kinsey, Warren Turner and Nancy Carter voted “no.” Kinsey and Turner said they couldn't support a rate increase in such hard economic times.
Staff has said they would have to borrow too much money without some increase.
“I'd love to say zero (increase), but I don't think that's responsible,” Lassiter said.
Walton and city staff had proposed that the city tie storm water rates more closely to the size of a property owner's house, driveway and other covered areas. Such impervious surfaces contribute to storm water runoff and flooding problems.
Under their proposal, with an overall 2 percent increase, people with the largest homes and driveways could see rates go up by as much as 145 percent. People with small homes would see a decrease of about 3 percent.
Council to debate funds for streetcar
Hitch is there's an $8 million design cost, no money to build the streetcar – and other needs for the money.
Charlotte City Council members will debate this week whether to spend $8million to help design a streetcar through uptown when there's no money in place to build it.
The $8million is part of city manager Curt Walton's proposed budget, and would help pay engineering costs for the $373million streetcar. The 10-mile streetcar would run from the Rosa Parks Transit Center to Eastland Mall, via Trade Street uptown.
“I'm not sure where (the debate) will go, honestly,” said council member John Lassiter, a Republican candidate for mayor. “Should we be investing $8 million in engineering and design when we don't have any funding?”
The final vote on the budget is scheduled for Monday. Council members are scheduled to discuss the budget today, and could debate whether to keep the streetcar engineering money.
The streetcar's tracks would be built on streets, and it would operate alongside cars, stopping at traffic signals. A small section of track has already been built, on Elizabeth Avenue by Central Piedmont Community College.
A streetcar trip wouldn't be faster than buses, but the appeal of the streetcar would attract new riders and spark development, boosters say.
Charlotte council member Nancy Carter, a Democrat, said the streetcar would also improve service on some of CATS' most heavily traveled routes, along Central Avenue and Beatties Ford Road.
“It's serving the people who use the system right now,” Carter said.
CATS originally planned to build the Beatties Ford Road-Eastland Mall streetcar by using the money from the half-cent sales tax for transit, with the line opening in 2018.
During debate over whether to keep or repeal the transit sales tax in fall 2007, Charlotte council member James Mitchell told some African-American leaders he would work to expedite construction of the streetcar.
Last year, the city took the lead in trying to build the streetcar, hoping to open it five years ahead of schedule.
But it now appears that unless the city pays for the streetcar, it won't get built. CATS' projections show it doesn't have enough money to build the streetcar unless it gets a new sales tax dedicated for transit.
The problem is, the city doesn't have the money budgeted either.
A consultant found the city could use new property tax revenue generated from development along the line to pay for about 25 percent of construction costs.
Peter Zeiler, who works in the city's economic development office and has worked on the streetcar project, said there are other options for paying for the streetcar. The city could create a special taxing district along the line, or it could raise property taxes overall.
Another option is for CATS to get either a new quarter-cent or half-cent sales tax for transit, if Mecklenburg voters approved a new tax.
Zeiler said if the $8million is approved, engineering work could begin in 90 days. He said initial engineering work will help determine what utilities need to be moved so tracks can be installed. The total cost of engineering and design would be about $41million, Zeiler estimated.
Mayor Pro Tem Susan Burgess, a Democrat, said she wanted to make sure there is enough money in the budget to hire additional police officers. The city is planning on getting federal stimulus dollars to hire 150 new officers over the next three years.
If that doesn't work, it is considering shifting new money dedicated for road paving to pay for the new hires.
Burgess said the streetcar would be a “tremendous asset,” but she might lobby her colleagues to use some or all of the money to hire additional officers.
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Sources: Charlotte Observer, Whitehouse.gov, Washington Post, Asumag.com, Forbes.com, The Star.com, WSOC-TV, Carolina Politics Online, NCgop.com, Mostly Foreclosures.com, Charmeck.org, The Quotations Page, Google Maps
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