Before the Charlotte City Council pleads poverty again, realize it will vote tonight to spend $30 million on a Northeast light rail line the feds may never fund and $9.5. million on a North line the feds will not fund, Huntersville does not want, and may yet stop.
Plus another $1.36 million for Bryant Park developers, on top of the $5 million the other day for New Old Coliseum site developers, which is similar to the $7 million handed back to IKEA last year. Plus $2.2 million for the flaky 311 system that was supposed to save the city money when former city manager Pam Syfert spent $4.5 million on it just two years ago, not cost us more.
Remind me again how Mayor Pat McCrory is going to run as a fiscal conservative? And pray tell how are we going to avoid another tax increase will this kind of spending?
Bonus Observation: Shhh, don’t tell anyone, and ignore the spin from the state treasurer’s office, but the Local Government Commission is so embarrassed by the $21 million Randy Parton Theater mess it rubber-stamped that it may require much greater documentation for projects going forward. This spells doom for all the speculative TIF projects the Powers That Be want — be they light rail related or otherwise.
This is why Richard Moore’s has his proxies out spreading the word that with him as guv, the LGC commish will continue to look the other way. That is the only way to make sense of this statement from his chief of staff:
The constitutional amendment passed by the people of North Carolina was to empower local governments to improve their economic development. It has never been the LGC’s role to determine the merits or potential success of a project, and I doubt that many local governments, including Mecklenburg County or Charlotte, would want Raleigh telling them which projects they can or cannot pursue.
If it is the choice between going bankrupt or not — oh yes we do! Clip and save. This is by far the most important statement from Moore’s campaign thus far and explains why the Uptown crowd is so close to him.