Or. Gloria Pace Newman.
Like the United Way diva did, the CRVA honcho is taking the fall for a board rife with cronyism and insider dealing. Yes, Tim Newman is grossly overpaid, but he has only done exactly what the Uptown crowd has wanted him to do. Now that the stupendously bad ideas of, oh, building a NASCAR Hall of Fame with public dollars and handing out gifts and kickbacks to current and former elected officials (for a start) have rebounded back to the Charlotte city council, council is trying to manage the unmanagable.
First pass, the old Charlotte tried-and-true dodge of appearing to make a change. Hence, interposing the city manager into the CRVA funding matrix. Recall this is more or less exactly the same approach city council undertook when CATS’ financials went wildly out of control during the latter stages of the South Blvd. build-out. Some members of city council may actually want to remove Newman, it is hard to tell. No doubt there is sentiment that $300K is awful lot to pay someone not directly related to them. But that still falls under the superficial change rubric. A Newman successor would still be a carbon-copy of Newman.
This is why there was been no sign of actual change at the CRVA, namely a resolution from city council asking for the resignations of all current members of the CRVA board. This is what would happen in a normal city with actual arms-length relationships between government officials and powerful lobbies.
As such, it cannot happen in Charlotte.
