The mastermind
behind Charlotte’s expensive expansion is retiring.  City Manager Pam
Syfert is putting the cap on her office pen, closing a chapter in
Charlotte’s history which includes the construction of the Charlotte
Bobcats Arena, the incentives behind the NASCAR Hall of Fame, as well
as the transportation funding for a transit system. Jeff Taylor gives her two thumbs up
… for finding a way to allocate funding for basic needs to
unnecessary niceties. And in the surprise of the year, John Edwards has
decided to run for the nation’s highest office, effectively retiring
from his sojourn as director of the poor at UNC-Chapel Hill. Jon Sanders, still salivating with sarcasm, has a nice description of the fanfare attached to the former Senator’s announcement. Here at home, Mitch Kokai
gave a stirring presentation on “Election 2006: What the People Said”
to the Wake County GOP Men’s Club. The short of it: let’s mix things up
a bit. The change in the political climate wasn’t a ’94-esque
revolution, nor was it the antithesis to Bailey’s Conservative Manifesto.