Perhaps the most fascinating thing to come out of last night’s Mecklenburg County Commission meeting is Parks Helms telling reporters that he knew “six or eight months ago” that the South Blvd. line was way over budget.

What’s more, Helms adds that Mayor Pat McCrory knew about this too. Helms says he just “assumed” that McCrory was keeping everyone in city government informed about CATS’ progress, or lack thereof. Helms further says that, as head of Metropolitan Transit Commission, he told CATS chief Ron Tober to fix the problems.

A couple things are going on here. One, there have been rumblings for some time that McCrory and at least some members of the city council were playing dumb about the status of South Blvd. project. Helms’ comments support this.

Two, Helms has to try to appear to know what is going on with transit, otherwise he feeds the idea that we need a “transit timeout.” So, of course, wise Parks knew about the train trouble long before anyone else did. Just trust in ol’ Parks and he’ll make the trains run on time.

Three, like we’ve said, McCrory role as top cheerleader for transit is in jeopardy. If the city council no longer buys his rah-rah act, whatever will he do with his free time?

Update: Here’s an actual link to Helms remarks, via a News14 Carolina story on the topic. The exact Helms quote:

Helms told News 14 that Charlotte Area transit System CEO Ron Tober kept him posted on the progress of the project and he assumed Tober was doing the same on the city’s end. He says he’s known it would likely run over budget for at least six to eight months.

“This was not something that needed to be broadcast. It was something that needed to be fixed,” Helms said. “I encouraged him and I assumed that he was sharing this with (Mayor) Pat McCrory and city council, but that was not my call, that was his.”