After getting knocked back on their heels by their discovery of a successful transit tax repeal petition effort, defenders of CATS’ $9 billion transit plan have begun to throw anything they can find into the mix.

Take the latest Charlotte Viewpoint magazine, which features not one but two odes to CATS’ transit plans.

The most direct comes from Kelly Chopus, director of community relations for Goodrich and formerly a Charlotte Sting exec.

“VOTE pro-light rail,” Chopus commands.

Why? Well, although Chopus makes half-hearted stabs at an environmental rationale — remember not even CATS makes that argument anymore and Charlotte’s great ozone panic of the late 90s has retreated in the face of years without a single Code Red reading from any local ozone station — her argument basically boils down to the notion that Charlotte will not be a cool place to live if it doesn’t have $9 billion worth of trains.

Repeal the tax, she warns, and Charlotte “won’t get back the chance to be a hip, more modern city with the ability to attract that creative class we keep hearing about. We might as well just call up Raleigh and say “uncle,” and give them the crown and sash of ‘Best City.'”

How can that be? Raleigh won’t have a train either. Besides, just how has Charlotte managed to attract so many smart and talented people — they are here, just go to Uptown or SouthPark and ask them — in recent years without a train? Did they all move here on a wing, a prayer, and copy of CATS’ 2030 plan? Of course not.

They moved here — and will continue to — because Charlotte is a great place to live and work. Why is that? Well, survey after survey keeps citing the cost of living — relatively low housing prices and relatively low taxes compared to America’s tax hells. What promises to both increase the price of Charlotte housing and Charlotte’s future tax burden? CATS’ $9 billion transit plan.

In fact, if you wanted to turn Charlotte into just another failed city, you could hardly have a better plan than doing whatever CATS wants, no matter the cost.

The truly fascinating thing about Chopus’ plea for support, however, is that she explicitly leaves Ron Tober out of the protected circle.

“The project is besieged by cost overruns and a keen perception of mismanagement of federal, state and local funds. We can fix both of these challenges by holding responsible people accountable and making a leadership change if necessary,” Chopus writes.

Call this the Frances Haithcock solution. Tober has already offered to resign once, but City-Manager-Until-June Pam Syfert turned him down. Once Syfert checks out, Tober may be offered up by the Powers That Be to appease local anti-CATS feelings.

Won’t work, guys and gals.

CATS’ problem is fundamentally in its plan, not the execution of the plan so far — although that has been a mess as well. The thing that will bankrupt Charlotte — what will turn it away from being a city people want to live in — is not want Ron Tober has already done, it is what CATS wants to do.

Tossing Tober under a bus — or train or trolley or streetcar — will not fix that.

And the second ode to CATS’ plans? That comes from some guy named Pat McCrory. More on that later.