The most improbable outcome of Monday’s Charlotte City Council deliberations on a new capital plan. A nice outcome (for now) indeed for residents of the city with the state’s highest combined city/county combined tax burden.
I wonder how much Mayor Anthony Foxx will regret his decision to veto a $657 million capital plan, setting in motion a vote to push the matter off for likely two years. The veto announces him to be an ineffective leader, incapable of brokering a compromise. He couldn’t deliver for key constituencies. It also labels him as more of a taxer-and-spender than most council members serving at large. And the politics of trying to get a larger spending plan through council in the future are, all other things being equal, worse than they are today. In 2012, Mecklenburg County’s property tax rate reduction offers a political fig leaf for raising city taxes. Not sure that that will exist two years from now, leaving council members having to vote for an increase in the combined tax burden for city residents to fund whatever they decide upon.
Bonus observation: I talked to a pol a while back who described Charlotte’s current mayor as an eager politician but not necessarily a crafty one. So perhaps it’s best to think of him as a Kitt than a Foxx.
