Charlotte City Manager Curt Walton is not worth $200,000. It follows then, that Walton is not $225,000. However, because the Charlotte city council willingly — gleefully even — pays Walton $200K plus a $16K bonus, it follows that the council will absolutely pay Walton $225K.

And because council will hike Walton’s pay, it follows that his wingman city attorney Mac McCarley will likewise get a boost. You could see this move coming a mile away. As soon as Walton rammed through the $6.1m. pay hike for city employees last year that gave him license to push for his own chunk of change and that of his other six-figure dons in the GovCenter. This in the worst local economic climate in a generation.

And I’ll remind everyone one last time, all these dollars and sense will be Hoovered out of the pockets of local taxpayers via a property tax reval which will hike residential tax bills by 10 to 20 percent for many folks.