In his column today, Maximum Leader Hood tackles the UNCC mess.
Hood concludes that Chancellor Phil “Yada Yada Yada” Dubois should apologize for his role in Chambergate and Center for Transportation Policy Studies “executive in residence” Dennis Rash needs to find somewhere else to reside. Ideally someplace where relentless lobbying on behalf of the Uptown crowd does not conflict with the educational and research mission of a public university.
Meanwhile, Tara Servatius has unearthed another batch of emails from city and CATS officials detailing just how deeply involved staff have been in formulating a keep-the-tax campaign. CATS CEO Ron Tober and city communications czarina Kim McMillan both have gone out of their way to formulate a communicaitons strategy to respond to the half-cent repeal effort.
Tober advised the Chamber of Commerce to keep on eye on relations between the towns and the city over mass transit while McMillan brainstormed that local realtors and developers should be drafted into the fight to keep the half-cent tax.
Squaring this with City Attorney Mac McCarley’s admonishment that staff would not engage “in the development or implementation of referendum/campaign strategy” will be fun to watch, but they’ll try nonetheless.
As has become abundantly clear, the forces of the status quo will do anything to keep the tax on the books. Expect much, much more in the coming weeks.
