hhThanks to some real investigative reporting from Uptown banking scribe Rick Rothacker, the public now has a window on how things get done in Charlotte.

State and local government officials run around, decide there is a “problem,” turn to a trusted cadre of insiders for “solutions.”

Bam! Public policy enacted, public funds committed. Public input, not desired, let alone required.

Recall the circus which greeted the shakedown artists at the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America a couple months back. For the low, low price of $1m. in taxpayer money, NACA would bring a boiler-room phone-bank operation to East Charlotte which would employ as many as 1000 people tasked with brow-beating bankers into changing loan terms for deadbeats. Eight months earlier NACA had been protesting in Uptown, demanding that banks re-write loan terms. Or else. But by June, Official Charlotte had made them official partners. Oh, happy day! Talk about the American dream.

But there’s a hitch. Isn’t there always in these deals?

Turns out NACA CEO Bruce Marks really wants $3.5m. and that number is based in part on a calculation made by the Charlotte Chamber. Chamber vice president Justin Hunt took the availability of $256K in federal “job training” money for 100 jobs and figured that 1000 jobs must mean $2.5m. in “free” federal money. From there Hunt drove the numbers for the deal, telling N.C. Department of Commerce officials what to offer Marks and how to structure the payments. State Commerce Secretary Keith Crisco rubber-stamped Hunt’s proposal, sending it on to Marks.

To top it off, Hunt seems unrepentant. “We tried to come up with a creative, out-of-the-box way to support bringing 1,000 jobs to a community that desperately needs them,” he told Rothacker.

Yeah, probably $2m. maybe as much as $3.5m. in public money for at most 1000 $32K a year jobs, at least 400 of which NACA was ready to put in Charlotte before the handout madness took. That’s not out-of-the-box, that’s out-of-your-mind.

Good thing voters can send a message to Justin by…whoa, silly me. Now who is talking like a crazy person?

Bonus Observation: NACA says it has already hired 452 people in Charlotte. Those are full-time 40-hour a week people, right?