Category: Charlotte City Council

Revamp of transportation planning? (Or, toss the dwarfs?)

TRYON, N.C. – During council discussion about transportation, Mayor Anthony Foxx mentioned a key issue: Among the many challenges to finding federal funding for Charlotte-area transportation projects – streets, roads and mass transit alike – is that the feds are looking closely at how well a region is supporting regional transportation planning.

And the Charlotte region plans its transportation regionally about as well as I can dunk a basketball. Is there any other large metro region with more different “metropolitan planning organizations” – aka, the state-established way to plan transportation? Charlotte region transportation is split among 4 or 5 MPOs and two Rural Planning Organizations. Just one small example of the ridiculousity: The Lake Norman area is considered a Rural Planning Organization and not part of the Charlotte metro transportaton planning.

I’ve ranted about this previously. Small hope in the offing? At least the mayor and other transportation officials are talking about it. And MPOs must be reconstituted after every census. And NCDOT chief Gene Conti is actually paying attention to Charlotte. NCDOT now has a staffer with an office on the 8th floor of the Char-Meck Govt Center.

If you’d like to know a bit more about the unbelievable insanity of transportation planning in the greater Charlotte region, read this piece from early January – you have to go to the very end to read about what “sounds like a bizarre camaraderie of dwarfs: MUMPO, GUAMPO, CRMPO, GHMPO and RFATS (in the Disney version he’d be the chubby, clumsy one). Let us not forget LNRPO and RRRPO (the small but snarling pirate dwarf?).”

‘Differences of opinion’ on transit plans

TRYON, N.C. – After the lunch break at the City Council retreat (great blackberry cobbler! – and yes, the Observer journalists pay for their own lunch) talk has turned to transportation.

Hard to blog and take notes and listen simultaneously, but lotta talk about concern in North Meck and on the MTC about whether the North transit line should have been built ahead of the NE line and the streetcar. Of course, no MTC money is being used to build the city’s streetcar project, but, as City Manager Curt Walton said, at the recent Metropolitan Transit Commission meeting, city officials showed CATS data to prove that no CATS/MTC money going to the streetcar, “But they didn’t believe it.” He also cited what he said was “a legitimate difference of opinion” about whether the Northeast line or the North line should be moving forward next.

What Walton didn’t say, but that savvy transit officials would, is that the Bush administration’s rules on how to rate transit projects’ cost-efficiency meant the North corridor did not qualify for any federal money, and the NE corridor just squeaked in by the skin of its teeth. If someone is to be bludgeoned about why the North corridor is not being built, folks might want to be looking toward the Federal Transit Administration and the previous administration. ( Note: The Obama administration has announced that it’s changing those rules on how to rate transit projects.)

And CDOT director Danny Pleasant just now made that point, as I was typing the above. Neither the North Corridor nor the streetcar qualified for fed transit funds under the old rules. But things are changing.

How special interests affect city business

TRYON, N.C. – From Charlotte City Council retreat. They’ve just wrapped up discussion on the council-staff operating agreement. And Michael Barnes (District 4) brought up an interesting point: With all this talk about treating people with mutual respect and sharing information, etc., how do you account for the reality of special interest groups? (I’m paraphrasing there.)
“A lot of people are impacted by special interest groups and they don’t tell us – staff and elected officials.” Third-party groups will meet with staff, or elected officials, and then things change. “If you’re not party to those third-party discussions, you don’t know what’s happening,” Barnes said. “You don’t know what the arrangements are between the special interest groups and staff or elected officials.”
Ultimately, he said, that’s the reality of politics.

He’s hit on a key point – and one that hurts mutual trust. If a staffer has been browbeaten by developers (just to take an example), and dials back on a proposal how are elected officials to know? Or, for instance, if elected officials decide to throw some candy toward a civic group they favor, how is staff supposed to deal with that?

But after Barnes brought that up, the honorables just sort of said um, and ended that chapter of the retreat agenda.

Live, it’s pols in Tryon (NC, not Street)

I checked in about 8:15 to the Charlotte City Council retreat in Tryon, N.C., where a “winter storm event” is scheduled to hit about midnight. So far, no word that the honorables plan anything other than to gut it out and then slide home on U.S. 74 and I-85 tomorrow afternoon.

This morning they’re hashing out the “council/staff operating agreement” which, if you pay attention to issues as they move through the process, is actually rather significant. Maybe. Depends on whether they abide by what they come up with. It repeats the words “mutual respect” several times. As if, perhaps, staff has been feeling beat up on by some elected officials in the past? AND as if, perhaps, elected officials have felt as if staff was treating them like children in the past? (Those are my observations only. Nothing that direct has been said here.)

The issue of whether to include the word “risk” in the document vs. adding the word “creative” came up. CDOT head Danny Pleasant suggested that the document should pair creativity with “risk tolerance.” I.e., creativity means you take some risks.

MORE to come, on the role of special interest groups.

Finding that streetcar money

Just finished an interview with Charlotte budget director Ruffin Hall (NOT Ruffin Poole, just in case you’re confused by the Ruffins), to find where in the budget this $12 million was hiding. What $12 million? See yesterday’s post. Or read on.

Of course, it isn’t really hiding. The city staff is pointing to a variety of city funds (listed in the city budget) that still have money in them, funds set aside for just this sort of thing: a project that arises unexpectedly for which elected officials would like to find money.

In this instance, the city is considering whether to set aside $12 million, which it would spend if it gets a $25 million federal grant. The $37 million total would build a 1.5-mile first segment of a proposed 10-mile streetcar line. The City Council is to vote Monday on whether to apply for that grant (plus another one that would add hybrid electric buses). If the city can’t find/isn’t willing to spend the $12 million there’s no point in applying for the grant. Here’s a quick rundown of the $12 million:

First, it is capital expense money. That’s a separate, $803 million budget apart from the overall $1 billion operating budget that pays for things such as police officers and garbage collection. (You may or may not like the idea of spending the $12 million but it isn’t money that could be used to hire more police.) Remember, too, the airport and the water/sewer departments, while counted in the budget, are self-sustaining “enterprise funds.” (Also here’s the perennial reminder: The city doesn’t pay for schools, parks and recreation, welfare, mental health facilities or a variety of other needs paid by the county or state.)

– $2.5 million in streetcar planning funds. Last summer, in a controversial vote, the City Council allocated $8 million for streetcar planning and engineering. The contract came in for less, and $2.5 million is available. You can find it on page 166 of the city budget. Here’s a link. This comes from a pot of money called PAYGO (pay as you go). This budget year the city put roughly $96 million into this fund, which is spent for things like transit maintenance, street improvements, roof replacements, etc.

– $10.5 million in reserve for economic development initiatives. This isn’t PAYGO money. It’s money set aside to repay debt the city might choose to take on. The council’s transportation committee members Thursday said they’d use $5.5 million of this fund. Look on page 163 of the budget.

– $ 7 million in business corridor revitalization funds. These, too are PAYGO funds, as yet unspent. The committee didn’t want to do this.

– $4 million in Smart Growth fund. That brings us to a multimillion “Smart Growth” fund, which the committee recommends using as part of the needed $12 million. Many folks wonder: The city just has $4 million sitting around that we didn’t know about? I asked Hall. It turns out the money isn’t just sitting around in some secret account. It’s been used to help with transit-oriented development along South Boulevard.

Hall said it’s a revolving fund (i.e., the city replenishes it with money the fund itself generates) that the council hasn’t put money into for years. Because it doesn’t get money allocated to it, it’s not a line item on the budget. It would be on the city’s financial statement, he said. Here’s a link to that. I ran out of time to do more than a search for “Smart Growth” which turned up nothing. (Other writing deadlines loom larger and larger as I type this.)

Hall said the Smart Growth fund was used, for instance, when the city spent money for its proposed Scaleybark transit oriented development project. When the city sold the land to a developer (the project is stuck in the recession and is delayed), the money went back into this fund. I have a call in to Economic Development director Tom Flynn, in whose department Hall said, the fund sits. Hall didn’t know whether taking $4 million would drain the fund.
Update: Flynn just called. He says that when Scaleybark Partners, the developer, repays the city in February the Smart Growth fund will have $4 million in it. It was set up as a revolving fund 9 or 10 years ago, he said, to be used for projects of that sort.

Bottom line: Money is fungible. A smart city manager will always keep things flexible enough so he or she can find funds for projects the elected officials want – or for things that arise unexpectedly midyear. I want managers who can do that. At the same time, I think the public (and elected officials) are owed more transparency about how much money is sitting, awaiting expenditure. It’s smart to have some reserve money. It’s also smart, if you’re a council member, to know just what your reserve money is and where it lives in your budget.

Streetcar seems to have momentum

Judging by the votes at a City Council transportation committee meeting this afternoon, the council is likely to vote Monday to apply for a couple of federal grants for transit. One would be for a $15 million project to add more buses on Central Avenue, Beatties Ford Road and out to the airport, essentially doubling the frequency to every 10 minutes. As Patsy Kinsey said – matching what an Observer editorial on Tuesday said – that decision is a “no-brainer.”

The other grant is trickier. It would be for $25 million to build a 1.5-mile section of the city’s proposed streetcar project. This part would go from Presbyterian Hospital down Elizabeth Avenue (where tracks are already laid) and East Trade Street to the Transportation Center. (If you’re not from around here you may not realize Elizabeth and Trade are the same street, with a name change).

The committee voted 3-2 to recommend the city go for the grant. Voting for: committee chairman David Howard, at-large rep Susan Burgess, District 1 rep Kinsey. Voting against: District 7 rep Warren Cooksey, District 4 rep Michael Barnes (who is running for district attorney in November).

Total project cost would be $37 million if the city decided not to buy new streetcars but to use three “replica” (that is, faux historic) trolley cars it owns. How to make up the $12 million difference from the $25M grant? City staff proposed that the council, if it wanted, could use $2.5 million still unspent from a streetcar planning budget line item, $4 million remaining in a “Smart Growth” fund that City Manager Curt Walton said was set up about 10 years ago but never completely spent, and it could take $5.5 million from $10.5 million that remains, unspent, in a reserve fund for economic development. The staff had also pointed to the option to reallocate $7 million from its business corridor revitalization program, but the council members at the committee meeting didn’t like that idea.

Barnes’ objection: Using the economic development money might mean less money available in the future for improvements to the North Tryon Street light rail corridor. Cooksey (who in 2009 voted against spending any city money for the streetcar project) said he worried that it would not be taken well by the city’s partner communities in the Metropolitan Transit Commission. Especially the North Mecklenburg towns still waiting, somewhat patiently, for money to be found to build their commuter rail line. He also said you could do just as much for transportation if you used the “found” money to build sidewalks and bike lanes.

I have to say, it always amazes me how city managers can find little pockets of millions of dollars just when their council member bosses need them. $4 million for “Smart Growth”? Who knew?

Counting likely votes Monday, I’d say the streetcar wins, 7-4. Mayor Anthony Foxx, remember, doesn’t vote on those sorts of things.

No ‘Age of Aquarius’ at planning department

Best line in the agenda for tonight’s City Council zoning meeting, which is a rezoning meeting and the agenda is put together by the city’s planning department. Under item No. 6, regarding zoning petition 2oo9-067:
“The Zoning Committee voted 4-1 to recommend DENIAL of this petition. The following outstanding issues have been addressed: (and then a long list of things such as setbacks, parking counts and buffers)
“14. Astrological Services has been deleted as a permitted use”

Update: I asked Tammie Keplinger of the planning department. Her reply:
“The Zoning Administrator has indicated that astrological services are office uses. It doesn’t need to be specifically listed on the site plan because it would be an allowed use in the O-1(CD) district.”

No word yet about fortune tellers or palm readers, but one could assume they, too, are office uses.

I’ll be at the meeting, “Tweeting” at @marynewsom. Here’s link to the agenda.

Foxx makes his moves

Sorry about the lengthy hiatus, faithful readers. Vacation happens, thank goodness. Meantime I’ve been stashing away tidbits for you.

Foxx makes committee announcements: I don’t think the Big O had an article on this, but in mid-December Mayor Anthony Foxx announced the City Council committee assignments. This sounds like City Hall inside-baseball, but City Hall watchers know they matter. Committees can speed up issues, stall them or sometimes make them disappear. Here’s where having a Democratic instead of a Republican mayor changes the landscape. Notice the committees with the most influence over policies and ordinances that affect growth, development, transportation, etc.:
– Foxx has split Economic Development and Planning (aka ED&P and formerly chaired by Republican John Lassiter). The new ED committee is chaired by Democrat Susan Burgess. Transportation (formerly chaired by Foxx) is now Transportation and Planning, chaired by new Democratic council member and former Char-Meck Planning Commission chair David Howard.
– Environment continues to be chaired by Republican Edwin Peacock III, but the committee now has a Democratic voting majority: Peacock, Dulin and Democrats Burgess, Howard and vice chair Nancy Carter. (Republican Warren Cooksey leaves the committee.)


No Butts Uptown? Coming to uptown (unless they’re already there – it was too cold today to go check): New cigarette disposal urns on waste receptacles on uptown sidewalks, courtesy of the City of Charlotte’s Solid Waste Services. See photo at right. This, of course, is sparked in part by the new ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, effective Jan. 2. The city notes that it picks up thousands of cigarette butts daily from sidewalks and streets, and those butts are not biodegradable. When they wash into storm drains and then into the creeks they release toxic chemicals into the water, such as arsenic, acetone, lead, toluene, butane, cadmium, etc. So stow your butts, smokers.

Enviro-artist to stick around: Environmental artist Daniel McCormick, whom I wrote about here (and check the cool video link there) – who created the art at Freedom Park – has had his residency at the McColl Center for Visual Art extended through January. He and other collaborators are working on a proposal to keep him here for six months to design a “master plan” for three years of artists/sites along the Carolina Thread Trail.

Wilmore wins magazine kudos: Southern Living magazine declared Wilmore and South End among the South’s Best Comeback Neighborhoods. I was on vacation but the City Council voted down the rezoning for the Wilmore church on Dec. 21. (And I am here to report, courtesy of chef and hostess extraordinaire Susan Patterson of the local Knight Foundation office, that the devil’s food cake featured on the cover of the December issue was as delicious as it looked.)

All politics is local – especially stimulus politics

A testy flappette erupted Monday night at the City Council meeting, involving the conjoined issues of federal stimulus money and the degree to which any district rep should go against the wishes of a fellow district rep on an issue in his own district.

The issue was whether to award a contract for $639,362 in stimulus bucks. The money will pay for fiber optic cables and cameras and other techno-equipment to let traffic lights on 13 miles of N.C. 51 (Pineville-Matthews Road) and about a mile of Providence Road south of N.C. 51 adjust their timing in response to traffic. I.e., better traffic flow, fewer backups at lights. Want more details? Here’s a link to the agenda, see page 18.

As it happens, the project is almost entirely inside District 7, represented by Republican Warren Cooksey.

And for months, Cooksey has been pulling a Mark Sanford routine, although in his case it’s not trysts with an Argentine soulmate or questionable use of funds, just Sanford’s refusal of federal stimulus money for South Carolina. Cooksey’s been voting against any measure that involves federal stimulus money. He opposes the stimulus spending because it raises the national deficit, because the president and Congress are Democrats (he doesn’t say that, but you get the idea), yada yada. You know the arguments.

Meantime, just about every time you say hello to Republican Mayor Pat McCrory, he goes off about how the Democrats are horribly misspending all that stimulus money and how dumb they’re being, etc. etc. I don’t even talk to him that much and I’ve heard it at least a half-dozen times. He played that riff again Monday night. I imagine some council members might be a wee bit annoyed at the endless Demo-bashing.

In other words, partisan national politics is infesting council operations – no surprise, and not the first time.

This time, though, the partisan stuff got tangled in an existing, informal pattern among district reps that says you generally don’t oppose another district rep’s position on issues in his/her district. It’s not a firm agreement, nor always followed. But you see it a lot in zoning cases, for instance. (For the record, I wish district reps would apply their own judgment to those zoning issues instead of letting the one person who’s more apt to be swayed by shallow NIMBY concerns control the whole shebang. But that’s a posting for another day.)

Monday night, some council members wondered aloud: If the district rep opposes this, why should we be for it? (Purely coincidentally all were Democrats).

Democrat Michael Barnes, District 4, said (I’m paraphrasing here), If a district rep doesn’t believe in projects in his district, why should we support them?

Democratic at-large rep Susan Burgess pointed out for anyone watching on TV that she would support the spending to help traffic on N.C. 51, even though the district rep opposed it.

Then Republican at-large rep John Lassiter, who lives near N.C. 51, got surprisingly testy. It was as though he had been holding inside weeks worth of anger at Democratic council members. Trust me, the guy was angry. He said (again, I’m paraphrasing), I don’t understand how you [i.e. the Democrats] would choose to vindictively punish the people in the district just because their rep is acting on his conscience.

In the end, the measure passed, but four district reps voted no: Barnes, District 3 Warren Turner, District 2 James Mitchell, and – no surprise – Warren Cooksey.

Mayor Pat’s last council meeting

We’re in the middle of the Citizens Forum part of tonight’s City Council meeting – when anyone can address the council. As the dinner meeting was breaking up about 6:45, Mayor Pat McCrory asked whether Martin Davis would be appearing.

Davis, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in the Republican primary, has a habit of appearing and trashing McCrory for being socialist, for his support of transit.

Told that Davis wasn’t on the schedule tonight, McCrory, knowing this is his last business meeting as mayor, quipped that he might have finally told Davis what he thought of him.

But later he was clearly moved to tears when a group from the Greenville Community Historical thought Association [Greenville the neighborhood, not the cities in North or South Carolina] came to the lectern to present him with a plaque and certificate. As longtime neighborhood advocates and civic activists Thereasea Elder and Maxine Eaves spoke, McCrory’s face was somber and he had to wipe his eyes.

7:29 PM – McCrory again mentions his regret that Martin Davis isn’t here, and then several other old favorite council speakers, (Ballerina Man, Ben3, etc.) most notably, he said, “Helicopter Guy.” That would be the famed “Rogue Helicopter”clip on YouTube. If you haven’t seen it, have a look.