Category: Pat McCrory

What McCrory’s win really means

Tuesday’s gubernatorial election was a watershed for North Carolina, but for a reason that’s gotten a lot less ink than the Red State-Blue State lines. For the first time in the history of this once-rural state, a big-city mayor moves into the Governor’s Mansion. Pat McCrory’s election may well mark North Carolina’s transition from rural to urban.
 
To have elected the mayor of the state’s biggest city – whose whole political career has been in Charlotte city government – is a huge transition. It’s bigger, in my view, than the state switching from red to blue (in 2008) back to red in the presidential election, as N.C. this year went narrowly (by 96,600 votes) for Republican Mitt Romney.

McCrory will be North Carolina’s first Republican governor since Jim Martin was elected in 1984 and only the third since since Reconstruction. And it’s a big change, too, that for the first time since the 1880s, Republicans will hold the governorship and both chambers of the N.C. General Assembly. But for one party to control all three is not new; Democrats did that for decades. It’s also noteworthy that McCrory is the first Charlottean elected governor since lawyer Cameron Morrison in 1920. Among a string of Charlotte mayors who tried for statewide office –  Eddie Knox, Harvey Gantt, Sue Myrick and Richard Vinroot – only McCrory succeeded. “The curse is over,” he joked election night. (Aside: Martin was a Davidson College professor and a Mecklenburg County commissioner but campaigned as, and governed as, a resident of “Lake Norman.”)

Sitting around after midnight on election night, waiting for the Romney and Obama speeches, I started digging into N.C. history to see if I could find any mayor of a sizable city elected governor. The closest I found was Raleigh’s Joseph Melville Broughton, governor 1941-45. In 1940, Raleigh had 47,000 people. That’s not a big city. (Gregg Cherry, a former Gastonia mayor, was governor 1945-1949. Wikipedia tidbit: “It was joked  in Gastonia that he was the best lawyer in town when sober, and the second-best lawyer in town when drunk.”) Otherwise, nada.

 While the rest of the country probably still thinks of North Carolina as a land of tobacco farms, sharecropper shacks, textile mill villages and kudzu – with a lone, high-tech splotch of intelligentsia in the Triangle –  we who live here know better. This state has more urban/suburban residents now than rural ones. We’re a large state, so we have plenty of rural areas, but the urban crescent that follows I-85 from Gastonia through Raleigh-Durham is large and growing in clout – not to mention problems of transportation, sprawl, housing and the usual assorted urban problems.

Because of the state’s history of rural poverty, rural areas are the focus of numerous initiatives to provide economic development, and rightly so. Yet traditionally, the state’s cities have had little clout in state government. And while individual projects can win state blessings, the idea of an “urban strategy” has been MIA. If there are any holistic efforts to address urban poverty statewide, I have not heard about them. Yet urban poverty here is a huge problem, and a growing one.
 
With help from my colleague Laura Simmons, we pulled some census numbers. Looking only at the four most populous of the state’s 100 counties (Mecklenburg, Wake, Guilford and Forsyth) you find 390,238 people living in poverty. Then we looked at the same data for rural Eastern North Carolina, which I calculated as all 38 counties east of, or touched by, I-95. It’s more than a third of the state. Those numbers are higher, but not dramatically: 489,318. In other words, the number of poor people in four urban counties is 80 percent of the total in 38 other counties. And that tally does not even include Durham, Fayetteville, Asheville or Wilmington.

Charlotte’s light rail line. Photo: Charlotte Area Transit System

McCrory has been careful to say he’ll be governor of the whole state, and I expect he will. But to be mayor of the whole state means understanding city issues as well as rural ones.

He is also one of the founders of the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition, a group of mayors from the state’s larger cities that “promotes the interchange of ideas and experiences among municipal officials for the continued development of urban areas.” He won national fame as a strong champion for Charlotte’s transit system, which led to the 2007 launch of the Lynx light rail line. He took a courageous stand to battle the city’s influential subdivision developers by pushing for sidewalks to be required on both sides of new subdivision streets. He battled NCDOT over the lack of bike lanes or sidewalks on NCDOT highway bridges.Unless he was asleep for 14 years as mayor (and trust me, he was not) he understands how the end of annexation has the potential to gravely damage N.C. cities’ financial stability. 

None of those things necessarily predicts how he’ll govern. After all, there is this legislature over on Jones Street that decides budgets, programs and a gazillion other matters large and small, even dictating the public school calendar. All you have to do is glance south to Columbia to see that party affiliation does not guarantee intraparty harmony. Further, a Charlotte transit champion in 1998 might find Raleigh in 2013 to be a steep, rocky and barren landscape.

But when cities head to Raleigh to try to pitch their causes, for the first time, they’ll have a governor who – even if he may not give them what they want – when he says, “I feel your pain,” they’ll know he really does.

McCrory, Dalton talk transportation

Courtesy of Julie White at the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition, here’s an account of the transportation-related exchanges from Tuesday night’s gubernatorial debate on UNC-TV, between Democratic Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton and Republican Pat McCrory, the former Charlotte mayor:

To view the video, watch below or click here to visit the WRAL website.

Here’s a lightly edited version of what White, director of the Mayors Coalition, sent via her regular email newsletter:

The N.C. Metropolitan Mayors were delighted last night with the inclusion of transportation-related questions in the televised gubernatorial debate last night. The Mayors Coalition had written the debate hosts citing the declining health of our state’s transportation infrastructure and asked them to include questions about the candidate’s vision for transportation investment in the future.
 Our coalition and our chairman received shout outs from McCrory last night during the debate. At 34 minutes into the debate, the candidates were asked how they would work with those across the aisle in a bipartisan manner. McCrory noted his success as mayor working with his bipartisan city council and his efforts working with then-Gov. Jim Hunt to implement a major transportation initiative that is a role model for the nation. He then cited his work to found the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition and cited it as a bipartisan group of mayors from the east, Piedmont and west working together and speaking with one voice. He noted that he was proud to be a founding member of the group. McCrory also gave a shout-out to the Metro Mayors Coalition chairman, Durham Mayor Bill Bell, who was in the audience.

At 13 minutes into the debate the candidates concurred in their thoughts that the state should continue the current cap on the gas tax. Dalton cited the fact that we are efficient with our transportation system through our state-maintained system of roads and said we don’t need 100 smaller DOTs across the state.

Twenty-two minutes into the debate the candidates were asked if there were inequities in how transportation dollars were distributed across the state. McCrory said that most regions of our state – rural and urban – have major interstates running through them and are therefore punished because the interstate spending leaves little for other roads. He referred to the equity formula as the “unequity” formula and said that many mayors of both large and small towns have been complaining about it for years. He cited I-95, I-85, I-40, and I-26 as examples in both rural and urban parts of the state that have a difficult time affording to address their needs outside the interstates.

Dalton noted that the grass is always greener as everyone thinks they don’t get their fair share of transportation dollars. Dalton advocated for more regionalism. He noted that the Logistics Taskforce he chaired advocated for combining the NCDOT highway divisions to create more regionalism.
 At the 40-minute mark the candidates were asked how they would repair I-95 and if not through tolling then how. McCrory said tolling an existing road was a bad idea. He noted that there are proposals for some new roads that are not supported by their local residents and that we could shift those dollars to the I-95 project. He talked again about the negative effects the state’s equity formula has on regions with major interstates running through them and noted that he pushed as mayor for a separate fund to address interstates. He said we have politicized transportation for too long and that we have played shell games with our federal funding. He said he would make decisions for roads not based on politics but based on where the experts say we need the roads to connect the urban and rural areas as well as the ports, airports, east, west and Piedmont. He talked about creating a 25-year infrastructure plan for the state as he did for Charlotte as mayor.

Dalton said tolls should be a last resort and if you implement them you must offer an alternative route that is not tolled. He said it was less offensive to toll a new road. He advocating prioritization of projects and talked about the recommendations related to inland ports from the Logistics Task Force he chaired. He advocated that we work with the congressional delegation to ensure the federal government returns to North Carolina the same amount of federal taxes we send to Washington, D.C. And he advocated for the expanded use of public-private partnerships, the lease-purchase of roads and more innovative financing options.

(The time references White sent would allow you to view the transportation-related exchanges.)

Republicans and cities: Ill-starred romance?

From Wikipedia.com

With a graphic that mimicked the famous 1975 New York Daily News headline: “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD” the last Sunday’s New York Times Review section had this headline: “REPUBLICANS TO CITIES: DROP DEAD.” It topped an article headlined “How the GOP Became the Anti-Urban Party.”

“The fact is that cities don’t count anymore — at least not in national Republican politics. The very word “city” went all but unheard at the Republican convention, held in the rudimentary city of Tampa, Fla.,” wrote Kevin Baker, author of the “City of Fire” series of historical novels.

To be fair, he also notes this about the Democratic presidential campaign: “There wasn’t so much as a mention of cities in the debate on domestic issues the presidential candidates had last week. Nor did the Democrats have much to say about cities at their convention in Charlotte, N.C.” At least he didn’t call Charlotte a “rudimentary city.”

Are Republicans anti-city? If so,why, and if not, why not? Not a few political observers have noted, for instance, that in North Carolina, Republican gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory, former mayor of Charlotte, is running ads that mention he was mayor but neglect to say he was mayor of Charlotte, the state’s largest city. [Mike Collins, host of WFAE‘s “Charlotte Talks” radio show this morning asked McCrory about that, during an interview. McCrory said about half his ads mention Charlotte and said there isn’t much time in some ads to say very much.]

Obviously, there is anti-Charlotte sentiment in some parts of North Carolina, and in my observation it’s not so much a Republican-Democrat thing as a rural-urban thing and – as Charlotte is blessed with a robust and bipartisan phalanx of boosters who display great zest for their city – a “We don’t like braggers” thing.

What should the candidates be saying about cities? Weigh in below, if you have thoughts.

(Note: I moderate comments for obscenity, insults, lack of civility, etc., but not for the opinions expressed. So if your comment doesn’t instantly appear, please don’t be discouraged. )

But, Mayor Pat, do you back light rail?

Photo of Third Street station courtesy Charlotte Area Transit System
(See update at end, 6:30 p.m.)

Ex-CATS chief Ron Tober sends along a link to a nice little video about the Lynx Blue Line and South End. It praises the way the light rail line brings neighborhoods together, helps people move about the city without cars and builds for the future.

The film (apparently made by Siemens, hence the talking heads from that company) quotes many Charlotte notables, including Charlotte Planning Director Debra Campbell, Duke Energy’s North Carolina president Brett Carter, UNC Charlotte Dean of Arts + Architecture Ken Lambla, UNCC profs David Walters and Jose Gamez, Levine Museum historian Tom Hanchett …

… and former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory.

This is worth pointing out because McCrory, a seven-term mayor who is all but certainly running again for N.C. governor in 2012, has been a strong transit supporter. He has a national reputation for being a strong transit supporter.  That much isn’t really news for politics buffs.  But here’s a new wrinkle. His Republican Party in North Carolina now appears dominated by anti-transit conservatives.

During the recent General Assembly session, state legislators from Mecklenburg County made several stabs at outright killing any more state funding (and thus, any more federal funding) for Charlotte’s light rail system, as well as trying to off the state’s long-planned high-speed passenger rail between Charlotte and Raleigh. Last spring, McCrory said he had made calls to Republican legislative leaders about transit, but wouldn’t say what he talked about.

This all leaves Mayor Pat with a dilemma.  He can continue to tout his accomplishments as a moderate, pro-transit mayor, which will help him with independents and with any Democrats who have cooled on Gov. Bev Perdue. But that would definitely rile the people now in control of the state Republican Party, not to mention many legislators. Or he can play to his right and somehow distance himself from Charlotte’s nationally praised light rail system, one of his most praiseworthy achievements.

I note that on this video, McCrory doesn’t say anything that might be pulled out and used as a pro-transit film clip by enemies on the right, who kicked him around a lot when he was mayor, calling him a RINO (Republican in Name Only), or even a socialist, for supporting mass transit. On the film he says innocuous things,  that cities should look to the future, and this “infrastructure” is a good investment.

(Update and rewrite, 6:25 p.m.) McCrory just phoned me back and was pointed in saying he supports mass transit “where it works.” If the transportation experts and federal funding formulas say it would work in a certain place, McCrory said, then he’s for it. He said he just asks, “What will the numbers look like?”

This is all consistent with his remarks as mayor. But, I asked him, a lot of N.C. Republicans oppose mass transit, so how will he handle that in his campaign? “I’ll handle it exactly the same way I handled it as mayor,” he said. Some Republicans won’t like his answers, he said, and neither will some Democrats.

I’ve been wondering how McCrory, who is a deft politician, will handle this GOP-hates-transit dilemma. He’s on the record now – at least with Naked City Blog – on mass transit. It will be in interesting political show to see how his campaign plays out on this particular issue.

Weak mayor? Pat McCrory opines. In California.

Hmm. Ex-Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a Republican who’s almost certainly running for governor again in 2012, has written an opinion piece for, of all things, the Sacramento Bee:
“Strong mayor or not, it’s still the bully pulpit.”

It seems Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is pushing to turn the office, in California’s capital city, into a full-time, strong mayor form of government. And the local paper there (a McClatchy Co. sister paper to the Obs) requested the opinion of another non-fulltime mayor.

For those of you not deeply into local politics, here’s a primer on strong/weak mayor systems: In cities such as Charlotte that have a “council-manager” form of government, the mayor’s doesn’t hire or fire anyone or run any city departments. A professional city manager does that. The council makes the decisions such as policy, and hiring/firing the city manager. In Charlotte the mayor doesn’t even have a vote on the council, except in a few instances (ties, rezonings with protest petitions, etc.) Charleston’s Joe Riley, Boston’s Tom Menino, Chicago’s Richard Daley are all “strong mayors,” – they function as the chief city administrator.

McCrory concludes: “Regardless of the powers to the mayor’s office it will be the mayor who will get the blame or the credit for what happens in a city. Deserved or not.”

There are pros and cons to each type of government. Strong mayors can be more effective in changing city policy – witness Daley’s success at and worldwide acclaim for repositioning Chicago as a “green” city. City managers tend not to want to be strong enough leaders to get out in front of those who hire/fire them, which can lead to a sense that no one is leading the city – which was a recurring criticism during McCrory’s tenure. And with the job being a (wink-wink) “part-time” one, the post is only going to attract people who are wealthy, retired, self-employed, have very understanding bosses or have a job or whose pay is so low the mayor’s pay is a step up.

On the other hand, strong mayors can use their power to reward political allies and punish foes, even to a greater extent than “weak mayors.” (They can all do that, believe me.) And an inept or crooked strong mayor can do a lot more damage than an inept or crooked weak mayor.

My conclusion is that I’d like a strong mayor system if we had a mayor I liked and I’d hate it if we had a mayor I didn’t. And that’s not really all that helpful.

Weak mayor? Pat McCrory opines. In California.

Hmm. Ex-Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a Republican who’s almost certainly running for governor again in 2012, has written an opinion piece for, of all things, the Sacramento Bee:
“Strong mayor or not, it’s still the bully pulpit.”

It seems Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is pushing to turn the office, in California’s capital city, into a full-time, strong mayor form of government. And the local paper there (a McClatchy Co. sister paper to the Obs) requested the opinion of another non-fulltime mayor.

For those of you not deeply into local politics, here’s a primer on strong/weak mayor systems: In cities such as Charlotte that have a “council-manager” form of government, the mayor’s doesn’t hire or fire anyone or run any city departments. A professional city manager does that. The council makes the decisions such as policy, and hiring/firing the city manager. In Charlotte the mayor doesn’t even have a vote on the council, except in a few instances (ties, rezonings with protest petitions, etc.) Charleston’s Joe Riley, Boston’s Tom Menino, Chicago’s Richard Daley are all “strong mayors,” – they function as the chief city administrator.

McCrory concludes: “Regardless of the powers to the mayor’s office it will be the mayor who will get the blame or the credit for what happens in a city. Deserved or not.”

There are pros and cons to each type of government. Strong mayors can be more effective in changing city policy – witness Daley’s success at and worldwide acclaim for repositioning Chicago as a “green” city. City managers tend not to want to be strong enough leaders to get out in front of those who hire/fire them, which can lead to a sense that no one is leading the city – which was a recurring criticism during McCrory’s tenure. And with the job being a (wink-wink) “part-time” one, the post is only going to attract people who are wealthy, retired, self-employed, have very understanding bosses or have a job or whose pay is so low the mayor’s pay is a step up.

On the other hand, strong mayors can use their power to reward political allies and punish foes, even to a greater extent than “weak mayors.” (They can all do that, believe me.) And an inept or crooked strong mayor can do a lot more damage than an inept or crooked weak mayor.

My conclusion is that I’d like a strong mayor system if we had a mayor I liked and I’d hate it if we had a mayor I didn’t. And that’s not really all that helpful.

‘Tryon Bridge Towers’ artist did WWII Memorial

What ARE those things on South Tryon Street? The two metallic structures erected just past the Big O building at the bridge over I-277, are not, as you might have thought, witches-hat-derived homage to the show “Wicked.” They are a gift from the Queens Table, a group of anonymous – and apparently wealthy and influential – public art donors who have brought us the Socialist-realist monuments at The Square.

Update 3:30 PM – The artist is Friedrich St.Florian, an architect based in Providence, R.I. He designed the World War II Memorial in Washington. Here’s a link to a series of photos of the works being installed. The current name appears to be “Tryon Bridge Towers.”

Here’s a link (courtesy of the folks at CLTblog) to a presentation to the City Council in April 2009. It explains the Queens Table: “A small group of anonymous donors established the Queen’s Table Fund in 1991 to celebrate Charlotte by quietly finding and filling needs that are not otherwise being met to enhance aesthetics and quality of life in the City.” (May I suggest that art teachers for CMS could be an unfilled need for the next decade?)

Among their prior gifts, in addition to the four statues at The Square, are the Queen Charlotte at the airport (often described as “going into the lane for the layup”) and “Aspire,” the bronze on Kings Drive outside the Temple of Karnak-sized new Central Piedmont Community College building. I have come to love the airport statue, I confess. “Aspire” will have to grow on me. The things at The Square are an embarrassment, art as envisioned by aging CFOs, perhaps. (No I don’t know who really selected them.)

I am checking in with Jean Greer, Vice President of Public Art at the Arts & Science Council to see what she knows. (Update: Jean tells me the project didn’t go through the ASC Public Art Commission although she knew about it through Charlotte Center City Partners. It sits on N.C. DOT property, she says. The N.C. DOT is in the process of crafting an art policy for state rights-of-way.)

Jean is one of the lucky souls who gets to stand up at occasional City Council dinner meetings and give presentations on current public art projects and endure silly jokes from council member Andy Dulin and – for the 14 years he was mayor – Pat McCrory. McCrory buttonholed me last week at the James Jack statue unveiling to say he requires two things of public art for him to like it: You don’t have to be high to “get it” and it shouldn’t be something a 5th-grader could do. He approved of Chas Fagan’s James Jack statue.

I don’t know about this new work. At first, as I went past for several weeks I kept thinking it was some odd NCDOT construction equipment abandoned to the weeds. Then it became clear it was “art.”

Pardon me for sounding like McCrory but this one reminds me of robotic equipment, as portrayed on “The Jetsons,” or possibly a depiction of the trash compactors on Darth Vader’s Death Star. It does not make my heart soar. If anything, it destroys any soaring my heart might have been inclined to do. (Not that a soaring heart is likely as you walk across the bleak, Sahara-like I-277 bridge.)

Annual cost to the city, for maintenance, such as mowing, planting, electricity: $ 8,450.

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.

Mayor Pat on his last council meeting tonight

Tonight will be Pat McCrory’s last real City Council meeting as mayor. Sure, he’ll be there Dec. 7 for the new council swearing-in, but that’s different. He’s been Charlotte mayor longer than anyone – 14 years – and leaves a huge legacy, especially with the city’s transportation and light rail system.

I caught up with him this morning to ask what he was thinking and feeling. Any big to-do planned?

No, he said. “I’m not big on goodbyes. I get too sentimental.”

I asked, What are your thoughts? “A combination of sadness with being very proud. … I’m a very sentimental guy so I don’t like the last of anything.” But, he said, “It’s time to move on.”

He talked a lot about a meeting last week in Greenville, S.C., with a coalition of mayors and academics and business people trying to raise awareness of the existence of an urban mega-region from Atlanta through Raleigh. He and retiring Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin are pushing the effort. The group hashed out a mission statement (“It was like making sausage.”) They’ll probably form a 501(c)3 nonprofit group.

And he raved about downtown Greenville, which has reclaimed the historic Reedy River Falls and built a public garden alongside it with a pedestrian suspension bridge over the river. “Just gorgeous!” McCrory said. “They let people swim in the river and play in the falls!” He told Greenville Mayor Knox White he was envious. But McCrory being McCrory, he added “He’s envious of our light rail.”

McCrory said he met with Mayor-elect Anthony Foxx last week and gave him advice about time-management, ethics, how best to spend his time with national groups, etc.

He intends to stay busy with initiatives such as the Mega-region initiative and with speeches all over the country about Charlotte’s light rail line and the accompanying transit-oriented land use planning. He calls his presentation, “From Mayberry to Metropolis: Creating the Best of Both.,” and says, “We’re seen as a role model for how it’s done.”

He talked – again – about his dislike for the way the federal stimulus money is being spent, and his belief that the council’s vote to pursue a planning and design study for a streetcar was misguided.

And you won’t be surprised to hear that he figures he’ll still be putting in a word here, a word there.

Keep an eye on McCrory. I expect he won’t fade quietly into private life.

They’ll choose next CATS chief

Who’ll choose next CATS (Charlotte Area Transit System) chief? The four-member selection panel will consist of Charlotte City Manager Curt Walton, County Manager Harry Jones, , Matthews Town Manager Hazen Blodgett and Davidson Mayor John Woods (named by Charlotte Mayor and Metropolitan Transit Commission chair Pat McCrory).

According to a memo from Jones:

“The four members of the selection panel have conferred and agreed to move forward with the recruitment process as follows. Advertisements will be posted electronically with all national transit-related organizations, with a closing date of September 25, 2009. A profile of the Chief Transit Official position, updated during the 2007 recruitment process, will be subjected to a series of focus groups for input. The profile also will be posted on the city/county website for additional public input. The process is designed to name a new CATS CEO by November 30, 2009.”

Jones’ memo also notes that in 2015 Charlotte will host the national convention of the National Association of Counties. Hmmmm. Whole lotta politicians will be treading our sidewalks. (Lock up the silverware?) But Charlotte hosted the event in 2000 and no mass outbreaks of oratory or political skullduggery were reported.