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A study group from the International Downtown Association and a national consulting company, Carl Walker Inc., are looking this week at parking in uptown Charlotte. They’re holding stakeholder meetings today and tomorrow, and then Wednesday will present some recommendations.

Turns out some cities have a parking services manager, or a parking management division in their transportation departments. Other cities have private, nonprofits groups that oversee parking management. Charlotte doesn’t.

Here’s some of what they were asking a workshop group this morning about parking uptown. Feel free to offer your own thoughts in the comments section (below):

– Is finding parking uptown a real problem, or a perception problem, or some of both?

– Do people have a hard time finding where the parking lots and parking decks are?

– Does fear of not finding a parking spot keep people from going uptown?

– How much difference does the lack of uniform signage make, or the lack of uniform pricing and ticket validation rules?

– How much of a problem, if any, is the so-called “Cinderella parking” – spots that magically appear or vanish, based on whatever day of the week it is, or whether there’s an event at the Bobcats Arena?

– What’s the going rate for monthly parking? When the moderator, David Feehan, president of the International Downtown Association, asked the crowd that, hardly anyone piped up with numbers. I began to suspect people who own parking lots/decks may not like their rates revealed.

– Do you have any uptown parking secrets you’d like to share?

I’ll share my “secrets.” I figure word will get out anyway so what the heck.

One: Park free for 90 minutes underneath ImaginOn, if you validate your ticket upstairs. Enter off Sixth Street. I’m honest, though. I’ve used it only when I had business at ImaginOn.

Two: Park up to 90 minutes at Seventh Street Station (enter off Sixth or Seventh streets), even during those expensive Event Parking Nights, if you buy something at Reid’s and get your ticket validated. It so happens that Reid’s is one of the few places here selling Blue Bonnet brand ice cream, about which Johnny Apple raved in the New York Times’ food section recently. So …

A study group from the International Downtown Association and a national consulting company, Carl Walker Inc., are looking this week at parking in uptown Charlotte. They’re holding stakeholder meetings today and tomorrow, and then Wednesday will present some recommendations.

Turns out some cities have a parking services manager, or a parking management division in their transportation departments. Other cities have private, nonprofits groups that oversee parking management. Charlotte doesn’t.

Here’s some of what they were asking a workshop group this morning about parking uptown. Feel free to offer your own thoughts in the comments section (below):

– Is finding parking uptown a real problem, or a perception problem, or some of both?

– Do people have a hard time finding where the parking lots and parking decks are?

– Does fear of not finding a parking spot keep people from going uptown?

– How much difference does the lack of uniform signage make, or the lack of uniform pricing and ticket validation rules?

– How much of a problem, if any, is the so-called “Cinderella parking” – spots that magically appear or vanish, based on whatever day of the week it is, or whether there’s an event at the Bobcats Arena?

– What’s the going rate for monthly parking? When the moderator, David Feehan, president of the International Downtown Association, asked the crowd that, hardly anyone piped up with numbers. I began to suspect people who own parking lots/decks may not like their rates revealed.

– Do you have any uptown parking secrets you’d like to share?

I’ll share my “secrets.” I figure word will get out anyway so what the heck.

One: Park free for 90 minutes underneath ImaginOn, if you validate your ticket upstairs. Enter off Sixth Street. I’m honest, though. I’ve used it only when I had business at ImaginOn.

Two: Park up to 90 minutes at Seventh Street Station (enter off Sixth or Seventh streets), even during those expensive Event Parking Nights, if you buy something at Reid’s and get your ticket validated. It so happens that Reid’s is one of the few places here selling Blue Bonnet brand ice cream, about which Johnny Apple raved in the New York Times’ food section recently. So …

Reading last Sunday about Ron and Nancy Bryant’s move to Stanly County got a bunch of us in the newsroom talking about whether Charlotte is “activist-challenged,” as in, not as many citizen activists kicking up a grass roots fuss about things as many other cities seem to have.

I’m among those who think Charlotte has less of that sort of activity than you’d expect for a city this big and this lively. Over the years I’ve opined on my own theories about this. For instance, are we a City of Squelchers? (My column by that name, and a follow-up column, ran in April and May 2003.)

Then, at one of the cultural stakeholder meetings run by the Artspace Project folks, someone – I don’t remember who it was – asked why Charlotte seemed so different from, say, Minneapolis in terms of getting its cultural act together. The Artspace guys, one of whom is a Republican ex-state legislator from North Dakota, made some quips about there not being a lot to do in Minnesota in the winter so they had to offer more diversions.

My theory on this has several components:

First, bankers aren’t as likely to be activists as many other professions.

Second, colleges and universities breed activists. UNCC until recent years was young, small and didn’t attract the kind of students interested in activism. I think that’s changing, though. Queens and JCSU are too small to have a huge, lasting effect on the local civic culture. And Davidson students live in the “Davidson cocoon.”

Third, if you’re trying to make money and climb the social ladder, political or environmental activism is not the way to do it. You might tick off someone you want to do a business deal with. Or his or her spouse. Or their relatives. Instead, you write thank you notes and never criticize anyone in public about anything.

Fourth, Charlotte had plenty of activists a century ago. They were labor organizers, mill workers and streetcar motormen. The activists were scorned by the business establishment, fired from their jobs and in some instances killed.

Business won that battle – Charlotte remains one of the least-unionized places in the country, for better or worse. But the violence and repercussions from those days set a tone here for working people: Don’t raise your head. Don’t draw anyone’s attention. Just keep quiet and do your job. This used to be a very big milltown. The textile mills are gone. But maybe the sense of obeying the mill owner (a.k.a. B of A or Wachovia) lives on?

More people now are open environmentalists than a decade ago, which is good. But I wonder, how much of that is simply that environmentalism today is so mainstream. I mean, isn’t everyone an environmentalist by now?

OK, here’s my list of good guys and bad guys. I’m not as grouchy on Mondays as I’ll be by Friday, so it’s heavier on the good guys than bad guys. And please don’t complain that I’ve left off person X who is a wonderful asset to the community. Of course I have. I can’t remember everyone, or know everyone. Want to disagree? Add your thoughts below.

Some caveats, in addition to the concept of my last post, that people are complex. Sometimes politicians do things I agree with, but I keep wondering if they’re just sticking a finger in the political wind. There are other people who I’d put on the list, but I haven’t met them or don’t know enough about them, or I just didn’t happen to think of them.

Enough throat-clearing. Here are a few elected officials who don’t get a lot of on-camera time, so you may not be as familiar with them as with the same old faces, but are among the “good guys in government from this area: Michael Barnes, Dan Clodfelter, Anthony Foxx, Molly Griffin, Randy Kincaid, Don Lochman, Patrick Mumford, Wilhelmenia Rembert, Jennifer Roberts. (They’re in alphabetical order)

Do I agree with everything they do? Course not. But they’re trying to make the place better and doing it with thought, integrity and – far as I can tell – keeping the greater good in mind, as opposed to self-aggrandizement.

More names, on my local “good guys” list: Phil Dubois, Shirley Fulton, David Furman, Harvey Gantt, Mary Hopper, Francis Haithcock, Michael Marsicano, Bill McCoy, Dale Mullinax, Tony Pressley, Dennis Rash and Betty Chafin Rash.

The bad guys? Bill James. Larry Gauvreau. Each, in my opinion, is more interested in perpetuating racial discord than in solving anything.

There are others I’m not high on, including not a few politicians who I think are just wrong about issues, but who try in their own, misguided ways to do what they think is right. And there are some who I think are right about issues but who are just too annoying to put up with, or clueless about how to be effective. That last category is, sadly, rather large.

I know, it was cowardly to put up the question – who are the local good guys and bad guys? – without my own opinion. So I’ll offer up some names. Later.

First I have to add context. Amazingly, I found myself agreeing with much of what local libertarian/Republican/political activist Lewis Guignard e-mailed me about the question.

“Too simplistic.

“Certainly I don’t agree with the actions and politics of various people. Does that make them bad, or bad only relative to my point of view?

“I believe it takes all kinds of us to make this city what it is and has been.”

He goes on to give his thoughts about what makes a good guy: trying to make a difference, making decisions based on facts, not on preconceived notions or preconceived political, religious, etc. beliefs.

“I suggest we all fit both molds, at sometimes more than others,” he said.

I know, you can count on one hand the times Guignard and I have agreed. But he’s right in saying that, in truth, people are too complex. Good people do things out of the highest motives, but they turn out badly. Bad people – I mean people motivated by greed, hatred, selfish disregard for others or even just stupid people – every now and then come up with something good. As the saying goes, even a blind pig will snuffle up an acorn now and again.

Here’s a great example of the difficulty of pegging people as “good guys” or “bad guys.”

Remember Tom Bush, the conservative Republican county commissioner in the 1990s who helped lead Charlotte’s homophobic spasm over the play “Angels in America”? The same Tom Bush is the politician responsible for initiating one of the most far-reaching local efforts to clean up polluted streams and creeks, the county SWIM (Surface Water Improvement and Management) buffers and program.

He did real harm to local arts, but he also kicked into gear one of the county’s most highly praised water quality improvement efforts. So how do you balance the scales on Tom Bush?

Oops, have to go work on my other job – writing columns and editorials. I’ll get back to you with my own good guys-bad guys list.

Twice, in less than 24 hours, I’ve run into people who’ve made me think about who have been the good guys and the not-so-good guys in Charlotte. So I’m interested in how you bloggers would answer this one. Comments welcomed below.

This morning in the Observer’s lobby I ran into longtime Observer editor and historian Jack Claiborne, now retired from the UNC Charlotte press office. He’s been researching a history of the Charlotte City Club, the old-line uptown club founded in the late 1940s. The history, reports Jack, who loves history, is fascinating. “It has heroes and villains,” he said.

“As does everything,” I replied. I began wondering who might be the heroes and villains of that particular tale.

Then I realized I’d been thinking through a similar idea already, though from a completely different set of circumstances.

Claiborne grew up here and spent most of his adult life here. Yesterday I lunched with a brand new Charlottean, a guy who moved here with his wife for new jobs, knowing not a soul. He comes from a job in a major urban area in Ohio where he had a significant role in local government and politics. (I’ll use his name if he lets me – I’ve asked.) He’s trying to learn Charlotte now, so one of his many questions was to ask who were the good guys and bad guys here.

I tossed out a few names of local politicians – Republicans and Democrats – who in my experience are thoughtful and intelligent and appear to operate with personal integrity. But politicians are only a small slice of the pie. Business executives, citizen activists, philanthropists, educators and plenty more types of people really shape the place. They’re the good guys and the bad guys he was asking about.

I’m still pondering who’d be on my list. Who’d be on yours?

Quick: Name the county manager? Know what he or she does?

Have you ever cared enough about your local government to get off your duff and attend a City Council, county commissioners’ meeting or a school board meeting?

Ever watched a real a local courtroom in session?

Most people don’t bother.

And don’t get most adults started on “What’s wrong with kids today?”

But there’s a lot right with kids today. I saw some of if Tuesday night, spending a great couple of hours with a group of almost 40 youths, mostly high school students, who had spent time this summer learning more about their rights and responsibilities as citizens and voters (and voters-to-be).

Class members and their parents were at the graduation dinner for the first Civics 101 class offered for high schoolers and graduates under 21. The local League of Women Voters has offered Civics 101 classes for years, to teach budding citizen activists who’s who and what’s what in local government, and how voters and residents can get involved.

This summer, with help from Kids Voting, Partners in Out of School Time, Right Moves for Youth, the United Agenda for Children, and Youth Homes Inc., the league put together Youth Civics 101: A Venture Into Local Politics.

The young people seem to have emerged unscarred, even from the county commissioners’ recent battle – which they chanced to watch – over adopting the Martin Committee’s recommendations on school building and renovations.

As with Civics 101, the last session was at the Observer building, and included a tour of the newspaper.

Here’s a Naked City High Five to the three dozen young people who took part, and to all the sponsoring groups, and especially to the League for its ongoing efforts to get more of us more interested in becoming local activists.

Pick up any North Carolina state road map. Look at the close-up map of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. It’s liberally splashed with green: William B. Umstead State Park, Eno River State Park, Falls Lake State Recreation Area around Falls Lake, Jordan Lake State Recreation Area surrounding Jordan Lake.

Look at the close-up map of the Charlotte area. No state parks. The closest are Crowders Mountain State Park, west of Gastonia, and way at the tippy top of Lake Norman you’ll find modest Lake Norman State Park.

This lack of state largesse for parks around here has bugged me for years, just on general equitability grounds. I note the Triad – Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point – has a similar lack of state parks. What ticked me off afresh was a three-article package July 16 in the Neighbors of Lake Norman section of the Observer: “520 miles of shoreline. 125 yards of beach.” (Click here and here to see the rest of the package.)

Yep, that’s the only public swimming area on all of Lake Norman. Compare: B. Everett Jordan Lake in the Triangle serves the state’s second-largest metro area. It’s less than half the size of Lake Norman – 14,000 acres of water to Norman’s 32,500 – but has six public swimming areas. Who runs them? You guessed it: the state

Yeah, yeah, it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison: Jordan Lake was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Norman by private Duke Power Co., now Duke Energy. Duke acquired all its lakefront land decades ago after being granted the power of eminent domain, because building electric power plants was in the public interest. But in terms of lakefront access, the general public hasn’t benefited much, from what I see, at least not compared with the general public that’s getting the use of those state recreation areas in the Triangle.

Sure, Duke was willing to SELL the land. Mecklenburg County taxpayers have paid millions over the years to preserve land along the Duke Power lakes at McDowell Nature Preserve, Latta Nature Preserve and around Mountain Island Lake. And yes, the state helped a bit with some of those purchases, primarily through Clean Water Trust Fund grants.

But as far as major money for major state parks? From what I see, the state’s response has been: “Tough beans, Charlotte.”

Here’s a short behind-the-scenes report from a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools insider:

Seems CMS’ new chief operating officer, Maurice “Mo” Green, was a big hit at a recent principals’ meeting. He gave a speech, says my source, that had the room in the palm of his hand. “A real Barak Obama moment” was the description.

My source was impressed not only with his intelligence, but with what was described as “humility,” in addition to that indefinable “leadership” quality.

The source is NOT a starry-eyed newcomer or a flak trying to spin to the press, but a seasoned educator who has worked with all kinds of bosses and is not, in my experience, prone to handing out over-the-top compliments just for the heck of it.

Green had been the school board’s lawyer until new Superintendent Peter Gorman tapped him to run the day-to-day operations of the school system.

Sorry to be gone so long. Just spent more than a week in Memphis, Tenn., helping produce a planning “charrette” for the Knight Program in Community Building, based at the University of Miami. If you’re curious about that, see this link.

You’ll recall that on June 23 I described my experience trying to take Bus 14 home from uptown. And you’ll recall that July 11 I reported that Charlotte Area Transit System CEO Ron Tober told me things would get fixed.

Herewith a report from my newsroom colleague Joe Sovacool, who rides the bus to work daily:

“The good news is that 14 is now correctly listed on the displays at the bus barn as bay A. The bad news is that the times for all routes on the displays have been wrong all week.Well, they’re likely right twice in a 24-hour period – they either read about 12:50p or 11:30p for all routes.

“This is not only not unheard-of, but common. Too bad, because when they’re functional they’re one of the better and more useful features over there.

“And I can predict what their response will be. To a bum like me, anyway. …”