The Meck Deck
Comment and analysis on all things Charlotte
Sunday, December, 8 2013
Posted December 6th, 2013 at 11:20 AM by Michael Lowrey
The Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints are both 9-3 and tied for the lead in the NFC South, with four games left to play, two of which are against each other. So who wins the division if the Panthers and Saints split their games against each other and win the remaining games? The Saints. […]
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Posted December 4th, 2013 at 8:59 PM by Michael Lowrey
Speaking of dysfunctional, there’s always the Mecklenburg County Commission, which voted to replace Pat Cotham with Trevor Fuller as chair yesterday. The move apparently comes in part in response to Cotham’s support for firing County Manager Harry Jones. The UPOR’S coverage of the topic is here. Analysis: Any time all three at-large commissioners on the […]
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Posted at 9:45 AM by Michael Lowrey
Earlier this year, Monroe received a consultant’s report on why its city managers kept quitting. It detailed a highly dysfunctional local government, including a city council that didn’t grasp or didn’t respect the city manager form of government. It seems that the recommendations didn’t sink in, as Monroe just fired John D’Agostino, its current city […]
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Posted December 2nd, 2013 at 11:25 AM by Michael Lowrey
Who gets elected mayor pro tem. Michael Barnes got the most votes of the at-large Charlotte City Council candidates but it seems that some other council members are mad at him. The resulting fireworks could be “interesting” to watch.
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Posted November 29th, 2013 at 7:36 PM by Michael Lowrey
And the duration of “now” may be rather uncertain. That’s what you should take away from this UPoR story that attempts to put a big happy face on the future of Lufthansa’s Charlotte-Munich flight. The story comes after Lufthansa CEO Christoph Franz said earlier in the month that Charlotte was “a smaller destination … that […]
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Charlotte's Greatest Hits
As jailed former state House Speaker Jim Black mounts a campaign for early release, critics contend that the state justice system did favors for Black regarding the settlement of his $1 million fine.
Wake County officials say imprisoned former House Speaker Jim Black satisfied a $1 million fine by surrendering some Mecklenburg County real estate, but questions remain about the real market value of the property.
Imprisoned former House Speaker Jim Black used undeveloped land with a tax value of less than $150,000 to pay off an outstanding $500,000 state fine.
Colleen Calvani writes that the Charlotte Area Transit system will scale back some routes in an attempt to counter three major decreases in funding.
Jeff Taylor argues that Pat McCrory failed to carry Mecklenburg County because he failed to move its conservatives.
Jeff Taylor says there may be another factor to blame for CMUD’s recent series of water leaks.
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Research
Cronyism is an umbrella term covering a host of government activities by which an industry or even a single firm or speculator is given favors and support that they could not attain in market competition. This report explains what opens government to cronyism, gives a brief rundown of recent examples of cronyism in North Carolina, and offers several possible reforms.
County and municipal governments provide many key services while taking in billions of dollars in revenue, but finding comparative data is hard. That's why this report provides information of how much local government costs in every city and county in North Carolina.
This report examines 52 contracts signed by the Raleigh Convention Center for the period of July–December 2011 and is a follow-up to the September 2008 John Locke Foundation report “The New Raleigh Convention Center: A taxpayer-funded money pit.”
County governments all over North Carolina are saving money by privatizing services. In an effort to assist in the exchange of information about these activities, the John Locke Foundation conducted a survey of all 100 counties asking county managers to tell us about governmental activities that they currently supply privately. We also asked them if they had problems in the past with a privatized activity that had caused them to return the activity to government provision.
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