Ballantyne, NC – There will be three bonds on the ballot this November. The new city bonds were one of the hot topics at the August 27th morning meeting at the Ballantyne Hotel. There will be no city council meeting this coming Monday, August 30th, 2010. The Neighborhood Improvements Bond is one of these bonds. The neighborhood bonds will pay for sidewalks, street lighting, storm drainage and other projects. This bond is $47 million. The goal is to bring older neighborhoods up to ‘modern’ city standards.
Things in court recently turned nasty in the case against Demetrius Montgomery. Detective Fant, C.M.P.D. Homicide Unit, was hired before Police Chief Monroe was hired. Detective Fant did throw away some of his notes in addition to several other ‘game changers’ in this double murder case. Evidently Detective Fant has done things like this before and his supervisors were aware. Charlotte’s Chief Monroe has made Detective Golden the new head of homicide. Recently on the radio, Tara Servatius interviewed a former C.M.P.D. officer. A few years before Chief Stephens, was Chief Nowicki and his top priority was patrol. This same former C.M.P.D. officer did talk about priorities and the chief of police. Is Community Policing Bad? Chief Monroe and Chief Nowicki have both used a very similar policing model. Currently the Sheriff’s Office, C.M.P.D. and the D.A.’s Office are not getting along well. In Atlanta, a four year old case, there was a warrant issued for a house. The owner of this house, a 92-year-old woman, was shot and killed BEFORE the police found that she was innocent of all of the drug charges. Two years ago when Charlotte was searching for a new police chief, the Deputy Chief of Atlanta was a candidate to be our chief of police. Happily, Charlotte has it’s own crime lab where forensics procedures occur. There was a mix up about exactly what type of degree that Chief Monroe earned from Virginia Commonwealth University. Officers Clark and Shelton were shot on March 31st and died April 1st of 2007, when Chief Stephens was still in charge. Will justice be served? City Council Member Andy Dulin will again be on Facebook and twitter while at the rest of the Demetrius Montgomery Trial.
Last Monday night at the city council meeting, five people spoke on the new bond issue. One of these people was Erin McKeithen. Erin McKeithen has just filed a Fair Housing Violation Complaint with the city. There was a somber mood at the city council meeting when Erin McKeithen spoke about this complaint. Tim Morgan talked about how inclusionary zoning is illegal in all of Mecklenburg County. The town of Davidson technically does have inclusionary zoning but has been allowed to do this for some odd reason. Right now, the town of Davidson has a cap on low income housing of ten percent. There are people in east and west Charlotte who do not like the new housing bonds. James Mitchell is chairperson of the locational housing committee. The city has a Housing Trust Fund. Last Wednesday, was a meeting of this locational housing policy committee. This October, the city council will look at revisions to the locational policy.
Low-income housing is built to ‘look like’ market-rate apartments. City Council Member Barnes is protesting low-income housing. Here is the count by district: the lowest amount of low-income housing is District 7 and the second lowest is District 4. Michael Barnes is the representative for District 4. Districts 1, 2 and 3 have the highest concentrations of low-income housing. Actually, Berkeley and Ayrsley do not have mixed income housing but low-income housing. Where there is subsidized housing there are more restrictions. What is the intention of the city council? Is the goal dispersal of low-income housing or is the goal to help as many people as possible? It is NOT possible to do both because these goals work against each other. Tom Bowers would like to see dispersal be the goal. City Council Member Warren Cooksey and Mayor Anthony Foxx would like to help as many as possible. Mayor Foxx would like to veto anything that does not follow the city council’s priorities. Mayor Foxx has also spoken recently about the Ayrsley Waiver. 17,000 units are needed all around Charlotte for low-income housing. Sometimes, the city waives it’s own policy. Can the city council put the 17,000 units in half of Charlotte?
Eastland Mall has five parcels and the city was willing to subsidize but Eastland recently sold. Eastland sold for the low price of $2 million dollars for the core of the mall. The Epicentre in the uptown of Charlotte is experiencing a myriad of problems. The general contractor is Gassi and he was supposed to pay the subs but this never happened. The city is thinking about paying the subs in four payments of $500,000 each. As of now, there are only temporary C.O.’s (certificates of occupancy) at The Epicentre. The value of this property is plummeting quickly. Will the city have to pay the subs?
Susan J. Spaulding
Public Policy Writer
Ballantyne Scoop
