Charlotte has a new mayor | Hour 2

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. Charlotte has a new mayor and. The NAACP is going to be very happy because the mayor is black and that was their top criteria. And also the media missed a perfect opportunity to normalize votainer. I don't know why this is so difficult of a campaign. I know I'm trying to change the English language, but my goodness, media, you guys changed stuff all the time. Remember the capitalization of black, you know after a BLM like. I know, you guys can do this if you want to vote. Tainer is a better word than vote getter, vote get Nobody says get her except get her done. And even that's not get or done, it's get her done, get her done, sorry, get her done? Like that's it. Nobody says getter. Isn't that the thing that we like, that little neck scarf thing that people wore during covid Getters gators? Sorry, never mind. So Charlotte City Council has picked the person to lead the city as per the rules, that's what you're supposed to do. Although I do have to say, what's the point of a of a mayor pro tem, Like, shouldn't the mayor pro tem be the person that takes over when the mayor cannot fulfill the responsibilities and duties of the office. And that's not just me saying it, that's literally the job description of the mayor pro tem. That's what you're supposed to do when the mayor can't run a meeting, when the mayor can go to a ribbon cutting, right, then the mayor pro tem is supposed to act as the stand in for the mayor. But when the mayor quits, No, no, no, you can't have the mayor pro tem takeover. Nope, City Council will pick the mayor or the new mayor, the interim mayor, although there's really no such thing as like an interim mayor because he's going to be the mayor. His name is Robert Harrington. That's the new mayor. Mayor Harrington, I presume. I don't know why I felt like I had to say that, but Robert Harrington, and again he's a black guy. And that was the top criteria that the NAACP told the Charlotte City Council that it had to be a black person. And by the way, the top five finalists, or as I call them, the five lists, they were all black, so there was no chance that there would be a non black mayor. So score one for the NAACP and their pressure campaign on the Charlotte City Council. Who are you know? Ten of the eleven members are Democrats, and so you know, the words of the NAACP local chapter carry a lot of weight for those council members. From the Charlotte Observer story, the Charlotte City Council voted to select Harrington to finish out the term of Mayor vy Lyles, which ends in December twenty twenty seven. The five term Democrat announced in May that she would resign from office on June thirtieth, which is just a week away, and this would be halfway through her term. Council members chose to open the application period. They had more than one hundred and ten people who applied, some of. Them not so serious. The council then winnowed that list down to the five finalists or the finalists, and they all interviewed for the post last week. So I have some audio. First off, at the beginning of the meeting, a representative of the governor was present and presented y Lyles with the highest honor for a civilian in the state, and it is the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, and she got emotional about it. I don't know what to say. I really don't. I guess I'm a softie. It's hard, you know. So I always tell people I grew up with really five brothers and they were like hard on me all the time. But nothing could be harder than not knowing what you can do, if you tear enough, if you want to do it enough, if you're strong enough, and you compete enough. And I want you, every one of you in this room to understand the city is absolutely one of the most astounding places that we can be. We go all over the state, this country. You don't see the people coming out and saying, oh, I'll give the mayor a pack something anyway. But I just want you to know that it has been an honor to be in this community. It's been an honor to work with the people in this organization. It is an honor to know that the city has the ability to do whatever we choose to do because it is the right thing to do and be. And I'm not gonna stop at this. I know that I'm very, very happy because I do get to see my kids there go to school close by here, and I will be able to do a lot of things that I have never even thought about. But after all of that, I will still be in Charlotte, and that's what's gonna make the difference. Charlotte is the place to be for everyone in this country. We can see it coming, and I just hope that when we do see it coming, we make it better than ever ever ever. Thank you so much for the doctor. Okay, I wish Vilals all the best in her retirement. Anything that I am saying here is not coming from a position of meanness or anything. I knew Vilals when she worked on staff at City Hall when I was a reporter. She rose through the ranks while I was covering the city council beat. She was always very nice. I've disagreed with her policy positions on stuff, but I have noticed over the recent last few years that the kinds of I don't want to call them verbal flubs, because I'm not sure that's what it is, but there's something. It appears to me there's something going on there. For example, I actually pulled a clip here from this was the June eighth meeting, and she gets lost in the management of the meeting. And this happens with increased frequency. I think that everyone has had an opportunity to speak, and I really appreciate the kindness of understanding how difficult it can be to do something in a company like this, and government is important, and the people along this DAIS are working very hard to be a part of what we can do and to do it better for our city. So right now, do I have emotion? Is there emotion to adopt? There was a second? Have emotion on a second? All in favor? Please raise your hands? All right? So now let's go to our city attorney. Nope, we're going to go to vote. Let's go with the vote all in favor, anyone opposed. So I would say we could at this, but I mean, I'll go with the Madia. I'll leave it to the chair. I'm just I'll leave it to the chair. You'm sorry, I'll leave it to Madame Mayor. No, I can't. I had three people talking to me at once. Okay, what would did you say? I was saying, I would leave it to Madam Mayor to decide whether it was appropriate to based on the agenda topic. Great heading, all right. We can talk to say she's fright, yeah, okay, all right. So we're going to go to the next item. So I'm sorry, can you rule on that? Please? Was it in or out of order? It is in order. It is in order, so we can't talk about it. You can talk about it, okay, yes? Oh sorry? Oh god, if you couldn't, I couldn't hear. And this is something that she has been saying often that she couldn't hear. I don't know if that's true. That's possible. I mean, she's seventy two years old, maybe gotten hard of hearing or something. I know, you know, just from the time that I spend covering these meetings, the Mayor's sitting up there, she's getting you know, people that you know lean over next to her and whisper stuff in her ear, tell her something to do whatever, But this kind of thing keeps happening, She loses track of where the votes are supposed to occur, and then when people ask her about it, she says, oh, I couldn't heard. She did it last night a few times too, and I wonder if that had anything to do with her decision to step down. All right, for over a year now, you've heard me talking about create a video. Great local company in mint Hill that has helped more than two million families preserve their memories by turning old photos, VHS tapes, film reels, and slides into lasting keepsakes. Now creative videos helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling. 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Check out Group travel Videos dot com. That's group travel Videos dot com. Or call seven oh four eight four six seventy eight seventy extension two o six. And when you do that, ask for Katie. But Pete, can I just email? Well, yes you can. You can email Katie Katie at group travel videos dot com. Group travel videos from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for a lifetime. Well, I'm already down this path, so I might as well continue. There's a line in the Charlotte Observer story that, to me is the confirmation without coming out right and saying it, like people say, like, oh, you know the mayor, she's seventy two she's lost a step or whatever. Whatever, she's slowing down, right, That all can be true, whatever, But that doesn't necessarily prevent you from doing your job. However, as The Observer reports, Lyles has not given a reason for her resignation beyond wanting to spend more time with her family, but she has missed more than a third of council meetings since December. That marks the lowest attendance rate of her tenure, amid whispered speculation about her ability to manage meetings. This first started in zoning meetings. I noticed that she and this goes back about a year, that she would have somebody else running the meetings during the zoning meetings more often than not. Not that she, you know, abandoned all of them. But you got four meetings a month, every Monday, and one of those is always devoted to rezonings. And like that's a that's a very technical kind of meeting. You've got all of these presentations, you got all these maps, you got all of the zoning laws, right, you get speakers and stuff. So there's a lot of there's a lot of technical data being discussed and debated, and she would be absent from these and so while I have no doubt at all that she's looking forward to spending more time with her family, the fact that she announced her resignation just you know, five months into her well six months into the new term, it makes me wonder if there's something else going on there now. If there is something else going on, I understand why they may not want to say anything, because then it may call into question various things that she has signed off on. Right if there is some sort of diminished capacity, then she may not be able to fulfill the role of her job, in which case then things that she has voted for. Although mayors don't really vote on anything unless it's to break a tie or something, but if she's signing her name to contracts or anything like that, that may present a problem. And maybe it's just gotten progressively worse, but that's what it seems like to me. And again, at last night's meeting, there were a couple of incidents that like, for example, there was this debate over point two acres. This is so stupid. Point two acres. This was a tiny little chunk of land near the Panthers stay or something, and it's like it's a parking lot, dot owns the land. They were refusing to give it to the city or sell it to the city, and now they finally have given it up. They're like, okay, fine, we don't need this anymore. And so Temper Sports and they're entertainment wants to incorporate it into the building of a theater or amphitheater or something like that, a music venue. And then you had a. Couple of city council members, like literally like three or four of them, and they're like, well, I'm not so sure about this, Like what's the market value on this? And you know, like he's already building this other thing all around it. And if it was part of the earlier if this land was available a decade ago, it would already have been part of the project. But they tried to stall this thing. And so in this discuss, well, here we go. This is what it sounded like. I think that everyone has had an opportunity to speak, and I really appreciate the kindness of understanding how difficult it can be doing something in a company that. That's the wrong clip. I already played that one. Here's the right clip. Oh no, hmm, No, I don't think I have numbers. I don't have clip number six in my file. Oh that's terrible. Anyway, the same sort of thing happened where she got lost when people made a motion to defer and then she said, okay, what's the what's the vote, and they're like, no, no, no, we got there's a motion to defer that's been seconded, so now you have to hold the vote, and then you could, and then other council members were basically running the vote and telling her what was going on. So that happened, and then there was another incident last night as well, and both times she's like, oh, I just couldn't hear. I just couldn't hear. And again, maybe that's true, but maybe she couldn't hear because she didn't her brain didn't process what she was hearing that she in her mind she didn't hear it, and maybe that's because of something else going on. And she also said something about how her son is building her a house or building a house and she is moving to Huntersville, So that tells me she's moving up there in the house with her son. And remember she had just bought a house in some historic neighborhood. Remembering there's all this commotion about it because she was doing renovations on it and changing the architectural look of it and all of this. So why do all of that to then just moved. To Huntersville unless there's some sort of aging in place thing that's factored into the decision. And again I'm not saying this to be mean or anything. I'm just I'm pointing this out like that there there are a bunch of signs here that indicate something else was going on. It's not simply to be you know, able to spend more time with your family. On the text line, Steve says, yolows just breaking my heart. Yeah, it's incredibly said. Look, I do. You know every year I do the walk to end Alzheimer's. Even when we talked about this sort of thing with Joe Biden, this was never done for you know, mockery or any other reason except that, like this is an elected official, can they still do the job. And you know, we don't want to see another Joe Biden. We don't want to see an Ella Scarborough, former Mecklenburg County commissioner, you'll recall who just quit coming to meetings and everybody kind of pretended that they didn't know something was going on when they did, and then there were votes being asked and you could hear it wasn't Ellis Scarborough's voice. That apparently her daughter on a zoom call voted for Ella instead. And then. That's not that's not good. Okay, that's not good. If you can no longer fulfill the duties of the office, then you should step aside. Absolutely, And I give Lyle's credit if that's what's happening here. And I don't know this, I'm just saying, like, I'm noticing these signs, and like some of these signs, people who have been caregivers for their loved ones, they recognize them. I'm getting all sorts of messages about this, like, right, there are patterns, there are things that people do. And you know, at one point in the meeting, I mentioned this earlier and here's the yeah, here it is number three. I did bring this one over at the end of the meeting because this was her last meeting. Council members thanked her and they praised her, and there's a lot of you know, speeches you know about her and to her, very kind things were said Victoria Watlington. She did not have much to say. Their relationship to me has always seemed I'm just an observer. I just watched the meetings. I have no inside knowledge of any of this. It just seemed like their relationship always seemed a bit cold. And you know, her comments last night were very, very brief, and she was like, I gave you my remarks earlier, and then she said, you know, best of luck. Basically, see you around. You know, we'll see you around. I'm sure, she said. And we will see you I'm sure around, I hope. So, I mean at some point. So I'm not going anywhere. I don't know, if you know what. My son is building a house Thatville, so my tax rates will go down. One thing I. Have, did you get taken it out? You know, I guess I've just done too much truth today. But there I really will tell you that one of the most important things that I hope to do is to engaged with the community. By the way, UH council members, when you are eating your bags of chips, please move them away from the microphones. My goodness, this has been a problem for twenty five years. Move the chips away from the microphones. The mics are on, we can hear it. And when you open your bag of chips. That's what it sounds like on the microphones. But you heard her comment there. So yeah, we're moving to Huntersville. My son is building a home in Huntersville, so my tax rates are going down. Which so you raised the taxes. On everybody in Charlotte and then you're going to move to Huntersville so you get a lower tax rate. Like that's so Charlotte, But also why are you moving to Huntersville to live in this home? Right? Then there was this James Smudgie Mitchell passed over. He's the mayor pro tem, passed over as the interim mayor. He did not win in that selection process, but he talked about the first time that he met Violiles. So serving with you probably longing anybody else. I remember you a budget director. Then I remember you assistant city manager. And the first time you came in off was I was a dishy two rail. You said, smudget, your telephone bill is too high. Oh yeah, we had a paper minute that day, and you taught me there that you got to stay out of the newspaper. That was the number two things. Never let the newspaper know what you're doing. Never let the newspaper know what you're doing. Is that something that you're supposed to say? I guess you know who cares now because she's leaving office, I guess. But just like the tax comment, like I don't think this is something she would have said five years ago, you know, And I remember that story. By the way, Smudgie ran up massive cell phone bills and the Observer got a hold they I think they did a foyer request and got all of the uh, the expenditures that the city council members were running up for their you know, technology allowances and such a Smudgie's phone bill was through the roof, like using his cell phone all the time, and you could say it's for constituent services or whatever, but it was like way bigger, way bigger than everybody else's cell phone usage. And some of the other members were like what are you actually using the cell phone for? You know, But apparently VI went in and said, like, your bill's too high. You made the newspaper. It's not good. Stay out of the newspaper. You never you don't want the newspaper know what you're doing, which is not really a great message, like are we about transparency here or what let me see here I have to do. This is seven oh four number always a bride's maid, never a bride, always the mayor pro tem, never the mayor. So yeah, Smudgy, by the way, I got a message about this yesterday. Like he does pronounce his nickname smudge ee, even though it's spelled s m u gg i e, And I actually know the backstory on that. It's a nickname that was given to him when he was a very very young child by his family and his uncle, Norman Mitchell, tells this or used to tell this story. Norman was a county commissioner and said that he would always rubbed dirt on his face or something, and so that's why they. Called him smudge He always had smudges on his face. But apparently they couldn't spell it. A couple of final cuts here from the city council meeting last night. First off, there were a ton of people that came down to lobby for their preferred candidates, and Smudgie actually had a lot of people there to support him. The council then voted by secret ballot on paper I would note, and then for some reason it took a while to tally the votes but then all right. So we have a package that was just sent to me and I've just opened it up and it reads, no one received six votes. Turn this over now to our city attorney for the next steps situation. So you hear that it's a stage direction that was given to the mayor telling her what to say, and then there was a stage direction. Turned this over now to the city attorney for the next steps, and she did. Uncle, you will receive another ballot. You will once again need to select one candidate or this runoff ballot. And the names on the runoff ballot are. The names are Carrie Cook and Robert Harrington. Democracy. Let me let me be let me be clear. I'm sorry, So no one received six I want to read the tally. Out, okay. I thought, oh, we got to do that before. We move forward, and I was okay. Harold Coddale received two votes, Harry Cook received three votes, Robert Harrington received four votes. James Mitchell received two votes. So your two highest vote getters h Robert Harrington with four carry Cook with three. Neither of them received six votes. So hence council voting again to determine the highest vote getter. Now, some one will need to reach six in order to be appointed. Now it's like nails on a chalkboard. Vote tainer, vote tainer, vote getter, it's terrible word, terrible words. So they voted again in a runoff, and then after a longer period of time for the second tally to occur. I'm not sure why it took even longer, but it did, and then they announced the results. All right, so we've received the opening and we do have a person to join this organization, having received six or more council vote members votes. There is a motion to appoint Robert Harrington by acclamation to the office of Mayor, to the office of Mayor upon vacancy by the office by by laws. So I'm leaving tomorrow. Yes, all right. So that's how it went down. Robert Harrington. He told council members during his formal interview that he will not run for mayor in twenty twenty seven, which is what council members really really really really really wanted in whoever they appointed, because they did not want to give him some sort of an advantage in a mayoral open race. They didn't want to make him the incumbent for eighteen months. And then he could try to parlay that into you know, political donations and support for a run in twenty twenty seven, because they want to run for mayor. You got, like, I think out of the eleven council members, I think like seventeen of them want to run for mayor. And I'm kidding, I think it's like four four or five. So like, there are a bunch of these council members that want to run for mayor, so they don't want somebody in that seat that's able to build any kind of base of support against their potential run. Harrington, sixty three years old, is a partner with Robinson Bradshaw. According to Tony macio Over at the Charlotte Ledger, Robinson Bradshaw is Charlotte's third largest law firm. In picking Harrington, the council made the rare move of choosing a political outsider to assume the city's top political job. The last Charlotte mayor to take office with no elected political experience was department store chain CEO John Belk in nineteen sixty nine. Harrington is the second Charlotte mayor, after Richard Vinroot, to come from Robinson Bradshaw, the firm, which is also where State Representative Brandon Lofton works. He'll preside over an eleven member city council that has been close to evenly split on key issues. He is seen as a pro business candidate, but was careful to say in interviews that governing is a balancing act and needs to meet the needs of those who live here. This is one of the divides as the Charlotte observers Nick Sullivan did a story on this a couple of days ago about the mayor finalists who holds the power the activist crowd or the business crowd. Activists and businesses right, and in picking Harrington, it seems like the business crowd has more sway on city council at this point because the activist crowd they were apparently pulling for Harold Cogdail. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again. Thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.