Charlotte is fastest-growing city in the US; water restrictions; Murdaugh verdict tossed | Hour 3

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 thepetcleanershow 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. So Charlotte added more residents last year than any other city in America. We are the fastest growing city in America, despite our local government. I think they all moved into my neighborhood and they drive the same route I take into commute. Believe that ours who. WHOA Sorry, Sorry that was my fault. I've misfired the clip there. So Charlotte, this is from the is from Business NC dot com piece by Kevin Ellis. You can, by the way, sign up for their daily digest newsletter comes right to your email, which is where I got this. Charlotte added more residents last year than any other city in the country, according to data release this morning by the US Census Bureau. Another big deal, Raleigh across the five hundred thousand resident mark aw aw, good job, rally, you cleared half a million. We're approaching a million here. Charlotte is the nation's fourteenth largest city. Now, we saw an increase of twenty thousand, seven hundred thirty one residents, So our total population is now nine hundred sixty four thousand and seven eighty four So call at nine six five nine hundred and sixty five thousand. Roughly we are just slightly behind San Jose, California. We pick up another twenty five thousand, so maybe in like another two years we surpass San Jose. I don't know. I don't know how many people are fleeing San Jose, but they are in California, so I have to imagine they're not probably, you know, skyrocketing up the chart for population growth, you know what I mean. So that's so we could be number thirteen within a year or two. The top twelve other cities all have more than a million people. Number one is New York City at eight and a half million, and that is twice as many as Los Angeles, so La comes in at about four million. However, New York City actually lost about twelve and residents. That is the greatest numerical decrease in the nation. They lost more people out of New York City than any other city just by the raw numbers. Kevin Ellis goes on to report, despite Charlotte's numeric growth, six other smaller towns in the metro area grew faster if you look at percentage increase, which makes sense because if you're a smaller location and you you know, you pick up, like if you're only ten thousand people and you double in size, like you're going to have a massive population growth by percentage. But we picked up, you know, twenty thousand people. But by percentage wise, that's that's not a lot percentage wise, right, Okay, So do you know what what town or city in the Charlotte metro area grew the most by percentages? Fort Mill Fort Mill, South Carolina at six point eight percent. They're now at thirty eight thousand, six seventy three. The six cities have populations in Mecklenberg County or I'm sorry. The six are the small towns in the metro area that grew anywhere from twenty five thousand to seventy thousand people. Raleigh's population increased one point four percent, going from four hundred and ninety nine thousand to five h six So Raleigh now clears the half a million resident mark. Good for you, Raleigh, I kid, Raleigh, I kid. Meanwhile, maybe this is related to the growth, but now it's actually mainly due to the lack of rainfall. Just the heads up everybody that Charlotte Water is implementing mandatory water restrictions beginning tomorrow, okay tomorrow due to the ongoing dry conditions. What does this mean for you? I shall tell you. Charlotte Water is asking everybody to adhere to a mandatory conservation Action Plan Number one. Irrigate lawns and landscapes no more than two days per week, and you can only water between six pm and six am. And so they're asking if your home address ends in an odd number, then you water on Tuesdays and Saturdays. If you have an even numbered house address, then your watering days are Wednesdays and Sundays, all right, So even number Tuesday, Saturday, even number Wednesday Sunday. If you have a swimming pool, it may be topped off only on Thursdays and Sundays, again between six pm and six am, So only overnight water here. You are not allowed to wash your vehicles at home. You are not allowed to fill residential swimming pools. So if you were putting a pool in, you're gonna have to bring in a tanker, truck or something to fill it because you're not allowed to fill it with the hose. You're not allowed to operate water features unless that water feature supports aquatic life, so like if you've got a coy pond or something, then fine, but if you don't have any aquatic life in there, you're not allowed to run the water feature like a fountain for example. You cannot power wash surfaces unless it is for an essential purpose. I don't know if an HOA violation would fit that bill. You're not allowed to hold charity or fundraising car wash events. Additional recommended actions so these are just recommended, not mandatory. Reduce indoor in outdoor water use water lawns with no more than one inch of water per week including rainfall. And one of the ways they you've probably seen this before. It's like you take a tunafish can and you can put it out there and measure how much water from like your sprinklers, how much you know how long does it take to fill up the tuna fish can? Well, obviously you got to take the tuna fish out first, so take the tune out, rint it out, probably, and then well maybe. Not, I don't know. You're trying to conserve water. So then you have the empty can and you just set it down and you measure how long it takes for that thing to fill with your sprinkler, and that's how long to run your sprinklers. Recommend it also identify and repair any water leaks as quickly as possible. Customers are permitted to use drip irrigation, soaker hoses or hand water plants and landscaping. Okay, I went to the drip lines a long time ago and they're great. Set them up on a timer. I snake it all around my front garden and so they just come on they drip line. They keep them hydrated and then they shut off. You are allowed to use commercial car wash facilities because they recycle their water, so you can't wash your car at your house, which I've never really understood this because like when you wash the car like in your driveway or something, or even if you're doing it on the front lawn, like the water does make it back into the system. Right, the water runs down the driveway, it goes down into the storm drain, and then doesn't that go into the system. It goes back into the system, it gets treated and then pump back into the river. Like, how is that different than rainfall? You know, I've never understood that one. If drought conditions worsen, additional response measures may be considered in alignment with regional protocol or protocols. If you were not here in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, that was the last time we had a major drought here in Charlotte. I remember it well. We would take a bucket and when we would start up the shower, and it took a while for the water to get hot, and so we would just run the water and fill a bucket and then keep the bucket in the shower, take the shower, and then after you're done, you have the bucket and I would go out and I would dump that on the plants out front, use that in the gardens. In fact, I think, if I recall correctly, they had to like change the gray water because that would be considered gray water. They had to change the law to allow the use of gray water in planner beds because you're technically not supposed to be dumping the gray water onto the lawn or out in the streets or out the windows. It's like very medieval, you know. They would just throw the they would just throw their waist out the sides of the castle wall. That was like in the moat. It would all go into the moat. Of course, then breeded all sorts of nasty diseases and stuff and probably cause the Black plague. So there is that. You know. 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They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creativideo dot com. A couple of messages from the text line, Rodney says, Charlotte's growth is another sign of our poor education system, because who in their right mind, with any knowledge would want to live in the cesspool known as Charlotte Nc's. I mean, I've been here for twenty five years. I don't know, Jamie says. Don't water fountains just recirculate the same water the same way commercial car washes do. It sounds like a lot of some of the stupid COVID rules. No, because of evaporation. The when you know, the fountains they do take a water supply, so they are using water because as they you know, push the water out through the fountain, it then you know, turns into a mist. It drifts around, it breaks out of the it breaks, it breaks containment, right, it gets aerosolized and it's anyway, so evaporation when it's a mist, it evaporates faster and all of that. So it's yeah, so there is a water feed to these things. Is Charlotte Water gonna do like they did last time? We had to cut back and say everyone did such a great job cutting back, but you didn't use enough water, so we're gonna have to raise your rates because we're losing money. That's possible. Yes, that is possible. They did that last time. They were like, yeah, we asked everybody to cut back on their water use, but then that means we didn't make budget, so they raised rates. Yeah, huh, that's possible. Another Jeff says, do you believe all the hype on the socials about the amount of water data centers need? There is a big debate going on now up in Rowan County because some land has been rezoned to allow a data center to be built outside the Salisbury area. I actually have been I've been compiling various arguments pro and con on the data centers, and one of the things that I have seen is that people who are opposed to the data centers, they are it seems to me, at least at this point, that there is some some of them are playing fast and loose with some of the impacts, just like people who are pro data center, they may be minimizing some of the impacts. I think there and I've seen this week because I live out in western Mecklenburg County and there's a data center that's being constructed out there off of Wilkinson Boulevard, and we're not particularly close to it, Like we're not right next door to this thing. It's probably about three miles four miles away from us. And there are people on our Facebook, our neighborhood Facebook group that are you know, well, it's so loud, you're gonna be able to hear it. It disrupts sleep and you know whatever. It's like, I don't think you're gonna hear it all the way over here, like from what I see. If you're right up next to it, like within a couple hundred feet, yeah, you're gonna hear the you know, I don't know the machinery that's inside of it or outside of it, you know, the cooling systems and stuff. I do know it takes water. They use water for these centers. And that is a concern. However, I literally just saw something today that there was some study that was done and it was like. It said something like. The water usage that people are sighting as the stat is something like a one thousand times over project. So yes, it does use water and electricity. No, I don't think that these centers should be getting free water or free electricity or reduced rates or something like that. They need to pay the full free. They shouldn't be getting incentives from utility companies. And this is why I also say that these data centers should be should be doing their own power generation if you're going to use that much power, and like we are. And this is the other thing too. There are a lot of people I have noticed that are against the A or the data centers that are nimbi's bananas and greens. I've noticed this, Okay, Like the nimbies are the not in my backyard people. They don't want a data center near them. Then there are the bananas, which stands for build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone, and like I don't agree with I don't agree with that. And then there are the greenies who are out there citing all of the environmental damage and the water and the electrical use and all of that. But I would also point out to the Greens that you guys are the reason why we have the crunch on our energy grid now, right because we should be building and should have been building for the last forty years, more nuclear sites. And now you've got the small modular reactors and we can be building those at the data centers. Let them build their own SMRs. I mean, it seems like a no brainer to me. And when you know, we had what was it the Duke substations that got shot up by some maniacs, terrorists probably, and they shot up some of these substations to the east of US and it knocked neighborhoods off line for weeks. Like like, that's a problem. We need to harden those those targets. Yes, but also that put a crunch on the energy supply for those areas because those areas were being serviced or supplied i should say, with their energy from fossil fuel plants like coal fired plants, and they and they can't keep up with the demand. You know, what can you know it does nuclear? I remember there's this chart that showed nuclear or all energy sources that Duke provides, and it's got coal, and it's got solar and whatever else, hydro and nuclear and all of the non nuclear energy production facilities. Right, they're all like squiggly lines showing, you know, spikes in supply and then drop offs. Obviously the solar drop off is huge at night. And so there are all these quiggly lines. And I was looking on the chart, I'm like, well, where's the nuclear line. Where's the nuclear line? And I didn't even realize it. I thought it was I thought it was the graphics border at the top of the chart, because it's just a straight line right across the top of the chart. I thought it was the border. But no, that's it is a It's a constant, consistent supply of energy. And so if you're complaining about the stress on the energy grid of the data centers, then it seems to me like you should be supporting more energy production. It is the lifeblood of our civilization, of all civilizations. If you don't have energy, then you're going to spend most of your day walking four miles to go get water from a well. You know, so anyway down a rabbit hole, I. Went da, says Pete the data centers already are incorporating their own power generation. This is why companies like GeV and c Ay and Okla stocks are soaring. That is correct. I've seen and look, I'm fine if if your argument about the data centers is about the energy consumption and how they are getting because like when they first started doing them, they started cutting deals with energy companies, like you know, with direct access to the power generation plants and stuff, and they were getting discounted rates and that sort of thing. And I object to those. I'm fine if as part of approval, you know, zoning approval or whatever, I'm fine with putting in a requirement that they generate their own power or if they're going to tap into the grid, then they pay full freight. You don't get discounts, No discounts, Okay, But. Yes, I have seen some of these, some of these data centers are actually getting their own power supply. Rodney says, take out the water and power impact of a data center. What is the community benefit of having one? There are actually a few benefits. Number One, they pay a lot in taxes, right because they're usually getting developed on green fields, empty spots that there's no development there and so you're now putting a higher use, higher tax on the books. So you're going to be generating a ton of revenue for the local government while at the same time they demand very little service. There are very few employees that these things require, and so it's not like you are driving a huge population growth or demand. Right. You don't need to bring in thousands and thousands of people who would then need schools and hospitals, parks and sidewalks and roads and houses and everything else. So you're not having that kind of an impact, which people also oppose. This gets into the nimbiism of it all the not in my backyard people who are anti growth, right, they don't want there to be any new homes built. So if you put a data center in there, that's going to be better. Then if you build some sort of office complex or retail or commercial or manufacturing, right, you put something like that on the site, well, that's going to require a whole bunch of employees, and they're going to need places to live, which means you're gonna have to build more apartment oh my gosh, or condos or homes, and people complain about that too. Also, the data centers are necessary for the AI boom, and like we are leading that boom, and I have my concerns about AI, but I also am not anti AI. Just want that on the record, AI, when you take over everything, I am one of your supporters. Just for the record. There name is Pete Calener. I will I'll come in and put the oil in the gears and stuff for your machines. But seriously, like, the data centers are needed for the technology that we all demand that as a society and as the world, I mean, China is racing forward with this stuff too, and like I would prefer that we be the leader on that. But also the data centers are used for all sorts of other Internet applications and such too. So you know, when you have a society, a civilization as ours that is built off of the information super Highway, it requires. There to be. Data and servers and all of that stuff. So yeah, there are benefits to them. What is the community benefit? I mean the biggest one is the tax revenue. Let me see here, Raleigh says. During a previous drought, Keith Larsen would say this would say regarding toilet use, Yes, I remember this, it's if it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down. Kind of gross, but he made his point that's true, which is I mean, I've heard that before. Not to be confused with the motto in Springfield as articulated by Homer Simpson that if it's brown, drink it down. If it's black, send it back. That's a different level of water quality in Springfield. But yes, if it's yellow, let it mellow. You can reduce the flushing in your house as well through that axiom. Danny says it seems like today's data centers and AI in general are yester year's nuclear power there made out to be the boogeyman that can destroy the world and are painted by media with a big red X. After Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The same thing happened to nuclear power, and that is why we are so far behind, the same thing could happen in a race with China. In the areas of AI and data centers, they don't have those same homegrown hurdles, albeit communism. Jeremy says, I once worked at a data center. They are well insulated and you won't be able to hear them unless you are near a server room and yes, they do use a lot of water, but most try to recirculate the water. They do create some jobs in maintenance, tech, security, and sales, personal personnel and management staff. Yeah right, I'm not saying they don't employ anybody, but they don't like for the size of the projects, for the just the geographical size of these projects. Any comparable project of office, manufacturing, commercial, whatever, retail, like, you're gonna have way more employees, way more people there. So anyway, like I haven't even done all of the deep dive on the data centers yet, but like I said, I've been compiling a bunch of research on it. In fact, I actually just came across this stat regarding the water use of data centers. Let's say, yeah, billions of gallons per year. You've got a comparative data centers using somewhere probably in the neighborhood of just They don't have it labeled. They've got it broken down into like billions of gallons per year, and they've got it into like four hundred billion, eight hundred billion, twelve hundred billion and the like. And it looks like the data centers used somewhere in the neighborhood of I don't know twenty twenty to twenty five billion gallons per year. By comparison, almonds use about one point eight six trillion gallons of water per year. But I don't see a big campaign against almond farms. You know, what's the deal with that? This from the Charlotte Observer. The South Carolina State Supreme Court has unanimously ruled to overturn the twenty twenty three double murder conviction of disgraced attorney Alec Murdoch. I cannot believe it's been since twenty twenty three. This is what happens when you get older. Just for all you young'ins out there, like right now, you're marking time and weeks and stuff, days and weeks. As you get older, you start marking time in months, and then seasons, then years, and then it's like, wait a minute, that was ten years ago. M hmm. That's what happens. In its twenty seven page five to zero ruling from yesterday, the Supreme Court said the jury tampering actions of the former Collaton County Court clerk Rebecca Hill or Becky Hill no relation to Peggy as I understand it, But that denied Alec Murdoch his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury, and as soon as the news broke about what Becky Hill had done, this was what I thought was going to happen, because you don't get to do what she did and not jeopardize the trial. Murdoch's case will now go back to circuit court, where he is eligible for a brand new trial. Podcasters around the country rejoice. He is accused of killing his wife, Maggie and younger son Paul, at the Murdoch rural estate in Collington County on the evening of June seventh, twenty twenty one. According to the Supreme Court ruling, Becky Hill placed her fingers on the scales of justice. Now, there are some other questions that are raised by this ruling. For example, when will a new trial take place. Will Murdoch's attorneys or the prosecution ask. For a change in venue? Right, move the trial someplace else? And this is the problem when you do a trial of the century kind of a thing with this massive international audience and interest, is that now like everybody in town is aware of the case, they are aware of the details. Right, it's gotten all of this coverage. It's going to be difficult to find people who have not heard of the case. And if you find those people who have not heard the case, are those really the people you want on the jury? Also, who's going to be the judge? Because the judge in the first trial was a guy named Clifton Newman, who I think did a very good job just watching the proceedings as I did on Court TV. And he has since retired though, so who now will try the case? The Supreme Court ruling also raised questions about that judge's decision to let the jury hear more than twelve hours of testimony about all of the financial crimes that Murdoch committed. Normally, a jury hearing a criminal case is only allowed to hear evidence about the alleged crime in question. However, in what the judge said in this case was that it spoke directly to motive that all of the financial crimes that Murdoch was engaged in. Led to the walls closing in on him, and that was. The way he sought an exit. There was also. There was also a question of how much time was spent on the financial crimes aspect Murder Off fifty seven, a once wealthy fourth generation lawyer in his family firm in Low Country, Hampton County, is serving two life sentences for murder. He was disbarred by the Supreme Court in twenty twenty two as evidence about his financial crimes came to light. The Supreme Court actually called him a notorious former attorney. He has since pleaded guilty in both state court and federal court to numerous counts of fraud involving stealing money from his clients and his law firm. He is serving a multi year sentence at both the state and federal levels. He continues to say though he is innocent of the murders of his wife and son. Yesterday, the South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said he would retry Murdoch on the murder charges. Now. Wilson was apparently pretty close to the court clerk Becky Hill during the trial. He called her Becky Boo in front of dozens of reporters at a press conference following the verdicts. As clerk of court, Hill was responsible to attending to jurors needs and helping prosecutors, defense attorneys, and the judge with court affairs to make the trial run smoothly. Wilson is running for governor and was attacked yesterday after the ruling came out by Representative Nancy Mace. She is running also for governor against Alan Wilson, and Mace said that the prosecutors bungled the trial, which I don't think that's actually fair. The prosecution did not bungle the trial. The court clerk tampered with the jury and then wrote a book about it. Murdoch will remain incarcerated because of the financial crimes convictions. He's serving a twenty seven year sentence at the state level. He's got a concurrent so it's going to run at the same time a forty year sentence in federal prison. Okay, So that means he's not getting out until like eighties ninety years old or so if he lives that long. A motion for a new trial was filed because the allegation was that Becky Hill tampered with the jury in multiple ways, that she advised the jury not to believe his testimony and other defense evidence, she pressured the jury to reach a quick guilty verdict, and she misrepresented information to the trial court in an attempt to have the court remove a juror because she believed that juror was sympathetic to the defense, and you don't get to do that during a jury trial. 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 thepetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.