Charlotte Super NOT fired (yet) and our toll road fiasco | 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 vpetecleanershow 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 contrary to reporting that we actually aired yesterday, the superintendent of Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools is not out of a job. Yet. She's merely been put on temporary paid leave pending an investigation. Which I feel like that sounds even worse. Just from a PR perspective. I think it's one thing to say, like, you know, we have let the superintendent go, we wish her the best in her future endeavors, thank her for her hard work, blah blah blah blah blah. But now it's like, yeah, we got her on leave pending an investigation into matters involving administrative and operational oversight. And I'm I'm not really sure what that means. And I'm sure. If anybody were to ask the members of the school board, they will say it's a personnel matter and we cannot discuss it. Yeah. The Board of Education. Announced this yesterday, evening that it put Superintendent Crystal Hill on temporary paid leave. The announcement followed a day of the intense speculation about Hill's future with the district, which was fueled by her absence from recent graduations and a district leadership conference. That does kind of get people talking, right When the superintendent doesn't show up to important events and nobody is saying why she's not there, it does tend to activate the rumor mill. The board has asked the deputy Superintendent, Melissa Boltknight, to and take on additional responsibilities to ensure the district has steady leadership during this period. The board's response this is from their statement, the Board's responsibility is to ensure appropriate oversight and accountability across the district while supporting the continued operation of our schools. Because this is an active personnel matter, the board is limited in what it can discuss publicly at this time. The district will not provide additional comment regarding the investigation at this time. I suspect. They're not going to tell us anything ever. Really, even after they cut her a big fat check, right if they fire her without cause, then they got to pay her like over three hundred thousand dollars. They got to give her like a year's salary if they find cause, which maybe this is what they are searching for in their investigation. And I don't know who's doing the investigation, like that, is that the board? Did they bring in some outside entity or personnel? I'm not sure. They haven't told us they're just doing some investigation. There's some pending investigation. Is that? Is it criminal? Is the DA looking into her or something? I don't believe that would be the case. The DA then would have something to say, But the DA doesn't usually comment on whether or not they are investigating something or not, so they probably wouldn't. But they don't say it's criminal. So, like, what exactly is this about? They say it's involving administrative and operational oversight. What does that mean? Does that mean that she's not doing enough. To oversee the people in her employ Like she's hired a bunch of her own, you know, loyalists and such into the top posts. And then just lets them run wild or something, or like, what's going on here? What is going on? Why is look? I used to be a reporter for WBT in the early two thousands through like two thousand and nine. I think it was from like ninety nine through I think oh eight, I think yeah, I'm pretty sure. No, I guess it would have I guess it would have been oh nine something like that. So for about a decade, I covered the school board, I covered the Mecklenburg County Commission, I covered the city council, and like, we never had like this level of dysfunction. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that those boards were were, you know, devoid of dysfunction. They absolutely had a lot of dysfunction. I mean, in some periods were highly dysfunctional. But to go through as many like mayors that Charlotte has gone through in a brief period of time, to have people leaving offices, to have a county commissioner, remember Ellis Scarborough, she was like absent for months and people were like, what's going on? And then like her daughter was voting via zoom because Ellis Scarborough was basically incapacitated medically incapacitated, and then county commissioners when this was exposed, they well, if we if we move her, then she loses her health benefits and all this stuff like this level of dysfunction and borderline criminality when it's not outright criminal like Pat Cannon taking bribes as mayor. This wasn't Charlotte prided itself on clean government. I mean, yes, there were fights, and there were disagreements and stuff, bad priorities and whatever, but they prided themselves in clean government, lack of corruption. I mean, we just had a city council member and her two daughters indicted right for stealing a bunch of COVID money and throwing herself a big birthday party with a horse drawn carriage and a throne. Right. And here's the problem with this level of corruption. Businesses don't want to do business here because they don't want to be a part of that kind of corruption. They don't want to get shaken down, so they will go someplace else. This is what you are putting at risk, Democrats. And I say democrats because you guys run the city now, you have for several years, for a long time, so like you guys are creating at the very least, a perception that Charlotte is dysfunctional at best, at worst corrupt, and that has far reaching implications for all of the city, for the region. I would submit now Crystal Hill has responded. The superintendent has responded in her own statement, saying she would fully cooperate with the investigations. She said, for the past three and a half years, I've dedicated my full attention, time, and effort to serving the Board of ED and the students, staff, and community it represents. It has been one of the greatest honors of my career to serve as superintendent. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to partner with the Board, our educator's staff, students, families, and community members. During this time, we've experienced historic academic gains, improved teacher working conditions, increased compensation for every employee category, passed a two and a half billion dollar bond, achieved four fully funded budgets from the county Commissioners, which has not been achieved in recent history. Throughout my twenty eight year career, I have led with integrity, transparency, and accountability while serving in multiple roles across several districts. Throughout our great state. While I am saddened by the Board of Ed's recent actions and the circumstances surrounding them, I remain committed to our community, our district, and our mission. I will cooperate fully with any review and trust that the process will be conducted objectively and thoroughly. End quote. I don't know, people, I'm just getting the sense that there's going to be a big, fat check that we're going to have to be on. The hook for. Here's that's what it seems. Likes coming. You know. Stories are powerful. 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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 creative video dot com. Let me see here. From the WBT text line, Tony says, Tony B says, do you have a list of ways to get some of this paid leave? I'm very interested. Yeah, yes, I too am willing to go under an oversight investigation by some entity unnamed. I'll just take a couple of weeks off you guys, investigate away and let me know how it turns out. I'm just kidding. I have no oversight here. Come on. Debbie says, pay pretty sure you have nailed it. Thank you, Debbie, appreciate that. And Jennifer says, if we end up having to cut a big fat check, then every single member of the school board should be voted out. I'll take things democrats will not do. For five hundred Alex do I need to stop saying Alex on that bit because Trebeca's he's he's been gone for a while. Who's the new guy, Chad cad Ken. I'll take things that I'll take things that the Democrats won't allow to happen for five hundred Ken or Blossom? Doesn't she do it too? Doesn't Blossom do it? But she has a weird first name. I mean, Blossom's not a usual first name either. But Tim says, the last Charlotte superintendent tried to resign and they told him to take back his resignation. He takes back his resignation and then they fire him and pay him like half a million severance. I wonder who had just who he had to split the money with. I'm sure they'll do the same thing with this lady. Yeah. That was the the Ernest Winston era, the guy and I remember Ernest. Nice guy? Uh he was? He was the education beat reporter for a while. So whilst I was covering the school board meetings for WBT, he was covering the school board meetings for the Charlotte Observer. That's where I met Winston. And I don't know, something kind of weird to me at least, you know, you're a reporter covering the school district and then you go to work for it, Like. That's always struck me as anyway. So he went to work for the school district and he was in the comms shop, I believe, and I think he then went and got I think he went to be a teacher or something, and then he he had this meteoric rise through the ranks and then became superintendent somehow. And his utter lack of experience. In running an operation, you know, a billion dollar operation, was actually pitched as some sort of positive And it's funny because I'm old enough to remember during one of the many many superintendent searches that the boord of ED undertook while I was a reporter, that there was a push to get somebody outside of the education industry to come in. This was this was an idea pitched by former school board members Jim Puckett and Larry Gavreau I believe, Lyndaln Cacadellis. They were all Republicans. That was back when Republicans could actually win seats on the Board of ED and they and they suggested like getting you know, like a general. I think they actually had like a retired general apply for one of the UH in one of the job searches or something, and they wanted to get somebody from outside the education field but had experience, you know, running large organizations, and of course Democrats shot that down. So speaking of Democrats shooting stuff down, No, this is not a crime update. This is about the the I seventy seven toll road expansion project that has been killed. It has been shot down by local leaders, local politicians. Okay, this thing has been in the work since two thousand and seven, and the the NCDT unveiled a proposal a couple months ago and they said, look, it's going to cost you know, like three billion plus. We don't have the funds to build this eleven mile expansion. It would go from the South Carolina border into basically center city Charlotte, you know, from from South Carolina up to the John Belk Freeway basically, And they said, we can't afford it on our own, so we're going to do one of these public private partnerships where we get a private company to come in and they will build it. They'll take out all the bonds, they take all the risk, we'll kick some money towards it, but I think the state was going to toss in like six hundred million, and then the private entity would make the additional lanes tolls to recoup the expense of building it. And so this engendered pushback from people who do not. Want to pay tolls on roads, and it. Got pushed back from people who are in the McCrory Heights neighborhood no relation to Pat McCrory, spelled differently, it's got an E in it, and so this is a neighborhood that is historically black, and so of course then it became this racisty plan, like all of a sudden, dot is packed with a bunch of racists who are trying to, you know, gobble up all of these homes in order to widen I seventy It's not even widening. Actually, it would have been to put a double decker freeway on top of I seventy seven to make it to elevate the lanes, because it's even more expensive to try to widen it because basically, and if you've ridden I seventy seven, you know south of Uptown, you know this to be true. There's not enough room you're gonna have to you're gonna have to buy out a bunch of businesses and homes and everything along the sides of I seventy seven because it's built right up or you know, they put seventy seven right through the center of the city. And that's that was a terrible decision made decades ago. And it was those that that kind of decision was made in cities all across America, and it was a stupid decision. The interstates should never have been run through the centers of cities, but they were. And so unless you're going to route I seventy seven at a cost that I cannot even imagine what that would be, you're gonna have to go up, or you're gonna have to go under. If you want more lanes on. Seventy seven, you're gonna have to go above, or you're gonna have to go below. How do you do that? It does not look like DOT entertained the possibility of building a tunnel underneath seventy seven. Maybe they will, I think it's more expensive, but they did not. They proposed a plan to put a double decker on and the outrage ensued, and the local politicians bowed to that public pressure and they killed the deal. And I said at the time, this will not be without some repercussions. I suspect that the state is going to take that money and send it elsewhere. I was correct on that. The state is saying they're going to do that. And now the state is saying, we're going to charge you guys in the local governments for the expenses we have already incurred at NCDOT and outrage ensues again. From the Charlotte Observer article by DJ Simmons, I think I saw a DJ Simmons at a club New Year's Eve, twenty twenty. No, just kidding. The Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization or the CRTPO, or as I call it, CURTIPO is maintaining its decision to end support for the funding agreement for the I seventy seven South toll Lane project for now after a motion to reopen the discussion failed last night. Okay, so CURTIPO, remember killed the deal, they backed out of it, They reversed their approval couple of weeks ago. Or yeah, maybe a month or two ago now. And CURTIPO is made up of representatives politicians from the various local governments, city council, and Charlotte. You know the six quote unquote small towns. They're not small anymore, small cities. I'll call them. The county dot is on there right. So you had the Curtipo vote after you had votes from like the Charlotte City Council, Mecklinberg County commissioners and all of this, and so they were like, we don't support this anymore. After they got to look at the plan, and then they got all of the the hate from the activist crowd that said you can't do this because you're going to end up taking some of the houses in McQuary Heights and we're going to lose a park. Then they reversed course and they said we don't like this plan, we don't support it anymore. So they pulled their support. And so then the state said, okay, you're going to pull your support. That means the six hundred million dollars for this project plus another one hundred million that was supposed to go to Charlotte as part of this deal, and Charlotte would get to choose what projects that they would spend that extra one hundred million on. You're going to lose that too, right, So we're going to send that money to other places in the state because there are a lot of places in the state that are asking for nc DOOT funding. And I always try to point this out whenever we're talking about our authority structure when it comes to roads in North Carolina. There's only one state that has more state maintained roads than North Carolina, and that. State is Texas. Okay, So North Carolina is the predominant builder and maintainer of our roads in this state. Is that a great model? Maybe not? Maybe, whatever, that's the model. So if you want NCDOT funds for your roads, then you have to compete with every other project. In the state. And this this is a problem, right for an area like Charlotte that's been booming for so long and you've got these state roads and you're competing with other areas. And historically, except for like you know, a brief period of time when Mayor Pat McCrory became governor and he was like, we're gonna, you know, overhaul this system because it's always been based on political power, not where the need is. Now. Obviously the need is probably really really great in the cities. So Pat being a former mayor, he recognized, like, how much of our traffic congestion is due to state roads not being widened, not keeping up with infrastructure, and he would be correct. He was correct on that. Now that being said, a lot of our traffic problems are also due to the local governments not keeping up with infrastructure either. Okay, so it's not like this is just a state problem. Okay. So Kurtipo has its meeting last night and James Kerr, who represents Munroe, made the motion to add reconsidering the vote. Onto the agenda. Okay, so it wasn't on the agenda, but the rep from Monroe said, can we add this to the agenda to reconsider that earlier vote and the vote that failed, So he didn't even get it back on the agenda. That move by mister Kerr was after the Monroe City Council voted earlier yesterday, and I mentioned this on the show to direct its representative to reverse its vote that it took back in May to rescind support for the I seventy seven project. Okay, so here's the story from WCNC by Julia Kay that the Monroe City Council reverses its vote on the I seventy seven South toll lanes. Why because the state is saying, you're gonna have to pay us back for the sixty plus million dollars that we have already spent on planning. This thing has been in the work since two thousand and seven. They have devoted sixty plus million dollars to the project already. And now we unveil what the engineering plans look like and you guys pull support, Well, well that's sixty plus million dollars that is just wasted. So and you guys have been voting to go along with this at every step along the way. And now that we've got the engineering plans, which were not final plans, but they give you the plans and then you pull your support, okay, pay us back, and Monroe would be on the hook for about two point three million dollars. So the Monroe City Council says, actually, now we're for it. We're okay, we didn't know about this, like, don't take our money. Some local leaders, however, say the proposed legislation is intended to pressure municipalities into changing their votes. Yeah I could see that right. Yeah, it's called consequences. See when there were no consequences for you pulling your support, then you were willing to pull your support Monroe. But now that there are consequences, financial consequences, now, oh now your votes literally have changed. Mayor pro ten siru Utah Anthony defended her initial decision to rescind support for the project. She said, quote, most of us have had enough of this bs. The mayor, Robert Burns, said the city needs to prepare for that two point three million figure to potentially go up. He says, somebody's got to pay for the sixty million in a sense, Okay, it is a punishment in essence, but in reality that only looks like that because we voted on the other side of everybody else. We think. The thing we have to consider is they're not even bringing yet the cost of staffing and things like that for ten years. So it's really concerning what it could turn into. Also, it could jeopardize one hundred million dollars in road projects along with thirty million requested for airport improvements in Monroe. Anthony, the Mayor pro tem, said she believes there are other motivations, including behind this legislation brought by state representative or state Senator rather Vicky Sawyer, saying that she believes this is political and ties it to the soon to be open Senate leadership seat. I'm not really clear what she's talking about there, Like, what exactly is the partisan play? What's the play? I don't get it all right. So what prompted the Curtipo discussion last night, as well as a discussion at the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, where they too said that they stand by their previous vote opposing the project on I seventy seven and that they do not plan to reverse their position is proposed legislation from Senator Vicky Sawyer, a Republican who represents Iredell and a portion of Mecklenburg County. She proposed a draft amendment to another bill that's being debated, and this would claw back the sixty million dollars a little bit more. I think it's like sixty three million or something, but it would claw back the money that NCDOT has already sunk into this project that has now been derailed. According to the Charlotte Observer piece by Desiree Methorin and Nick Sullivan, until those governments pay up, the state would not start new transportation projects and would withhold Powell Bill funds, which is state aid that pays for road maintenance Powell Bill. Her proposal landed in local leaders inboxes last week. Charlotte City Council members say they are waiting for guidance from the City Attorney's office on how to proceed amid ongoing discussion about I seventy seven's congestion issues. Some say they were not surprised that the General Assembly wanted to insert itself into discussions on a local project business leaders say is needed to continue the region's economic growth. Okay, just a point of clarification here, because I'm seeing this now too many times to think that it is not anything other than a talking point that is being promoted, which is that this is a local project, this is a local issue. Okay. I understand that, yes, it is local. However, this is a state project. Okay, So it's both. So you you do not get to offload the costs and keep control. It's not how this works, okay in all things. I say this all the time when I'm talking to various HOA issues. If you want control over how this project is going or how this money is being spent or whatever. You don't get to charge somebody else for the project, and then you keep all the control. If they're being charged, if they're having to pay for it, then they get a say too. Okay, that's kind of fundamental. So this is the state DOT trying to widen a state maintained road as part of the federal interstate system. So this is not a quote local project in the way that you are asserting that it is. Okay, but I understand why you're framing it like that, because you're demanding that the state just what cough up a bunch of money and then let you dictate how this is going to get built. Some say, oh, so this is a guy named Sean Langley, president of the Rory Heights Neighborhood Association, scoffed at the idea of repaying ncdt Okay, scoff away, Sawyer or Langley scoff away. But it's a state project, and all your scoffage does not make that false, like it's the NCDOT is riding shotgun on this. Oh no, no, they're driving this. According to Vicky Sawyer in her weekly radio program on w AM in Statesville, said this has been vetted, supported and will be in the budget. This is me actually being kind to the City of Charlotte and to those communities who did vote to rescind, and I'm communicating to you right now that this will happen. This is not a joke. You will lose this and you will have to pay back the money to the state, or until you pay the money back, your Powell Bill dollars will be frozen. Curtipo member and Mineral Springs mayor Rick Becker cautioned that the General Assembly could get involved during May. The Curtipo meeting back in May, so he wasn't surprised by this amendment because attracts with how the General Assembly has inserted itself into local politics in recent years. So again, state project folks. I didn't think the General Assembly was going to just let it drop, he said. We've seen what the General Assembly does as a municipal official. I kind of don't like it, but we have to work with what they do. I see this as being perfectly in line with their feelings. If they want the road built and the municipalities are standing in the way, they're going to handle it. The claim that the state should recover money for sunken costs. Quote has merit, said Ed Driggs, the Charlotte delegate on the Curtipo, and he was the only member who took a vocal stance in favor of the project. Yeah. I said this before, when they were toying with this idea of blocking the project. I said, be very careful what you do here, because the General Assembly will have a say. They get a turn at bat on state projects, and this is also a state project, and here we are reaping that which we have said. 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.