The Charlotte City Council primary is Sept. 9th (08-13-2025--Hour2)

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 right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Let's talk about the election. It's coming up in about three weeks. It's only the Charlotte City Council election. Well, it's the primary, but it's kind of the election because we are a Democrat controlled city and so whoever wins the Democrat primary is going to be the winner in the general election in November. So the Charlotte primary is September ninth. Okay, I will tell you that I have a Charlotte address. I do not actually live inside Charlotte City limits. Funny story. In fact, let me tell it. I wasn't gonna tell I'm gonna tell it. I'm gonna tell this story because I'm sure there are other parts of Mecklenburg County and maybe even some other parts around the state that are suffering under this same unintended consequence. So you got to go back to prior to twenty ten, when the state was controlled by Democrats, which it had been for like a century and a half since they engaged in a violent coup in Wilmington, North Carolina, the rise of the Klan and the Red Shirts and all of that. So they ran this state with a Democrat machine. So that meant they controlled the General Assembly, and they controlled the rules that the cities could grow under. And they did a thing called involuntary annexation, which was the city wanting to grow, and they would run some water and sewer lines out to your neighborhood or something, and then they would say, now we're going to annxu in. We're like, well, wait, we didn't want to be annexed in, or even better, they wouldn't even run the stuff out to you yet. They would just say we're going to annexu and then we'll get around to giving you the service. But even if the residents in the county did not want to be part of the city of Charlotte, it didn't matter. It was involuntary annexation. So this problem grew and grew, especially after cities were given the power called ETJ extra territorial jurisdiction ETJ. And what this meant was that the city knew it was going to gobble you up at some point. And in Becklelberg County, for example, the city was growing so fast they were annexing everything in the site. And so they were like, look, we're going to annex you in at some point anyway, so why don't we just go ahead and make you abide by our zoning laws. So this way, when we do gobble you up, you'll be in compliance with our zoning laws. And the areas that are outside the city limits in the unincorporated area, those are called the ETJ. So Charlotte has an ETJ, and Charlotte got together with all of the small towns quote unquote, and they all carved up their own etjs. So all of Mecklinberg County will eventually be annexed into the seven cities in Mecklinberg County. That was the idea. And so when now you've got the city of Charlotte making zoning decisions for county residents, and there's a problem here because the county resident cannot vote in the Charlotte City council races. So you have people that are not my representative. In my case, it's the federally indicted Tijuana Brown. She does not represent me. I cannot vote for her or against her. I would not vote for her, but like, I like that's but she gets to make decisions and be sort of the de facto council representative even though nobody can vote in the city council races. So they make all of these all of these zoning decisions at the city level, and I can't vote in those races. Why not? Well, when the Republicans finally wrestle control away from the Democrats in twenty ten, one of the very first things they did was to ban involuntary annexations. So now if the city wants to grow, you have to get a major already of the people living in the area to vote to become annexed into the city. So it's very difficult now because most people do not want to go into the city and pay higher taxes. Right, So that's where things have been now since twenty ten. Well, the neighborhood I live in was rezoned in two thousand and five and they're still not done building it. It's been like twenty years, and so you had a rezoning that was done. Oh and I also found out that the city doesn't keep the original site plans after like six years or so. It's apparently it's a state law. So we can't even get original site plans for our original neighborhood to find out what the builder was supposed to build. So when involuntary annexations go away, now you have these areas that are in a permanent state of etj constantly and forever ruled by city councils zoning edicts and permits and the like, yet no ability to seek redress from an elected representative. I mean, I can go to Vill Malik and ask her to throw some weight around or something, but she's not on city council. She's a county commissioner. And I don't think I would actually go to Vill Malik, but you know, maybe I've heard she's good with certain constituent services. So like, this is a this is a problem, and we're not the only neighborhood. And by the way, like our development's got like over a thousand homes, it's a pretty big areas that cannot be annexed in because here's the other kicker. We're not contiguous, we're not adjacent to city limits. We're too far away, so they can't. They can't annex us in even if we wanted to, even if we voted to. So, yeah, it's a problem. I might be a little salty about it at this point. Yes, well, you should have looked at that before you bought your house. Yeah, now, but I did not look at it. I did not check to see if I was in the ETG. I saw Charlotte address, just assumed that we had been gobbled up already by the city. And then it turned out, oh no, we're not because we had a Charlotte address. So I won't get to vote in this election. But you can if you are a registered Democrat. I believe if you are unaffiliated, you too can vote in the Democrat primary. So you can vote if you are inside city limits and you are not part of this ETJ okay, So if you're actually in the city district or a city district, you can vote in this election. And the primary election is September ninth. You got several mayoral candidates. Obviously, the incumbent Vy Lyles. She's running for reelection. She is being challenged in the Democrat primary by Delta Kenny Gwynn the third Jaron Gemini Boyd and Brendan McGinnis and Tigris Sidney Acute McDaniel. I'm just reading the name Tigris Sidney acute McDaniel, or maybe it's acutee. I don't know. I'm thinking VI's got that, thinking she's pretty sure she's gonna win that, but who knows. You never know. So then you've got the at large seats. There are four at large seats and the top four don't you say vote getters, that is a banned word here, The top four, that's right, votainers. The top four votainers they go on to the general election from each of the party primaries. Now, the Republicans, at least they're fielding a couple this time around. In years past they haven't even been able to field a single candidate for the at large seats. I mean, not that they're going to win one, but they at least they've got two. They've got Missoon Kim and Edwin Peacock. So they are running for the at large seats. They will not have a primary, there's only two of them. Top four votainers go to the general, so they were already into the general. Congratulations. By the way. Over on the Democrat side, you got ten. There are ten running for the four seats dimple Edjmeira incumbent, James smug g Mitchell incumbent, Lwana Mayfield incumbent, Victoria Watlington incumbent. They've got six challengers Matt Britt, Roderick Davis, will Holly, J. G. Lockhart, Emerson Stolt, and Namrata yadav Okay. So top four votainers from there will go to the general. So if you want to knock off any of these Democratic incumbents, and this is the way to do it, all right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature you're description. Then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. This is from somebody. They didn't give me their name. I'm right there with you, Pete. I can't vote, but got annexed and got none of the amenities. Yeah that's the thing. Well, you get road maintenance. And that's actually going to be the big problem for us, is road maintenance. See, because our neighborhood built to the city code, which we had to by law, you see, because we were under their ETJ, so we had to build the roads based on the city codes. And the city code says you have to plant trees between the sidewalks. You have to have sidewalks too, between the sidewalk and the road, so you got to plant all these trees. Well, then the law changed and now we're not going to get annexed into the city. So that means who takes our roads? Well, we're going to have to maybe turn them over to the NCDT. Well, the NCDOT has you guessed it different standards and they don't allow trees. Oh and we're under the city tree law, so we can't. We can't chop them down either. So yeah, thanks a lot, guys, appreciate that. It's been fantastic. Anyway, I got another message here from Russ fun annexation story. One of the things we liked about our first house was it wasn't in the city. We were on city water and sewer, but private trash pickup. After fourteen months we got annexed. The only thing we gained was city trash service. And well you also got police service, but you're paying for that separately. In these they set up in the county, in the ETJ and in the county like you were paying for the police service. So it shouldn't have been an additional cost. But right now you're in Yeah, the only main thing is you get the roadtenans and you get trash collection with the bulky item pickup, which is helpful because a lot of your private contractors won't pick up large items like that. So we were on city water and sewer. Private trash pickup got annexed, and all we gained was city trash service. For an additional eight hundred dollars a year in property taxes. We were able to replace our thirty dollars per quarter private service that would actually roll the can to the curb and put it back for us. Well, Russ, I think you're overlooking the fact that you also get to pay higher sales taxes, right, and you get to help support all of the big shiny projects in uptown. I mean, come on, can you really put a price on that? Yes, actually you can. It's the eight hundred dollars extra in Yeah, city property taxes you were paying. So yeah, So the city council primary election. By the way, this is weird the way Charlotte does its elections. And I'm not look, I'm not going to make any accusations as to why you would construct a primary to be held on September ninth, when there's nobody else holding elections, Like I would never say that. The reason you would do that is because you're you're wanting there to be low voter turnout, because voter turnout is lower in any non presidential or federal election cycle like the even numbered years. You have your state legislative races, governors races every four years, right, you have your judicial races. All that happens every two or four years on the even numbered years. You have the presidential race, US Senate Congress, you have federal races, right, But the municipals they run in the odd years, which keeps the turnout very low. And then they'll say, well, that's because we don't want to have to compete with all of the money that is used for political advertising in the even numbered years. It's just so hard to get our message out, right, so they hold them in the off year, the odd years. I don't know why you do a September ninth primary, because now you're lowering the turnout number even lower, right than you would get in a general November off your election too. And what happens the practical impact of that is that you end up with political parties putting forth candidates that get more and more extreme because they are speaking to the most activated portions of their base right. And in the Democrat Party that means the leftists and communists, the radicals. And so as a city like Charlotte becomes more and more Democrat, it gets pulled. The party keeps getting pulled more and more and more to the left. Now, is there some sort of a course correction that might occur in the general. Sure, if you've got some Democrats that are willing to forego the radical lefties that make it through the primaries. Look at Zoron Mamdani, right, same dynamic, low turnout, and primary is dictating then who's going to be in the general. And then you get people that walk in and they just pull the lever for the guy with the D next to his name. And it doesn't matter because, as Dennis Praeger says, conservatives vote their principles, Progressives or leftists vote their principles, but liberals do not. Liberals will vote for the radicals over the conservatives because they are cowards. They do not want to acknowledge that they actually are closer to the conservatives. Many of their core beliefs than they want to acknowledge, so they will keep going lefter and lefter and lefter, which is now a word. I've just made it up. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion, Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. 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John says elections across the states should be standardized, even if it is an odd year election. Every race should be partisan as well. Right now, some municipality races are and others are not. Some school boards are and others are not. Make them partisan and have a primary election if necessary instead of having four or five people running for mayor what I have found in a lot of cities like Huntersville. This is like the most obvious recent example and it's about to happen again. There will be multiple Republicans running against one Democrat, and the Democrat will win with less than fifty percent of the vote because the Republicans split the vote. Right, That's how the Huntersville mayor right now has her job as mayor. What's her name, Chrissy Christy Clark, I think right, she was the one that was mortified that she what was it? She saw some was it Duck Dynasty merchandise at Cabela's or something? What was that? Oh? No, it was like a Second Amendment something. It was like coozies. Remember she saw some coozies in like a Dick's Sporting Goods or one of the outdoor stores or something Bass maybe it was Bass pro Shop. And she posted up on Twitter is like, I'm offended. I can't believe a I have to see a koozi with some Second Amendment message or something on it. And they caved to her. She was a state lawmaker. Former state lawmaker got drawn out of her seat, so she ran for mayor. And the only reason she won was because memory serves correctly, is because there were multiple Republicans running for the seat in Huntersville, which generally I think elects Republicans. So and the same thing was going to happen this time because one of the guys who ran and lost last time. Oh, it was a Harris Teeter, thank you. It was a Harris Teeter. Thank you, Bernie. Yeah, so Harris Teeter caved on that. And so last time, I think there was a guy he ran for mayor and he lost, and so now he threw his name in the ring again this time around after another Republican I think a town board member or something. I forget. Brett Jensen had the story a couple of weeks ago go and yeah, like, that's the way you split your vote, and then you allow the opponent to get more votes than your two splits, and now they're in the office, even though they didn't even clear fifty percent. So yeah, there is some merit to this idea. In the Charlotte primary on September ninth, you've got a bunch of district reps that are running for reelection that some of them have challengers in the primary. In their Democrat primary, they will not have challengers from the Republican side. In the general. District one, incumbent Dante Anderson, she is challenged by Charlene Henderson, and there's no Republican opponent in District three, the federally indicted Tijawana Brown. She's got a couple of challengers montrevious King, but I thought I saw him tweet yesterday that he was suspending his campaign, so he may be out, but I guess his name is still going to be on the ballot, so good job there. Also though Joy Mayo, j O I Mayo, which is the superior condiment, by the way, or maybe it's Jois jew maybe it's French. But also Warren Turner. And I've known Warren Turner for years. He's a Democrat. I have voted for Warren Turner when I lived in his district. I voted for him in Democrat primaries. Because I was in a Democrat district. I would as an unaffiliated vote in the primary. So he's running for the seat that he used to hold. Republican James Bowers is running in that race, so there will be a general election for the District three race. District four Renee Perkins Johnson. She has a challenger named Will Russell, not the basketball player, that's Bill Russell, and then the winner faces no Republican competition. The Charlotte Observer, by the way, there's a piece by Abigail Pender and Josh Bergerson. District five, Marjorie Molina, Democrat incumbent. She faces a challenge from Juan Diego Massoira or j D. Maswerra. That's an East Charlotte seat no Republican opponent in November District six. The only Republican primary, Christa Bakari, spouse of Tark Bacari, who held the seat until he got the appointment in the Trump administration, is running against Sorry Chakra or Sari Chakra and the winner will face the Democrat Kimberly Owens in November. And that's going to be a tough seat because Democrats when they drew the district lines after the tainted census, they attempted to redistrict Tarkbokari out of a seat because those are fair maps, right, because the city council, even though Republicans make up somewhere around a third of the registered voters, maybe like twenty five percent, they're not allowed to have any seats on an eleven body board. That's just that's a fair map to Democrats, don't you know, right, Because by the numbers like they can't win. Republicans cannot win in the at large races because the nature of the at large structure, which it penalizes minorities. That's what the at large seats do, and that's why it was designed that way. By the way low those many years ago, it was designed to keep minorities at the time Blacks from being able to get candidates elected. Now the minority is Republicans, so it's used to keep Republicans off the Charlotte City Council. They cannot get enough votes to clear a slate of four Democrats, so you don't get any of those four seats, and so then they tried to draw of the seven districts. They tried to make sure that Republicans could not win more than one of the seven, so one member out of eleven on the body. That's a fair map to the Democrats. But talk Bakari ended up eking out a victory last time by like a couple hundred votes, So yeah, we'll see what happens there. Voters in the six small towns will elect mayors on election day in addition to members of the town boards. So there you go. That's your look at the September ninth upcoming primary, which will basically decide the composition of the Charlotte City Council in November. You know, Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Mint Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. 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. So Here's why, Here's why your local elections met Her story just broke out of Fairfax County Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin directed the Virginia State Police to open a criminal investigation into allegations of school funded abortions in Fairfax County. The investigation comes after a report published detailed allegations of school staff members allegedly facilitating miners to get abortions without parental consent. You may recall Fairfax County is where a father was arrested a couple of years back, dragged out of a school board meeting because his daughter had been sexually assaulted by a boy who claimed to be a girl and was given access to the female safe spaces like the bathroom she was assaulted. He tried to complain about it, he was stonewalled. They shut it down. Parents were protesting over the use of those books that were basically cartoon kitty porn, and then they were targeted by the school board. The school board then reached out to the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland, and Merrick Garland and the FBI had them labeled as domestic terrorists and stuff. That's Fairfax County. Like this is what you get when you don't pay attention to who you're electing, or you got a bunch of moon bat brigade leftists that keep putting these social justice warriors into office or into the school district. These are radicals. These are radicals. Think about what if this story is true? Right now, these are just allegations based on a published report, and the governor has now responded to that saying the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation will open a full criminal investigation into the matter. The allegation is that the some officials at the school system arranged for minors to get abortions without parental consent and may have used public funds to pay for them. They're not your kids, Like, that's what a lot of people that work for schools think of the parents, But in fact that is the actual truth about the school employees. They're not your kids. Look, I appreciate it, and I understand that you're, you know, doing work to educate the next generation. And do I get it. I applaud the fact that you're you've chosen this profession. But you get a whole new crop of kids next year, and yes, you can form bonds with them, and yes, teachers have close you know, community bonds with families and generations of kids that come through and all of that. I get all of that, but they're not your kids. You don't get to you don't get to kill some parents grandchild because of your political position. You don't get to do that, and you darn sure don't get to do it with tax payer money. Here's the thing. How many of these miners, if this is true, how many of those miners may have been victims victims of sexual assault? And by doing this with them and keeping it away from the parents and not reporting them, I am assuming you're not reporting this. So how many rapists? How many abusers are free now to reoffend because you took care of the problem for them, because that's what you did. No, I was taking care of the problem aka the baby. I was taking care of that problem for the child, for the seventeen year old. Yeah, but you also you also took care of the problem for the abuser. The problem with these types of laws is it protects abusers. If this turns out to be true, this is people need to go to prison. You need to go to prison. You won't be able to get your blue hair dye in prison. Well maybe you probably could. Actually, they probably got some way. They probably mix it up in one of the toilets, you know, just like they make the gin. I would assume, I mean, it's what I've heard. I don't know. I mean, I've never drank toilet bowl gin. I don't think they have bathtubs in prisons. Do they have bathtubs in women's prisons? I feel like that could be a security threat, you know, like you could drown somebody in the bathtub. Also, probably much harder for the upkeep, you know, because you got to scrub out a bathtub and all of that. People slip and fall in the bathtubs and whatnot. Probably showers only. Yeah, what am I even talking about? I don't know. 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.