The rush to reach agreement on a city budget led to an awkward encounter between Mayor Anthony Foxx and Councilman Andy Dulin Thursday.
Mayor Foxx met with members of the media to outline the city’s capital needs.
Following the presentation, WBTV’s Melissa Hankins was interviewing Republican Councilman Andy Dulin to get his thoughts on what should be eliminated from the budget.
While Dulin was speaking about the need to eliminate wasteful spending, Foxx appeared and put his arm around Dulin.
“Hey you want to come upstairs and talk about this?” Foxx asked.
“I’d love to…I’da love to have been upstairs to talk you a little while ago,” Dulin retorted.
“C’mon, let’s go…we can go right now,” was Foxx’s response.
Foxx has called a special meeting of city council for Monday at 1:30 p.m. at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Government Center.
The mayor has scheduled a special meeting Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. in case he vetoes any portion of the budget on Monday.
Foxx said even through the economic downturn the city’s population has continued to grow exponentially through the recession and the city must respond to that growth by coming up with a solid capital plan for investment.
The mayor says the city needs to boost public safety funds due to more people moving into more sprawling areas creating longer response times for emergency services.
He also believes the city needs to spend more to relieve traffic congestion and to reduce rapidly rising commute times.
Republicans and Democrats have fought for months about tax increases. Two Republicans, Andy Dulin and Warren Cooksey, jumped to forfeit building and infrastructure plans.
“I’ve been very hesitant to start messing in other districts,” Cooksey said.
Council member LaWana Mayfield, represents an area where a lot of high-dollar projects were planned. Still, last week, she said she’d try to meet Barnes’ request to lose a few. Over the weekend, she changed her mind.
“There are very few projects in District 3 that are negotiable and I am not willing to shirk my responsibility to both District 3 and the city by not investing in an area that has invested in the city through their taxes for many years,” Mayfield wrote in a statement. “I will not say, ‘well this can wait.””
District One Rep Patsy Kinsey was another who said she’d try to come up with some project to cut by noon Monday. We asked what she came up with, and got no response.
But Kinsey has made it clear in the past that she won’t agree to eliminate the city’s plans for streetcar – a $119 million project Barnes says could go.
“There’s just not a lot of compromise I’m going to do on certain areas. Streetcar is non negotiable as far as I’m concerned. That’s a part of our community that’s been waiting for a long time,” Mayfield said.
He presented a budget scenario which would cut those expensive streetcar plans, a trail, a road maintenance facility, and a list of public/private projects, among other things. All in all, the scenario would shave $239 million from the city manager’s recommendation.
But it would still raise taxes by 2.5 cents. And Cooksey says he won’t vote for anything over 2.44 cents.
A city tax hike of 2.44 cents could be the magic number, though, because that is the same amount that Mecklenburg County will lower its tax rate, meaning property owners in Charlotte would see no increase in their joint city-county tax bill.
But, it will be difficult to get down to 2.44 cents if more council members don’t sacrifice projects.
Mayor Foxx did tell WBTV he is pleased by the progress he was making with other commissioners.
The next on-the-record budget vote is set for the June 25th council meeting.
(WBTV)
By Nick Needham
