Local News Roundup: Berger and Moore talk Charlotte transit and more; Matthews Town Commission meeting chaos; former City Council member Lynn Wheeler dies

North Carolina’s Speaker of the House Tim Moore and Senate Leader Phil Berger said during a visit to Charlotte this week that the city’s top transportation priority should be roads.

This is our last local news roundup before Super Tuesday — what do you need to know before you head to the polls? We’ll talk voter ID and more.

A Town Commission meeting in Matthews was derailed this week by racist and homophobic comments. We’ll break down what happened in the public comment section of that meeting.

And a former longtime member of Charlotte City Council, Lynn Wheeler dies at the age of 80 after a battle with cancer.

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters delve into those stories and more, on the Charlotte Talks local news roundup.

GUESTS:

Erik Spanberg, managing editor for the Charlotte Business Journal
Nick Ochsner, WBTV’s executive producer for Investigations & chief investigative reporter
Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”
Steve Harrison, WFAE’s political reporter

EQUALibrium: A public conversation on race and equity in Charlotte

Eight years ago in 2014, Charlotte ranked 50 out of 50 of the nation’s largest metro areas in an upward mobility study from Harvard and the University of California-Berkeley.
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The “Land of Opportunity” study painted a bleak outlook for Charlotte’s poorest residents, but served as a wake up call for city officials and community members.

Leaders took action to address and correct the trends in mobility. Money was raised, programs were launched and attention was paid to areas like pre-K education, affordable housing and transportation.

So, where is Charlotte now?

In this special conversation, host Mary C. Curtis is joined by local leaders and experts at Project 658 in Charlotte to look at how far the city has come, and what still needs to happen to improve upward mobility in Charlotte.

GUESTS

  • Ely Portillo, assistant director of outreach & strategic partnerships at UNC Charlotte’s Urban Institute
  • Sherri Chisholm, executive director of Leading on Opportunity
  • Vi Lyles, mayor of Charlotte
  • Charis Blackmon, executive director of West Side Community Land Trust
  • Daniel Valdez, senior director of external affairs at Welcoming America

A Growing Charlotte Is Now 16th Largest City. Can We Handle It?

CHARLOTTE, NC — A Growing Charlotte Is Now 16th Largest City. Can We Handle It?

The U.S. Census Bureau has reported that Charlotte has again moved up in the rankings of the country’s largest cities, adding 13,151 residents between 2017 and 2018, for a total population of nearly 872,500. It passes Indianapolis to become the 16th largest city in the country.

And its outlying towns are growing even faster.

Only Phoenix, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Seattle added more new people. So, what does that mean, as Charlotte, though proud of the achievement, continues to struggle with challenges those growing numbers mean, from affordable housing to infrastructure demands to the wealth and education gap?