- This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- This week in "Off the Record," in politics, sometimes it only takes one, how a single Charlotte Democrat switches to the GOP and changes the balance of power in Raleigh.

A surprise inspection of Charlotte's light rail line finds CATS understaffed and unsafe, why the state's threatening to shut it down.

More reaction to those new Mecklenburg property values, why we'll pay higher taxes on our homes while malls and hospitals will pay less.

At CMS, third-grade reading scores are getting worse.

And why aren't all South Charlotte high schools more diverse?

Plus a North Carolina astronaut will be the first female to circle the moon.

And remembering Leon Levine, who spent his life and his fortune giving back to Charlotte.

Lots to talk about next on PBS Charlotte.

(upbeat music) And from our PBS Charlotte Studios near historic Plaza Midwood, I'm Jeff Sonier, and we're "Off the Record," talking about the stories you've been talking about this week.

And if you watch the news, read the news, and listen to the news, well, you'll recognize the names and faces around our virtual table.

Steve Harrison from WFAE, Danielle Chemtob from Axios Charlotte, and Tony Mecia from "The Charlotte Ledger."

You can also join the conversation at home or from your phone.

Just email your questions and comments to offtherecord@wtvi.org.

Well, usually we save the political talk for election time, but a very big political story in North Carolina this week, in fact, in Mecklenburg County this week, involving a switcheroo, if you will, in the state legislature.

Steve Harrison, you're just back from yesterday's news conference regarding Tricia Cotham.

You wanna bring us up to date on what's happening in Raleigh and what it means going forward?

- Yeah, so Tricia Cotham served in the statehouse for about 10 years, took a couple years off, was reelected in November to a East Mecklenburg district that's heavily Democratic, includes East Charlotte and Mint Hill.

And at the start of the session, she voted with the Republicans on some issues.

That raised eyebrows among her Democratic colleagues.

Tim Moore, House Speaker Tim Moore, named her as a co-chair of the K-12 Education Committee.

For the last three months, she's been drifting apart from Democrats.

She didn't caucus with them.

And so she announced, yes, on Wednesday, she announced on Wednesday morning that she was switching to the Republican Party.

And Jeff, one thing that was interesting about her news conference was the tone she took wasn't that, "Well, the Democratic Party has moved on.

I don't feel comfortable there, but I hope we could work together in the future," et cetera.

It was about a 45-minute press conference of her airing grievances against her Democratic colleagues, her former colleagues.

I mean, she unloaded for a long, long time.

- Yeah, I've go a- - Yeah.

- Go ahead, Danielle, go ahead.

- Well, it's just, this is really significant because the Republicans were one vote shy of the super majority before yesterday, right, and now they have a super majority in both chambers, which means that they're gonna be able to override Cooper's veto.

And this is really going to help them achieve their agenda on issues like abortion.

It's hard to understate how important this switch is in terms of the legislative balance.

- Yeah, you know, this all came to a head with Governor Cooper's veto last week of a bill that ended gun permits, local gun permits from local sheriffs' departments.

Cotham was absent from that vote because of a health issue, a medical appointment.

But her absence along with the absence of two others allowed the Republicans to veto that, or allow the Republicans, rather, to override the veto.

And that's just the first of many.

As we talked a little bit about, next week, there are a lot of hot-button issues that are coming forward in this legislative session that could potentially be affected by that one single vote, whether it's on a veto override or in a straight-up vote on legislation, correct?

- Yeah, I mean, I think it's only gonna really be significant, Jeff, it's gonna depend on how she votes.

I mean, if she starts voting with Republicans, then yes, they have a super majority.

But if she sticks to the way she's voted in the past, which is a fairly... She typically votes with Democrats on a lot of these issues.

And so does she keep, Is she more sort of, Does she become sort of a liberal Republican who breaks free of that, or does she go ahead and is she fully embraced by Republicans and votes consistently with Republicans?

So it's all gonna come down to how she votes.

And I think she was a little bit coy on that this week about how she's gonna vote on some of these things that are coming up, like abortion, education reform, and the budget, things like that.

- I'm sorry, Tony.

She was asked about abortion in her news conference, and, you know, Cotham had campaigned very adamantly pro-choice, pro-abortion rights.

And then she in her news conference kind of shifted and said, "Well, look, abortion is not, you know, it is not the most important issue to women."

She kind of talked about women are many things.

We shouldn't need to be focusing on abortion.

She was asked about, you know, at what week, where would she accept further restrictions?

She wouldn't say.

So in listening to those answers, I think she was really kind of laying out the groundwork that she will probably vote with the Republicans on some further restrictions.

We don't know where, if that's 15 weeks or 12 or if we go as far as six, but I think that's coming.

- Yeah, in the past, she's been a supporter of gun control, too, but yet she was absent on the vote that abolished those local gun permits.

And so you wonder, obviously there's an internal, it was an internal battle among Democrats, and she didn't like the way she was being treated.

But is she also shifting some of those positions that perhaps got her elected in the first place?

I guess that's the acid test.

That's the litmus test, I suppose, that's coming over the next few weeks and months in the General Assembly, right?

- Yeah, and that's what she focused, or that's what, sorry, some of the opponents focused on a lot was, you know, the harm that this could do on some of these issues, right?

Like I think there was a statement from Alma Adams yesterday where she basically said, "Well, there will be victims," 'cause I know they referenced Cotham being a victim of like you were saying, bullying in the party and things like that.

And she said there will be victims.

It will be the women trying to get abortion and things like that.

So that's really what a lot of the Democrats have latched onto.

I mean, they are very upset, obviously.

The Republicans are saying, you know, this is an example of the lack of ability to compromise or ability to welcome new views in the Democratic party.

But the Democrats are really talking about how they feel betrayed, and this is not what she campaigned on.

I saw an article that some are even, you know, asking for their contributions back.

It's definitely sparked quite a bit of outrage in her district, too.

- You know, both parties talk about big-tent concepts of being open to differing views while still adhering to the same core values.

But I read an editorial in "The Wall Street Journal" this week, which by the way, covered this story along with "The New York Times" and the "New York Post" and "The Washington Post."

And it talked about big-tent politics versus polarization and exile.

I mean, used to be in the day that a Democrat who had the ear of Republicans, you know, when the Democrats were in the majority would be of value to the Democrats, a way to keep the door open, to keep the conversation going.

Are we past those days of compromise and conversation in this new era of polarized politics that we're seeing in Raleigh and in Washington?

- I think one thing that's happened in the Democratic Party in North Carolina over the last now 12 years when they've been in the minority, their position has kind of has swung from either being completely ineffectual when Republicans have super majorities to them actually having the ability to uphold vetoes.

It has been incredibly important for the Democrats to hold their caucus.

And as a result of that, as a result of their declining numbers, they have become very rigid in terms of what they expect from their members because they don't have a lot of votes to lose.

You know, remember last year Governor Cooper supported a primary opponent against Kirk deViere?

And so the Republicans see this as that the Democrats are kind of, you know, instead of a big tent, they're making their tent smaller and driving out moderate voices.

You know, of course the Republicans do this too, but right now in North Carolina, they have votes to spare.

They can allow some of their members to vote no on some of their issues like Medicaid expansion.

- Yeah, I thought it was interesting too that this is not the first time something like this has happened.

Decades ago when Jim Black was the sec, the speaker of the house, he was in danger of losing his speakership by one vote, and they managed to convince one or two Republicans to make that switch over to the Democratic side.

So this is not, I don't wanna call it politics as usual, but it's not unprecedented for this kind of thing to happen.

I guess what is kind of unprecedented is the backlash from social media and Twitter when something like this happens now, and it seems to reach out and touch so many more people than before.

- Well, I think part of it, too, is that the election just happened in November, right?

And a lot of people... And I don't think she would have won if she had campaigned as a Republican because it's a very heavily Democratic district.

So I think that's a big factor in it, too.

It was five months after her election, and a lot of people are saying, "You know, these are the issues she campaigned on.

Is she still gonna stand by these views that we elected her for?"

- Yeah, quick question, does she run for reelection now for her seat?

Or does she look to perhaps statewide office with the backing of her new party?

- I think, I've been looking at the map, Jeff, and clearly the Republicans will redraw the House map.

They've said they're going to do that.

As Danielle said, the seat that Tricia Cotham represents now she cannot win again as a Republican.

It is too blue.

You could draw a new seat that is Mint Hill and Matthews that would give her a better chance.

But even then, it's no sure thing.

I mean, there are a lot of Democrats now who live in Matthews.

I think maybe she's going to move on for a higher office, kind of safer ground running statewide.

Don't know what that is, but the numbers just aren't there in Mecklenburg County for her to win, I don't think.

- Yeah, I was gonna say a week ago I'm not sure most people could have identified Tricia Cotham's face or name in a lineup.

Now everybody knows it, and she's either everyone's hero or everyone's villain, depending on which side of the political fence you're on.

Interesting story and which will have ramifications, I suppose, as we skate through the rest of this legislative year.

So we'll talk about it again, I'm sure, in the future.

One story we've talked about in the past, back again, CATS, this time a surprise inspection last Friday after this show and others had aired finding more safety issues involving light rail, correct?

I don't know.

Everybody's written about this.

Who wants to take first crack at the latest in the CATS soap opera?

- Yeah, the North Carolina Department of Transportation over the weekend, like you said, paid a surprise visit to the Rail Operation Center.

They found that for part of the time, there was only one person working, one person controlling all of the LYNX blue-line trains and all of the gold-line trains.

The state said they've been told by employees this happens pretty often, and the state said, told CATS, "Look, if this happens again, if you can't have at least two people in the center, you need to shut down one of the train lines."

So, you know, the city often kind of has been defending itself, saying, "The state has never told us to stop running the LYNX," which is true.

But the state on two occasions now has told CATS, "If you can't do this, if you don't slow the trains down to 35 miles an hour, if you don't have enough staffing, you have to shut it down."

So two occasions where they've been very clear.

- And you know, Jeff, some of the significance of this as opposed to the derailment issue that came out a couple weeks ago in which they disclosed that unbeknownst to pretty much anybody, apparently, they had a light-rail train that derailed in May of 2022.

You know, they could kind of cast that as, "Well, this is under, you know, the prior management.

This is almost a year ago.

We're turning things around."

This is actually current.

Like this is right now, last week, you know.

So it sort of underscores really that this isn't just, "Oh, we've turned the corner on all of these issues."

Like these are still present issues, and there are more that seem to be coming out.

So sounds like a lot of work to be done over there at CATS remaining.

- Yeah, and more responsibility to be shared.

This isn't a maintenance issue.

This is a staffing issue.

So again, it kind of climbs up the management ladder in terms of who's responsible, who takes responsibility and blame, I suppose, for another safety issue identified by the state.

- Right, and you know, CATS and the city are trying to restore trust, right?

They've come out and said, "We're gonna suspend the CEO search that the council has been praising Brent Cagle," as all these issues have been coming out.

You know, but they're trying to restore trust when, you know, you have a consistent barrage of issues that just keep piling up it seems like almost every week, if not every day.

And they've basically admitted, I think pretty much everyone on council has admitted, that there's no chance their ambitious transit plan is gonna happen as a result of all of these scandals that they're just trying to basically, you know, get a grip on.

- Yeah, speaking of trust, Steve, you wrote about the mayor actually undermining the Metropolitan Transit Commission that she chairs in a council meeting this week regarding what the MTC wants versus what she claims that they wanted.

Can you bring us up to date on that?

- Yeah, two weeks ago, excuse me, two weeks ago, the Metropolitan Transit Commission took this unanimous vote to have a third-party private company come in, consultant, and do a review of CATS.

And so the key, the language they used, was outside consultant, third party, and RFP, request for proposal, which means kind of a private company, an investigator or a consultant.

This came up this week when CATS said, "No, we're not gonna do that.

We're gonna have the federal government come in and kind of expedite a regularly scheduled review."

And Council Member Renee Johnson said, "Well, I'm not sure this is what the MTC wanted."

The mayor, Mayor Vi Lyles, cut her off during the meeting and said, "No, you're incorrect.

The MTC never mentioned the words third party.

They never mentioned the words RFP," but clearly they did.

It's on tape.

I mean, Commissioner Leigh Altman said those words clearly at the time the mayor was sitting right next to her.

And so it was...

The mayor was kind of interrupting one of her council members to correct her with incorrect information.

(Jeff laughs) - I'm not sure how to explain that or how to accept that.

I mean, I guess anyone watching that meeting wouldn't know that in the moment, and I guess that's the point.

Council is scrambling at this point.

The city hall is scrambling at this point to make the best of what is turning into a very bad situation when it comes to its transit image.

- And I'll say one more thing on that, Jeff.

It's interesting as we move forward with the transit plan or try and move forward, the city's new position has been kind of a regional approach, that they need buy-in from the towns in Mecklenburg and also also the surrounding counties.

But it's interesting, the MTC is kind of a regional authority, a regional board.

The moment the MTC kind of tried to exert some power over CATS, the City of Charlotte got very defensive.

- [Jeff] Right.

- And essentially said, "This is our department, our money.

We're gonna do it our way."

So on one hand, you have this talk about regional and bringing in partners, and then when it really came down to it, the city kind of told them, "Butt out.

Let us handle this."

- Yeah, I guess again, the city's promoting or supporting a federal investigation of CATS.

They do this every three years.

One could argue maybe that's not enough.

Maybe we do indeed need someone on the outside to take a look with some fresh eyes.

But council will determine going forward who actually does this investigation, this inspection of CATS, and that sounds like another topic for another week going forward.

Our annual, our weekly, I should say, CATS discussion survives for another week.

We've talked a little bit last couple weeks about revaluation in Mecklenburg County.

Tony, "The Ledger" did a story this week, an extensive story, on the difference between how revaluation is affecting homeowners, folks like us, versus big institutions like the hospital.

Can you you talk a little bit about, you know, the discrepancy there and how that plays out in this year's revaluation numbers?

- Yeah, there's some frustration among homeowners.

The county has come out and said that because of rising values on residential property that at least 85% of residential homeowners can expect a tax increase.

That's even if the government, the local governments, stay at revenue-neutral, even if they don't want to collect more tax money.

And incidentally, it seems like they do wanna collect more tax money.

So it could actually be greater than 85%.

At the same time, commercial properties, you know, retail establishments, office towers, business-owned property, that has grown in value less quickly since the last revaluation in 2019.

And because of that, a lot of the commercial properties are gonna see either smaller increases in their taxes or in some cases, cuts in their property taxes because in these revaluations, things get balanced out.

So there's been some attention in the last few weeks about the valuations on some of these commercial properties.

We've talked before about the golf courses, you know, Quail Hollow.

- Yeah.

- You know, Piper Glen, you know, Carmel Country Club.

These all had decreases in their values, which leaves some people scratching their head 'cause they're low values as well.

You know, there may be, I think Quail Hollow is valued at 9.9 million.

I mean, there are houses on Quail Hollow on one acre that are worth more than that.

So, you know, there's questions about equity, a lot of focus on equity, and is this fair?

Are these valuations right?

Our article also looked at the hospital systems, nonprofits like Novant Health and then government-related agencies like Atrium.

Atrium is also known as the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority.

And so any property that it owns it can have exempted on taxes.

Our article disclosed that there's a chicken restaurant in Cornelius that is owned by Atrium that does not pay property taxes as well as a couple shopping centers with Harris Teeters.

So a lot of questions about how these commercial properties are valued.

There was a presentation to the county commission this week in which the tax assessor reviewed some of those, said, "Hey, look, we're doing everything correctly even if it seems a little puzzling.

But we're following the rules and all the regulations."

- Yeah, Atrium's chicken restaurant is very puzzling, I would agree with that.

Danielle, Axios also wrote about malls being valued less than in the past and how that contrasts with homeowners.

You wanna talk a little bit about that?

- Yeah, so the major malls in the area all saw a decline in their property values, South Park, North Lake, and Carolina Place.

And I think for two out of three, North Lake and Carolina Place, you know, a big part of it and what we talked to the assessor about was, you know, what you would expect, right?

Malls are seeing greater vacancy.

Obviously we've talked before about Northlake and some of their issues with security, the Apple Store closing, and so one could certainly make the case for that.

And that's part of it too, is that the value of a property like a mall is determined by income, so rents, vacancy, as opposed to your house, which is usually based on the value of the land and, you know, the house you have on it, but usually it's mostly the value of the land.

And so it's like a different way of evaluating these types of properties.

But I think bigger picture, like, and what Tony said is from the meeting the other day, this is the first time I've seen, I was here for the last reval.

I wasn't here before that, but, you know, this is really, I'm seeing for the first time kind of bigger questions about maybe is the system of property taxes fair?

Is the way that we do the property taxes, is the way that homeowners end up facing the largest increases, fair, right?

And not just homeowners, but homeowners specifically in these crescent neighborhoods that have been gentrifying and that have seen a huge influx of development and people are facing price pressure already.

So I think that it's the larger questions about, okay, the rules were followed, but is the system flawed?

- Yeah, and those exemptions that were pointed out in that "Ledger" article, that translates into money that you can spend on hundreds of new teachers, hundreds of new police officers, new schools.

So it is maybe a system flaw, systemic flaw, rather than just a every-four-year issue about who's getting what and who are the winners and losers.

Interesting discussion, and we'll see where the tax rate winds up and how much it winds up actually costing us as homeowners and everybody else who's affected by this.

A couple of quick stories about the CMS.

8% of third-graders, African American third-graders, reading at grade level right now.

The goal is 30% in CMS.

They're not gonna reach that goal.

The superintendent, acting superintendent, said that.

So we've still got the same kinds of problems we've had in the past, and we're also seeing questions about economic diversity in the high schools in South Charlotte, why all the poor families seem to be in one high school while the affluent families and their kids go to other high schools.

Tony, you wanna touch just on CMS for a moment and just these recurring problems that don't seem to go away despite this new board majority that's in office right now?

- Yeah, I mean, as it relates to sort of balancing socioeconomic status in South Charlotte, CMS is building a new high school in the Ballantyne area and also wants to build a new middle school in the Rea Farms area off Providence Road outside of 485.

It's creating a ripple effect, and a lot of parents are getting very concerned about student assignment, where their kids are gonna be going to school.

There was a meeting at South Mecklenburg a week or two ago we covered in which a lot of, there's a lot of anxiety among parents about, are we concentrating poverty in student assignments in particular schools?

And the plan for South Meck, the current plan, is to have a student assignment boundary that would have almost 50% low-income status students at South Meck, while Ardrey Kell and the new high school in Providence are closer to 1%.

So it's a question of how do you balance it.

CMS says it's difficult to do because of housing patterns to actually draw lines that are both close to people's homes as well as socioeconomically diverse.

And so it's sort of an ongoing problem.

It's really bigger than the school system, and it's really more of a housing pattern society kind of issue.

And so, some of these institutions are struggling with that.

- Yeah, I guess these new boundary lines give you the opportunity to rebalance, and they're not done redrawing these lines for certain yet, but as of right now, the proposals don't seem to rebalance much of anything in those South Charlotte High Schools.

A couple of other quick- - I mean, they're trying to accomplish a lot.

- Oh, go ahead.

- They're trying to create, you know, make sure that these schools aren't overcrowded.

You know, for a long time, South Charlotte has been saying, "Listen, all of our schools are overcrowded.

You're not building enough schools."

And then we build some schools, and they assign new lines, and then people don't like the way the lines are drawn.

I mean, you know, it's a very emotional issue of where your kids are going to school and who they're going to school with and certainly a lot.

We'll see how it shakes out.

- Yeah, I wish we had more than a half minute left, but can we just talked momentarily about Leon Levine's passing this week at age 85, a person who gave back so much of his fortune to this city over the years?

- Hard to overstate the importance of Leon Levine.

You see his name on everything, you know, Atrium's Children's Hospital, Levine Cancer Institute, Central Piedmont, Charlotte Country Day.

It's, you know, all over the place, UNC Charlotte, you know.

Built Family Dollar into a massive corporation and used a lot of his wealth to make a lot of these institutions better.

- People like that will be missed in this community.

You don't realize how much they mean to a community like this until they're gone.

Hey, one last quick question.

The next or the first female astronaut to circle the moon will be from North Carolina.

She was announced as one of four crew members on the upcoming moon orbit mission.

Her name is Christina Koch, NC State graduate.

We'll all be watching when they launch sometime next year with I guess an NC State Wolfpack logo on the capsule or something, right?

(laughs) Hey, thanks everybody for joining us this week.

Great discussion, a lot of interesting topics to cover.

We never seem to get to them all, but thanks for your expertise.

Thank you for watching at home as well.

If you have questions or comments, email them anytime to offtherecord@wtvi.org.

We'll see you next time right here on "Off the Record."

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.