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What is it about graduation season that has so much hope and optimistic optimism to it?

Early promises fulfilled the pride of accomplishment.

Eyes move to the next level of potential, and possibilities abound, of course.

Welcome again and thank you for supporting the most widely watched program on Carolina business policy and public affairs.

I'm Chris William, and as this graduation season unfolds and the proverbial caps are thrown in the air.

Summer is going on and school is out.

Business rolls on, though, and the challenges are there.

Big things still need attention and we will talk about it on this program later.

She is effectively the CEO for the Carolinas largest city.

We welcome back Charlotte Mayor VI Lyles.

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On this edition of Carolina Business Review, Anna Beavon Gravely from Restless Politico, Matt Martin of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and special guest Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles (upbeat rock music) Hello.

Welcome again to our program.

It is summer graduation season.

It's got that kind of got that bus going down to the beach this year.

Anybody going to the beach?

Been there already.

Are you done?

One time?

One and done.

Doesn't fit your budget.

Got to go to the mountains as well.

Yeah.

No, no that's good sport.

Yeah.

Budget.

Speaking of budgets, is it a battle this year for North Carolina all the way to the end?

Are they going to make their budget deadline?

I think it's going to go all the way to the end, I think.

Is that December?

Is that June?

Well, it's a moving target of the end.

Originally they always say they'll be out by July 4th.

That you have a mixed bag and that start early amongst the lobbying community.

Will that be real?

Will that not be real?

I think in this case, it is probably not going to be the case for sure, though.

Continue on.

Do you think there is?

South Carolina has sewn up their budget now a couple of weeks ago, and there were a lot of smiles and they had, kind of a surprising billion dollar, surplus.

Is North Carolina going to post another surplus this year?

I think we'll post one this year.

I think the big concern is moving forward.

What is it going to look like after this season right now?

Will the Republicans get their their tax cuts in that?

Well, that also means which which Republican tax cut version.

The Senate has a version that's more aggressive.

The House has one that slows down the triggers, which has gotten a lot of heat recently from club for growth.

You may have seen that where club for growth executive came out and said that the house was in fact raising taxes.

Which is just that that's that's not those are not that the same thing.

Did that blindside the house?

Very much so.

Very much so.

And so I think that has added, additional energy and tension in the budget conversations specifically because, what to do about taxes, is a major, major pillar of, of their, discussion.

Yeah.

I'm going to use that to leverage into another major pillar of policy around tariffs.

With tariffs nationally, Matt, that we see that there's a having of the of the trade deficit.

And then you think, okay, half of a deficit has got to be a good thing.

Is it a good thing.

And trade.

Not really because it's really just a timing issue.

Right.

So we've got this window where the tariffs are rolled back or at least some of them.

And so you're going to have sort of puts and takes is companies try to get product into the US at the lowest possible tariff they can get.

I think the thing to watch instead is just keep track of what the consumer is doing.

Right.

So there might be inventory swings, there might be, you know, during periods of low tariffs, rush to get product.

And knowing that the tariff might go up if you pay attention to the underlying consumer, still.

Okay.

But you can see you can see the cracks.

There have been cracks at the lower income household for a long time, but now we're starting to see a little bit as you get to sort of discretionary expenditures, even for those higher income households.

You know, one of the other big things is, as a service called Immigration and Customs and Enforcement, and that is better known as Ice.

And it's put a pall on the, the, the, the, the immigrants that work in places like North and South Carolina.

In North Carolina, roughly 10% of the population are immigrants or migrant workers or the possibility of it's 6% in South Carolina.

How much how much of a cold blanket or a wet blanket does that throw on, employment?

Yeah, it's a concern among employers and a big concern.

It's it's big if there's an event, is what I've heard.

Right.

So imagine you employ immigrants, you use the E-Verify system.

So as far as you know, they're all properly documented.

But if ice shows up at your workplace, then you're going to lose some workers, right?

And then then it probably means some of those workers at related businesses aren't going to show up for work anymore.

So it could be a problem.

Remember, we're still 4.2% unemployment nationally, so it's not as if there's an abundance of workers out there to replace them, especially in certain industries.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

So just tattoo additional question about that.

If there is the fear that I could just randomly show up, is that largely the fear is that they just will just show up?

You mean, is that a fear versus the actual yes, yes or no?

And if you talk to, consumer facing businesses that serve this community, they'll tell you shopping patterns are different, right?

Monday to Friday, nobody's in the stores.

They try and do it on weekends.

I think they have the the idea that Ice is less likely to be involved on a weekend.

You know, one of those grand themes.

And we have about two minutes before we bring our guests out.

But one of those grand themes around growth and that cover up, it's it's not the right way to say to cover up things like immigration challenges or bad economic decisions, but it does bail out the South and certainly the Carolinas.

And that's immigration in migration rather, and that the growth of the Carolinas.

We have seen these huge economic development announcements, certainly in Charlotte.

We're going to ask our guest about that.

But Amazon's $10 billion project in North Carolina, it's only 500 jobs, but it's a big number.

We have Apple that is announced another investment.

We have Scout Motors down in Richland County.

And between Charlotte, you know, all these big numbers.

And it is this bail us out and cover up some of the finding talent issues that we have.

I think they definitely want it too.

They being elected officials who are making these announcements, and hopeful business leaders are hoping that this, shows a greater trend toward the positive and growth.

Anytime you can cover up like a decline with growth, that's going to be a good thing.

Because we all want to cling to hope.

That's sort of why, like, news stories can be a bummer because they're not hopeful.

But we look for the hope.

And I think these stories of businesses coming in are, a little bit more of like, this is a good thing.

We're growing.

Everything else is on track.

Don't look over here at this blip, but we're on track to to move forward and to see greater, investments in our communities and investing in, in, in the American dream.

Yeah.

Speaking about hope.

And we have a minute left.

It's graduation season.

A lot of bright eyes out there are the graduates walking into a tough job environment.

What's what's the what's the unemployment rate for grads?

I don't know what the unemployment rate is.

It's harder for recent grads than it has been in the last few years.

Right.

Because we've had this remarkable, job market.

And I think for some entry level jobs, we're starting to see the beginnings of, AI taking, taking place.

So, for example, in software development, you talk to those companies, they're like, well, I can do the initial software development.

What you used to hire a college grad.

For now we just need the more senior people then to finish it off.

So I think there are challenges, but the labor market is still okay there.

There are jobs out there.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I was gonna say I think that speaks to, a future problem of talent development.

Yes.

Because if you don't have people in entry level jobs learning how to make mistakes on a low like relatively low risk scenario, they're not going to know how to make better decisions when higher risk.

Is that starts, right?

So employers have to be part of that solution.

Yeah okay.

Thank you.

We're going to bring our guests on just a second before we do that.

Speaking of development, coming up on the program, he is the new North Carolina State treasurer and the old North State.

It was Dale Falwell for many years.

His name is Brad Briner.

Brad will be our guest on this program.

He is, in effect, the CFO for the Old North State.

Well, we'll find out what he's thinking.

And also, Tom Barkin, president of the Richmond Federal Reserve, comes back to our dialog with plenty of things to discuss about 20 years ago, right here on this program.

I remember that someone described the city of Charlotte as being more like a teenager.

It had this adult body, but it was kind of gangly, kind of uncomfortable with itself.

It wasn't growing in many ways.

Well, the question is, was that a fair metaphor?

And if it was that way, then then what's Charlotte like now?

Is it still developing on the same track, or will it be something else, someone who probably knows that pretty well better than most, is someone who has been in city government for about 20 years as an employee, but also as an elected public service for many of those same years.

We welcome back to the program, the Honorable Charlotte Mayor Lyles.

Your honor, welcome back to the program.

Thank you, Chris, for having me.

Thank you.

Is that was that a fair way to say what Charlotte was like 20 years ago or so?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, you know, you didn't have to worry about getting a parking space uptown 20 years ago, but this weekend we got the bananas baseball team.

We've got Taste of Charlotte.

I can't even remind.

Remember all of the things that are going on at the city this time.

So we have gotten a little bit more grown up.

We've actually, I believe, become more like adults and looking and thinking about what's best for our community.

And I think we're doing pretty well with that.

So thank you for that lead in.

I'm just going to wait till later to ask you this question.

But the biggest challenges as as the region is grown, and we were talking right before the program about this idea of decentralization, you used to probably could walk to the decision makers, get something done and implement policy.

Basically, it's not like that anymore, is it?

Well, it's I think it's just different.

I mean, I do think that we really want to have people participate with us, but at the same time, there are people here that have lived here their entire lives.

They know everything about the city, and they're people that are coming in just because they know that we're doing things well.

When you look around and think about our population, you can see all of the globe here in our city, and it's because we have a business community that provides opportunity for people.

If you start thinking about what we're doing in terms of our mobility efforts and the changes that we want to make there, if you think about, how much we have invested in banking, but now we actually do more than banking, I think about the Pearl, which is health care and innovation programs and people coming in and doing different things.

And this is a the Pearl district.

The Pearl district is just opened yesterday and had a great brand, opportunity.

If the Pearl is an African American park that has now been changed and made possible for opportunities for people to have great health care, for people to have great jobs.

And so we I look at this as how many jobs can we build on?

And I know that you were just talking about this and talking about how do you develop these jobs.

Well, the city of Charlotte has a workforce development plan because we're looking forward to who we can get to come out of our school systems now and join it.

One of our programs is actually, is called E2.

You can go to the military, you can come to the city, and you can get a job immediately.

As a senior coming out of CMS.

And these are the kinds of things that we're investing in people to do, the things that we need and to have for the future, because we're growing and we're going to make improvements.

And, So continuing on that, on that trend with we've discussed a little bit about AI and the growth of AI.

How have you been able to incorporate AI in your projects and, and initiatives?

With the city of Charlotte?

Well, we've probably I'm probably not the right person to address that because AI and technology are not really good friends.

But let me just say this, that we do have people that we are sending and putting in schools and colleges and any kind of training that we have our our employees all the way.

You think about a, solid waste worker, they drive a huge garbage truck.

But that garbage truck is all about technology.

And so we are financing for our people job opportunities that they can learn and be skill, reskill themselves and come in.

And that's our whole, emphasis, not just for the people that work for the city or the county, but people that have kids coming out of school and working with the school system to give them opportunities to say, I want to be a part of this.

I remember, someone Lowe's had a program where they would invite all the kids, come in and they show them, how do you repair a washing machine?

That is not an easy thing because it's all about technology.

And, you know, we were talking to the kids and saying, you know, you can probably be a plumber and make more than your teachers were making when you were in school and just explaining, there's opportunity out there.

We just need to prepare you for that opportunity.

We want everyone to be able to thrive in this city.

Yeah.

I wanted to go back to the growth piece of this.

So you mentioned people coming from all over the world or elsewhere in the United States.

So we really have one of the issues I'm sure you deal with all the time is on the housing front.

And I wanted to get your thoughts when I'm out and talking to, home builders.

They they have lots of things they talk about that are impediments to more sort of entry level affordable housing.

Right.

The workers are are paid more, they're the materials are more, but they always talk about the administrative process and how long it takes to get a housing start.

Is there is there more we could do there?

Which and just more generally, what's your view on how we can make progress on housing, particularly housing that's more affordable?

Well, I have to say this, that, in my first term, we had a $15 million affordable housing bond.

This year we had $100 million for affordable housing.

And we have determined that we have to work with other groups.

So we have, for example, a faith based affordable housing where if a congregate of any type decides that they no longer want to have this property because church, you know, attendance is changing just like everything else.

And so we actually instead of saying to them, well, we're going to build for you or whatever, we go in and we get an A consultant that's all about the real estate and how to do property management, how to do a build of, affordable unit.

And they learn the lesson of what that congregation wants and it becomes reality.

And we have begun those programs because we know that they are going to be changes in how people live and where they work.

And we want to make sure that when people have this, they have the opportunity to first, I think, have a job.

But we are basing mobility plans on where are those jobs and how do we get this?

I we only have one bus right now in the city of Charlotte that you can go in in 15 minutes.

Be ready.

We've got to change that dynamic.

We've got to make busses available to everyone.

So in our mobility plan we have a bill better bus system, a program that we're doing where people would not have to stand in the rain or in, you know, under a hot sun, and that they would not have to do that for 30 or 40 minutes to get to work.

And we want to be where the jobs are and the economy for our mobility system.

And what we're doing is to make sure that they have places to go to work, and they're going to be safe places for them.

You know, Mayor, you grew up in Richland County and in Columbus and in and been in Charlotte now mayor and involved in so many ways.

So you've watched this dynamic happen.

And as you talk about the affordability in the house, Matt.

Housing.

It's really a symptom of, of a broader remember when the New South used to be a and still is a great place to live, but it was easy to move in.

It was cheaper, it was so much better.

The congestion was less etc., etc.. How do you manage just the idea that the success has become almost the burden?

Well, I, I don't know that I would say success has become a burden.

I think that anyone in this community would rather have the ability to have opportunity for success than they would in doing anything else.

And I think that it's really an idea of how do we manage growth, and how do we make sure that people get what they want.

You know, we have a whole list of pseudo ideas and all of that.

But for me, I just boil it down to this is that people know where they want to live and they should have the opportunity to live there.

And we should do that in a way that builds it for everyone.

So that's why we've built in our city over 14,000 affordable housing units, because we're invested in doing the right thing for people.

And, you know, we also believe in the American dream that you may come here.

I can tell you, so many of us have seen people come in.

They've opened a, you know, maybe a bakery.

And then all of a sudden they get a contract with the, you know, whatever, a golf tournament, for example.

And everybody loves donuts and you sell donuts, and now you're not exactly you're really moving up and on.

And I think just that we all want people to identify what makes them safe and what makes them successful and what gives them hope.

I love the word hope all the time.

And so to be able to say that the city of Charlotte is focused highly on the people that live here, so that everyone can have a chance.

And.

So you have been mayor.

This is your eighth year.

Yes it is.

It's hard to believe.

Yes.

But what in your eight years, what has been, probably your favorite initiative or project that you've worked on because you you just in this time have listed quite a few.

That, that that is a tough question because, I mean, I'm so grateful to have been able to serve the people here for the time that I've had.

I, used to tell people all the time, I feel like, Charlotte is a place that I want to be, and if I want to be there, everyone else should have that same opportunity.

But I would say right now, you know, we've always been known as a bank town, right?

And our bankers are great.

We've also been known for our building and construction.

We've also been known for a lot of the things and technology and raising those opportunities.

But yesterday when we went to the Pearl for that healthcare center and we saw where they're going to be, people in those scientists, they're where are we going to have, half of the Wake Forest Medical School come in to become doctors, that they're going to have more than 500 nurses coming in to be part of what that can be.

I have to say, the Pearl and Atrium and Advocacy Health have made something that is a leap that I never would have expected, and just really have such gratefulness for the people.

We're we are a region now.

Winston-Salem is going to be right there with us.

The whole time.

And as we're doing this regional work, we have to recognize that there's more than just the one person that does anything.

We have to work as a significant, collaboration.

Our mobility plan was a tough thing to decide, but once every town in our city has signed on, it was like butter melting, and we were on a path that we thought, and we're still looking in for the legislation.

I want to always say thank you to Vicki Sawyer and Tricia Cottam for making it possible for us to even have a thought around this.

That's what makes me proud about this city.

You know, I understand.

I wish we had more time to talk about the Pearl.

We only have two minutes left, but the size and the scope of that is pretty hard to believe.

I have two minutes left.

I do want to ask you.

You've been now mayor.

Two terms at least, and you've been in city council, and you've you've presided and you manage and you lead very well.

But when you have to do it not, but when you have to do it with politicians or those that serve in the public that are not the best acting, in public.

Is it harder now to manage not just personalities, ma'am, but just the idea of moving a body of politicians, a head for the best to the community?

I think we are at our best when we experience what we have in our communities.

And I think if you are going to be someone that runs to be in public office, if you want to be developing public policy, you have to really know your community.

And I think that it's tough when people come in.

We have a lot of people that come in and they say, I want to be a part of this, and they could be from Ohio, they could be from Florida, they could be wherever.

So I think it's incumbent upon people like me to say, hey, we really want to know what you're doing really well so that we can be a partner with you.

But at the same time, please take time to learn what we do here in Charlotte, in our region, what are our values?

What are the things that we want to do, and can we mill that together and have a cohesive public policy team?

That's my goal.

Does this the fact that North Carolina now is the largest political party is unaffiliated?

That is.

True.

Does that help or hurt or does it?

You know, I think if you know how to work with people, if you really are, consistent in what you do, I think people will vote for you.

I have never backed up on anything that I had had to do, because I was afraid that someone wouldn't vote for me.

In fact, I'd rather them not vote for me if this was going to be something that was going to cause even worse things to happen.

But I don't believe that's what Charlotte is now.

I believe that in Charlotte, people that work and want to do this work, they're making it possible to do it.

Well.

Yeah.

Mayor.

Thank you, for your public service.

But also, you've always been willing to come sit down here and talk about things that aren't necessarily comfortable.

Or maybe you don't know that much about the business of that or this, but thank you.

Thank you very much for having me.

And thank you so much for your questions.

I think that this is the best part of the world right now.

So you guys just get the legislature to help us a little bit more.

Thank you.

Keep on tac.

Thank you.

Don't go anywhere yet.

Thank you Matt.

Thank you, Anna Bevin, as always, for getting through traffic because I know it's not easy from Raleigh.

Until next week, I'm Chris William.

I hope your weekend is good.

Good night.

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