Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
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your support. Still have a lot to get to on
this election day. Seven four five, seven eleven ten. Email
ispt at the Petecalnarshow dot com. I have a message
from Dave who said your WBT news cast said Steven
Mooreris supported Josh Stein. This is for the Concord mayor's race.
I'm voting later today. Can you tell me how he
supported Josh Stein. I'm trying to figure out if tax
evasion is worse than supporting Stein's.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Hm, So I'm assuming that this was in the good
notorial race. I don't remember the specifics, but it probably
had to do with Mark Robinson being the Republican nominee
and all of the scandal around Mark Robinson, and so
maybe the mayor endorsed Josh Stein, I assure that's my
that would be my guess, and that angered Republicans I
would assume, okay. So one of the things I like
to do whenever prepping for the the election day coverage
and such, which, by the way, WBT will be uh
covering the election results tonight at seven o'clock, Bo and
Beth are going to be back in studio, and I
think at some point I'll join them. I think all
of the hosts will join at some point. So, but
one of the things so in prepping, usually the weekend
before the election, you know, and Christy knows this, that
I block out the whole weekend and I do all
I you know, I take all of the stuff that
I've been compiling for the year, and you know, I
put them all together. I make my you know, my
prep sheets and stuff for the various races. Now, admittedly
this year it's a little easier because there aren't a
lot of races on the ballot, especially where I live.
I'm in unincorporated Mecklenburg County, so I get to vote
for a school board member, and I get to vote
for or against the sales tax increase. And people have
asked me. My view on the sales tax increase came
up at the News and Bruis event. And I'm not
telling anybody how to vote, Okay. I have been told
how to vote by people for the better part of
fifteen years, and I don't like I don't listen to
people telling me how to vote. I will make my
own mind up on that stuff. So I'm not trying
to tell you how to vote, but I I will
tell you I'm going to be voting against that sales
tax increase. That's me. And so one of the things
I like to do in making the prep sheets for
the election is I go to sites of all sorts
and I look at who they like.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 1: For example, you can go to the Charlotte Observer. They
have their list of endorsements and I will usually just
pick the opposite of whoever there, or you know, you
go to the local party website, go to the Democrat
party website, go to the Republican party website, and they
usually have a thing called the palm cards, which are
what they hand out at the polling places, you know,
for people to look at. And so I can take
a palm card and then if it's the Democrats that
are giving it to me. Chances are like, I'm voting
against every one of your candidates. Thank you for the
palm card. I appreciate that. But I only have two races,
two things that I get to vote in, so I'm
gonna be voting in like two seconds today. But one
of the things I like to do is go to
different publications that may be of a different political bent,
let's say, and see how they are handicapping the races,
how they are describing the candidates and such. And so
I found myself at Queen City Nerve. And this is
a leftist publication here in Charlotte. I believe it was
the It was the remnants of Creative Loafing, that weekly
newspaper that used to mainly be filled with like ads
for like depraved behavior and such. So the I'm just
kidding it. Well, I mean they did have a lot
of ads in the back of the in the back
of the paper, very weird things. But anyway, they remember,
they shut down Creative Loafing and then a bunch of
their employees started Queen City Nerve, and so they had
a big election guide, very lengthy guide, and so real
quick running through their guide. I'm not going to go
over all of the stuff that they say, and they
do not make endorsements explicit endorsements, but you can kind
of tell who they like and who they don't by
the way they describe some of the candidates. So, of course,
in the mayor's race, we covered this last hour, you
got Yliles running for her fifth term. And now I
don't know this for sure, but I suspect that you
get up to the fifth term, it's going to be
pretty attractive enticing for if she were to win a
fifth term. I think she's going to try to go
and beat Pat McCrory's seven terms, you know, like when
you rack up five in a row like she has
or she made today. I think she may go for seven.
So we got that to look forward to. But I
don't know that. I'm not making that prediction. I'm just
saying like that, it seems like that would be a
bit of a pull, you know. Then you've got Rob
Yates the libertarian and Terry Donovan. I've interviewed both of
them on the program. You can go back to the
podcast and listen to that interview with each of them.
The Charlotte City Council at large. So this is everybody
in the city gets to vote for the four at
large seats dimple Edgemeira four term incumbent James Smudgie Mitchell.
He's been on the council first as a District Rep
and then an at large Rep. And he's been on
there since, I mean twenty years. Lawana Slack Mayfield, she
was District three for four terms, then was off the
council for three years and then ran at large in
twenty twenty two Victoria and so she's running at large
reelection and then Victoria Watlington and also at large. She
was a District three Rep as well. She won her
seat two years ago at large. So those are the Democrats.
Then you've got Misson Kim. Born and raised in South Korea,
immigrated to America in nineteen ninety one. Small business owner
proud supporter of Donald Trump, has spoken against allowing transgender
folks to work as teachers or public service providers, criticized
DEI initiatives, and appeers to oppose vaccines. She has recently
shared the uplifting story of her son, who previously identified
as gay. But wait, you don't wait a minute, You
identify as a male or female. I don't think you
get to identify as gay, do you. I thought that
you're born that way. To quote the expert Lady Gaga, right,
you just born that way. But he apparently underwent a
significant transformation and disnow engaged to a woman. Then there's
Edwin Peacock. I mentioned him last hour. He raised the
most amount of money. He's a former city council member.
He ran for mayor at one point, I believe, and
he's been sitting in the District sixth seat filling the
unexpired term of Tark Bokari. He's now running at large.
Republicans have fielded only two candidates. You can vote for four,
and the top four votainers of the six they will
get seated on City Council Okay District three. Joy Mayo, Democrat,
community advocate, former middle school math teacher who founded and
serves as board chair for the Transforming Nations Forward, a
community development nonprofit that advocates for the nation's Ford Arrowood
Road corridor. Running against Robin Emmons, unaffiliated. She actually got
the necessary signatures about fourteen hundred in order to get
onto the ballot as an independent or unaffiliated and then
the Republican James Bowers and captain in the Young Men
of Valor Boys organizations, serve five years on the County
Motor Vehicle Review Board. He's been a minister since nineteen
ninety seven. Then Charlotte City Council District six. Kimberly Owens
practiced law. Advocates for causes she believes in through Mom's
Demand Action, the Gungraby Group, as well as Planned Parenthood,
Rotary Youth Exchange and Lillian's List Action Fund. So very
much for the abortions, okay, and the grabbing of the guns.
Christo Baccari, Republican, running for the seat that her husband
Tark Bakari held for a very long time. So that's
on the city council. You have the sales tax referendum.
Current sales tax in Mecklinberg County is seven and a
quarter percent. They want to raise it to eight and
a quarter percent. I've done shows on this before. You
can pull them up on the Peak podcast Board of
ED Now this one is interesting. The Charlotte Mecklenburg School
Board has three at large members. They are not up
for reelection. The six district members are okay, and so
in District one, you've got Melissa Easley, Bill Fountain, and
Charlita Hatch, three people running for that seat. And this
is technically nonpartisan, so you're not going to see ds
and rs next to their names. You know, stories are powerful.
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cast four votes for Charlotte City Council at large. Candidates
don't cast for it dilutes the value of your preferred candidate.
It's okay to leave blanks. This is what's called single shot.
It is a strategy. It basically gives a little bit
like one point one percent, Like if a vote is one,
it's like one point one. It gives a little bit
of an edge to your preferred candidate by single shotting
or shooting I guess, or double shot. If there are
two Republicans and you only want Republicans, just give them
your votes. Don't add to the vote totals of the Democrats.
I've seen studies over the years about the effectiveness of
these types of campaigns. They can work, but it has
to be like a widespread, concerted effort, you know. But yeah,
that is a that is a strategy. It's called single shot,
all right. So the Board of Education District one race
from WFAE, their report by James Ferrell. This from October
twenty third. Melissa Easily says she's the incumbent, by the way, Democrat,
but you're not going to see ds and rs next
to their names because they're non partisan. Easily says she
was hurt that the Mecklenberg County Democrats chose to endorse
her opponent. One of the opponents, Charlita Hatch, Easily says
she's been told that the decision stemmed from concerns about
her fundraising. She acknowledges recently that she stirred controversy with
the post about the murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk that
drew national attention. We discussed that as well when she
said I'm not going to mourn his loss because he
was a terrible person, and then she gave some examples
of things that he never said, and I dissected her
dumassary at the time. She also has a track record,
though of voting in the minority against the board consensus,
like when she voted against last year's budget because she
felt the board needed to ask for more money from
Mecklemburg County. Charlia Hatch has had no problem raising funds.
Campaign finance records show that she has raised nearly forty
five thousand dollars compared to Easley's Measley seventeen hundred. The
Republican back candidate Bill Fountain, he is self financing, basically
put twenty grand of his own money into the race,
and he thinks that if you got two Democrats, they
could split that vote and then he may be able
to get in. And he points out that twenty percent
of CMS grads have less than a two point zero GPA.
Like we're we're not actually educating the kids. Hatch is
the City of Charlotte's chief data and analytics officer. She
is also the founder of a nonprofit and the author
of three children's books. Now, what makes this race interesting
is that last spring, Easily was one of three board
members who voted against a contract with a consulting firm
called syd k Imyl, which is a terrible name. Sid Kimmel,
I guess is the acronym. She questioned the firm's efficacy
and its connections to Racky McGregor or Rocky Raki. Racky McGregor,
who was a close advisor to the superintendent and was
getting this contract. Sid Kimmel is owned by Racky's wife,
Kimberly McGregor. The mcgregors and cms have defended Sid Kimmel,
their contractor or their company that's getting the contracts by
pointing to recent academic gains across ten of the twelve
schools where they worked, but racky McGregor went on to
publicly support Charlietta Hatch, which then prompted questions of whether
he was c making political payback. McGregor has denied this. Hatch,
for her part, takes exception to any notion that McGregor
played a role in her decision to run. And so
when people started saying this, Easily started saying this, the
McGregor's confirmed that they sent a cease and desist letter
to both Easily and another school board candidate in a
different district, District six, named Tony mhl m Hel m
e m e E m e h e l Emma
m Hel. That's just a very difficult last name. And
I say that as one with the last name Calender,
Okay mhl. So they both got cease and desist letters
regarding what they saw the McGregor saw as false in
defamatory statements about them and their companies on the campaign trail.
They say the actions were taken to protect them and
their business's long standing reputations. So there appears to be
some politicking afoot, and there are these accusations that the
superintendent is trying to oust board members that don't fall
in line with what she wants done. So that's District one.
Going back to Queen City Nerve and their guide to
the local elections, You'll never guess how they describe the
Republican running in that district, Bill Fountain. If you guessed
homophobic and transphobic, then yes, that's in their write up.
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local leftist Queen City Nerve dot com Qcnerve dot com website.
When describing the Board of Education, can that it's District one.
Bill Fountain, Republican, a former combat fighter pilot teacher committed
to upholding quote the American principles that make opportunity possible.
I guess I should probably do this. No how dare
you right? Okay, So they go on to say that
Fountain supports the homophobic and transphobic organization Protect North Carolina Kids.
He held a sign that read stop Mutilating Miners in
a protest against trans healthcare for youth patients and posted
it to his Facebook page and his website. So that's
what makes you homophobic and transphobic is that you don't
believe in transing the miners. Okay, that's again, it's it's
Queen City nerve. And then there's Charlie the Hatch, CMS
graduate mother, children's book author, tech executive works for the
city apparently. So that's the District one race District two
for the Board of ed je Rique Hall or one Hall.
After twelve years, the Board of Education's longest serving member,
Thelma Buyers Bailey, is not running for reelection, so District
two is going to have a new rep. Juan Rique
Hall is a former West Charlotte High School football coach
and community advocate who works to mentor young people on
violence prevention, joining the city's first Alternatives to Violence program
in twenty twenty one. His mission is to combat illiteracy,
restore discipline, and rebuild trust. In public schools. Okay. Hall
is also known to partner with Moms for Liberty. No
QC Nerve describes Moms for Liberty as quote an extremist
group that lobbies against any school curricula that mentions lgb
t Q plus rights, race, or diversity. And that is
not true. That's actually not true. They don't want you
promoting any of this sexually inappropriate content at any age.
That's you too young. Whether it's gay or straight, it
doesn't matter. They don't want you teaching to second graders
this inappropriate material age appropriate standards. We used to as
a society, we used to all understand that there are
things that are not age appropriate. And if you don't
understand that, then you should not be in public schools.
You should not have anything to do with public schools,
public education. You shouldn't be in the education field at all,
in my opinion, if you don't understand that concept that
there are age appropriate things and there are age inappropriate things. Okay,
so Wan Hall running against Chemey Shame. Chammee Chamee Haines
a CMS mother advocate and community organizer with a deep
commitment to cultivating equity, opportunity, and belonging in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools.
She served as a board member of the Black Political Caucus,
League of Women Voters, and the Charlotte Alliance of Black Accountants.
So if you're with the BPC, I'm assuming the Black
Political Caucus, I know your politics there. She's the Democrat
over in District four. Robert Edwards uh more than twenty
years of experience in K twelve education, higher education, and
behavioral health. He began teaching music and mentoring at risk
youth when he was twenty two. He joined the CMS
residency program in twenty twenty three, focusing on special ed
and currently serves as a teacher for Exceptional Children in CMS,
as well as a compliance facilitator at Cochrane Collegiate Academy.
He is running against Jillian King, a former teacher current homemaker.
She is endorsed by the Democratic Municipal Officials as well
as Mom's Demand Action Gun Control Group. The incumbent in
District four is Stephanie Snead. She is the CMS board
chair and she is running for reelection. She was first
elected in twenty twenty two. CMS parent a trial attorney
practicing in the areas of labor and employment law, and
she has served on the Black Political Caucus Education Committee Democrat. Okay,
Then there's District five Lisa Kline. She is the incumbent.
She is a Republican as I understand it, and she
is running for reelection thirty nine years of education experience,
twenty nine of those being at CMS before retiring in
twenty nineteen. Her opponent, Cynthia Stone, born and raised in Charlotte,
began a career in education in two thousand and five
at Chantilly Montessori School until her retirement in twenty twenty
three from Park Road Montessori District six. Tony emmahl or mhl. Sorry,
I do not know how to pronounce this last. I'm trying.
I really am CMS grad parent and volunteer. Twenty years
of experience with CMS as a school and team leader, parent, teacher,
organization board officer, tutor, booster, club board officer. Endorsed by
the Democrat Mecklenberg County Commissioner Vilma Leak, as well as
Republican former Governor Pat McCrory. Running against two people, Anna London,
who is president and CEO of Charlotte Works, the state's
largest single county Workforce Board and Justin Sheeley, an attorney
and parent who has grown increasingly concerned about the issues
CMS faces, including declining safety, politics, taking precedence over academics,
and a lack of transparency. Okay, so those are your
CMS candidates. These are the district races. The at large
races not on the ballot. There are other races though,
that we will not be voting on here in Charlotte
or in Mecklenburg. Obviously, there were races all over the area,
all over the state. These were all municipal races. I mean,
you've got Cornelius mayor Border commissioners, Davidson mayor border commissioners,
Huntersville mayor commissioners, So you've got these are all municipal races, right,
Mayor of Matthews, mint Hill, Pineville Stallings. Also, I was
a moderator for a debate last weekend. I want to
say last weekend. I think it was last weekend, an
Indian trail dealing with all sorts of you know, pressures
due to growth and how to manage the growth and
all of that. So municipal races all over the place,
and in low turnout races, your vote matters even more
because it is a low turnout election. Generally, these off
year municipal races generally don't attract more than about ten
percent turnout, which means you have more power to actually
influence and that's what decides elections and the course of
your local government. It's you turning out to vote, 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
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only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground news
as they make the media landscape more transparent. Let me
jump over here and get Carol onto the program. Hello, Carol, welcome.
Speaker 2: Hello, good afternoon. Hey. I live an Indian trail and
you know what, there's been no canvassing that I haven't
even seen any signs up, so like, I don't know
who to vote for, but I want to vote, but
I don't even know what's like who's running or anything.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well there's only so you have seven candidates
an Indian trail and two seats available I believe, so
the top two votainers will will win the seats. There's
one incumbent that's Tom Ambergee. He was not at the
candidate forum that I moderated the other day, so I
don't know. I know he's a local attorney practices law.
I've seen his name pop up in stories over the years.
And then there was another candidate, Jerrell Sengandhi, and he
was not there either, so I don't know anything about
him either. So is there anybody like, are you satisfied
with the direction of your town?
Speaker 2: Well, heck no, Indian Trail. I've been here twenty one years.
I've lived in five different houses in Indian Trail, but
never left Indian Trail. And it's just it's just absurd
of what's going on and the traffic. They're they're not
building things the way. It's like they just built these
huge apartments by my house and they should have put
a roundabout in before. So there's and some several accidents.
They finally put a four way stop and there was
an accident there yesterday. There's just too much traffic there
and it's like they don't know how to build a town.
I don't know. I don't know. It was a small
town when I moved here, that's why we think that.
And now it's just it's just a crazy town. So
I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and from what I heard and from what
I heard in the candidate forum is a big problem
is union County commissioners and the capacity issues with like
the water treatment and that sort of stuff. There's this
fight going on, but I mean, and there's also I
mean the town is limited in what it can do
because it doesn't control the the wastewater hookups and stuff, right,
the water system. But also people want to keep the
taxes low and they don't want there to be any
more development. But it's a heavily residential tax base, right,
so like these are.
Speaker 2: The property taxes were ridiculous when we got when we.
Speaker 1: Got our revent out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my gosh. I mean my house is you know,
I wish my house is worth it, but it's not.
It's not some big, gigantic house. You know. It's about
seventeen hundred square feet. You know, it's just a nice
size house. And I'm just like, well, if I had
the place to move to, yeah, I would sell it
and try and get some of that. But you know,
there's nowhere to go. You can sell, but there's nowhere
really to go.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean unless you want to go more rural, right,
But if you if your job allows you that, then
then you have more options. But I mean that's one
of the problems I ran into with my wife when
we were moving back here, Like I don't want to
spend an hour and a half in the car each way,
you know, on a commute. Uh, and in order to
afford cheaper housing, you got to go farther out and
that's and then you're yeah, then you're trading chunks of
your life for you know, on the commute. So yeah,
I mean it's all trade offs. I know there are
a couple of young guys that are running Raven Farity,
Sean Madison. They were there in their early twenties, so yeah, yeah,
I don't know. Marcus McIntyre. He apparently was a former
board member, town council member who was off the council
and now is coming back on. He seemed pretty impressive.
But I mean, I can't make any endorsement for you
because I don't know like what your major issues are
and how well of the candidates line up. But you can,
I mean, you still have time. You can go to
their websites and read what they are writing. But I
mean that the challenges that you've got in Indian Trails
sound a lot like every small town that I've ever
covered dealing with growth. They're the same issues.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, and you know what it would be
one these houses, but they're just building these massive, massive
apartment complexes. I live right in basically the center of
it where in the Atrail Fairby wrote an independence. You know,
I'm a mile from the post office and they have
just old so many apartments. I'm like, why can't read
just do houses. I know they want to growth, but
you're literally talking about now thousands of people. Yeah, and
they don't have the roads for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I hear you, Carol. I appreciate the call.
I wish I could be more helpful. I've got to
run though. Good luck on your research. 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
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