Speaker 1: What's going on?
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it's Tuesday, It's noon, and so we chat with Andrew Dunn.
He is a contributing columnist over at the Charlotte Observer
and the Raleigh News and Observer. He's also the publisher
of newsletter long Leaf Politics longleafpol dot com.
Speaker 1: Andrew, how are you, sir?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm doing pretty good. How were you?
Speaker 4: Good? Good?
Speaker 2: I'm doing all right. Hope you had a good weekend,
good Father's Day. And apparently you wrote about this over
at Longleaf Politics. You took a train from Charlotte to Raleigh.
Was this the Carolina or there's another one? I forget
what it's called.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I took the Piedmont up and the
Carolinian back, or or maybe the other way around. I
can't quite remember, but yeah, I had a just a
quick day trip meeting in Raleigh, and I really didn't
want to drive six hours, and I had my four
year old with me, so I thought it would be
fun for us to take the train. So what I
wrote was, you know, it was a good experience.
Speaker 1: You know, the.
Speaker 3: WiFi is not super but I could write a little
bit and send a few emails. But when I got back,
I just started thinking about, you know, what role does
or should train travel play in North Carolina transportation. It
just seems like we're always, you know, in the running
for some sort of federal grant to add more of
those trains. We we sometimes talk about high speed rail
between the two cities, and you know, overall, I think
there is probably a role for train travel as the
state grows, but I totally get why, especially conservatives, have
some skepticism there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I remember I was a reporter here in
Charlotte during Pat McCrory's push for the original you know
one sent sales tax to build the South Line, and
his argument was always that it was to provide options
and to focus development along the South Corridor light rail line,
and that has been the case that that has worked.
I mean, you go down into the South End now
and it's just jam packed filled with apartments, and you know,
the streets are all activated, you've got businesses and stuff,
and that was part of the plan. But I thought
you made a good connection here with the the rural
areas that are growing, and you mentioned Midland is one
of them, Newton is another. And you know, then there
was the story about Albemarle exploding in population, and so
how do we connect these places to the larger urban
areas where people then would have the option to ride
the train in And maybe this is my bias too,
because I'm from Long Island, New York, and like you
could jump on the train out on the island and
in an hour you were in the city.
Speaker 1: So maybe that's my bias.
Speaker 3: No, I think you're exactly right. I mean, for now,
we've kind of avoided that long term question. But you know,
Charlotte continues to grow, the whole region continues to grow.
Albemarle it shocked me to see Albemarle as a top
ten growing area in the entire country, but it makes
some sense.
Speaker 5: You know, the.
Speaker 3: Solution to housing affordability, all those things, all those buzzwords
that we talk a lot about. Is building more housing,
you know, not rent control, not any of that nonsense.
It's building more houses. And where are you going to
build more houses. It's in those more outlying areas. It's
your Albumarles, your midlands. You know, if you drive through
there now you see new housing communities popping up all
the time.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: And I really think there is a limit to how
many lanes you can put on a highway or how
many cars that you can accommodate, and so at some point,
uh trains become inevitable.
Speaker 2: So the problem with this mode of transport, I think,
is that it's usually run by a government entity, and
you know all the problems that are attending to that.
You've got you know, lack of accountability, You've got rising prices,
you've got you know, service that is in fantastic and
you know time savings that may not actually save a
lot of time. So I guess that's to me, it
goes back to what I heard that somebody say this
years and years ago, was that the if people thought
they were getting good value for their taxes, they wouldn't
have a lot of the objections to the government spending.
Speaker 1: The problem is that they.
Speaker 2: Don't see the value in what they're in what they're getting,
and I don't know how you solve that for that issue,
particularly among conservatives.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's totally fair. I mean you just think about
the red Line. You know, Charlotte's been promising a train
from Charlotte up to the Lake Norman area for gosh
decades now still hasn't happened, you know, if maybe it'll
happen in the future now that Norfolk Southern has you know,
given us the permission to use the train, but there's
a lot of distrust there and it's totally warranted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that that's over at long Leaf Politics, long
leafpol dot com. Train travel isn't just for liberals with
and by the way, tip of the hat there for
the Atlas shrug reference in your piece too. And then
let's talk a little bit about Roy Cooper, but mainly
Jeff Jackson. And you start off your piece at the
Charlott Observer.
Speaker 1: This op ed.
Speaker 2: The longer Roy Cooper takes to decide whether to run
for US Senate, the more it seems like the answer
will be no. And when I read that line. I thought,
that's just classic Roy, you know, like waiting for years
and years and years when everybody's like always going to
run for governor.
Speaker 1: Oh, he's going to run for governor. And then he
doesn't run for governor.
Speaker 2: He's just gonna, you know, stay camped out in the
Attorney General's office. But you seem to think that that
he's acting and speaking like he's not going to run
for this US Senate seat that's held right now by
Tom Tillis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I could be completely wrong. You know, Cooper
could come out later today and announce that he's running
for Senate and I wouldn't be shocked. But you know,
the more I especially when I was watching his little clip,
his video clip from the portrait and veiling at the
Governor's mansion, you know, I'm trying, I'm watching that clip,
trying to read the tea leaves. You know, how what
what does he sound like? And Yeah, to me, he's
he didn't sound like somebody who was gearing up to
launch another campaign. He sounded more reflective and someone coming
to terms with the end of an era. You know
that said, I don't have any inside info into his
mental state. There it's just more speculation at this point.
Speaker 2: But if he does not run, then you say, that
could make Attorney General Jeff Jackson the next man up
to run for this US Senate seat. And so I
don't know if the Attorney General Jackson listens to you
for advice on these things, but you're saying probably not
a good idea, Jeff.
Speaker 3: Right, That's exactly right. So I don't think that National
Democrats are going to be satisfied with Wiley Nickel as
their standard bearer in twenty twenty six. You know, they
really see this seat as crucial for their national plans.
So I would expect Cooper does bow out that they're
going to turn their eyes over to Attorney General Jackson.
You know, he's very much a rising star. We've talked
about him, you know, plenty of times over the past
couple months. He's got the excitement among the base and
among you know, more Democratic mainstays. He's got some of
that star power that I think the National Democrats would
be looking for. But you know, I argue that it's
not the right time. Why not, Well, you know, it
almost seems too good to be true, right, you know,
he's two years into this term, so he could run.
If he loses, then it's kind of no harm, no foul.
He goes back to just being Attorney general. But I
don't think that's quite right. I think that politics is
a game of timing. And if he runs here and
he does lose, and I think there would be at
least fifty to fifty shot probably. You know, if that
was a matchup, I would get Tom tillis a slight
edge in that race. And I think he's basically burned
himself out. He's got this is you know, he's got
one shot at jumping up to the next level before
he turns into and also ran, and I just don't
think that it's a worthy gamble for him.
Speaker 2: Well, and also you pointed out in this piece, and
I think this is a very real concern and criticism
that people have of him was that he's always looking
for the next gig, and this would confirm that suspicion
that he's never really satisfied with whatever job he's currently holding.
He's trying to get to a national office, probably with
aspirations to be president, And so if people are comfortable
with just rewarding that, then I guess so be it.
But I think a lot of people kind of cringe
at that, at those types of moves that, Okay, I
got this job, I just got elected.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to run for something.
Speaker 3: Else, right. I mean, that's absolutely a concern, and it
doesn't always happen that way. I mean, it worked out
these leaf for Barack Obama. But you know, if it
doesn't work, that's when you get the coold or would
have should is?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Andrew down.
Speaker 2: You can read his work at the Charlotte Observer on
the op ed page and also at his site longleafpolitics
dot com. Are longleafpol dot com. Andrew, good to talk
with you, sir. Keep up the good work, appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: 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
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Speaker 2: 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
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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
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the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground,
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ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent.
Got an email here from John to Pete at vpteclenarshow
dot com. Roy Cooper is the weakest candidate the Democrats
could put up for Senate.
Speaker 1: It will be Jeff Jackson. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, and Andrew Dunn mentioned Wiley Nickel and he's he's
just he doesn't move the needle. Former state representative or senator.
I think I forget, but he was in the legislature
and then he may have been, you know, oppressed and
victimized by the redistricting Republicans or something.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so he just he is one of those guys.
He's like.
Speaker 2: He's like a discount store Jeff Jackson, all right, like
he's Jeff Jackson, but on sale on clearance.
Speaker 1: You know, he.
Speaker 2: Doesn't he doesn't captivate and animate. He doesn't have the
gravitas dare I say, or the on screen charisma that
Jeff Jackson has when he's doing his TikTok videos for
the communist Chinese platform. So I don't think I'm with
Andrew on that. I don't think that Democrats want him
to be the standard bearer. But you never know with
Jeff Jackson, because even if he is interested in running
for the seat, like he was against Ted Bud, Sorry
Ted Bud, if there is another candidate on the Democrat
side that enters the race and that candidate is of
a protected class status, Jackson would have to step aside again,
because that was the rationale that he did last time, right,
That's why he stepped aside last time for Sherry Beasley
to run. This was for her, and you know, I'll
run for something else. Of course, he ran for the
congressional seat in the Gerrymander district that he won, and
then they redrew those lines and he lost.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's still way too early to tell, but people are
already starting. They have to be, you know, maneuvering right now.
And Wiley Nicol is the only one that's announced. In fact,
he's announced. I think he's up to three times. He's
done like three formal announcements. And I don't know why
he thinks everybody has forgotten that he's running for the
US Senate seat. He's declared to be a candidate, except
for the fact that everybody kind of has forgotten about
it because it's him, and like he just he's not
really well known. Jeff Jackson now has a statewide position,
he has the big social media following. But you're the
sitting attorney general. You just got the gig, right, You
just asked for this job, and the first thing you're
gonna do is turn around and then run for a
different job. So I'm unclear as to how much that
would hurt him, if at all.
Speaker 1: I know, there was gosh, what was it, Keith Young, Not.
Speaker 2: From the WBT news center, but there was a guy
named Keith Young up in Asheville, and this guy won
a seat on the Asheville City Council and immediately like
the next year, the first like in his first year
as a city councilman. He then tried to run or
did run for the county Commission, and then he tried
to run for Congress. He lost all of those times,
and then he was eventually defeated in the Asheville primaries.
But I just don't think that people they don't take
too kindly to that when you ask for a gig
and you're like, I'm going to be your representative. I'm
going to work for you the people and all of this,
and then you turn around immediately and say I want
a different job. I feel like people get their feelings
hurt over stuff like that. So it might be too
soon for him. And if he just waits, you know,
does another you know, does one term runs for reelection.
If he wins reelection, then he could do it again.
Right then he could run for US Senate seat against
Ted Budd if Bud is going to run for reelection,
but like that seat would come open, or he could
try to make a run for governor. If Josh Stein
is looking to make a run for a president, because
that's the that's the scuttle butt up in Raleigh that
he's positioning himself to do that. I don't know if
he is. Josh Stein does not clue me in on
his plans and such, but yeah, we'll see, we're tracking it. Also,
kudos to Nate mora Beto over at WCNC, this is
the NBC television affiliate here in Charlotte. They went back,
and he went back and got public records turned over
to him from the city of Charlotte, and it turns
out that the three hundred five thousand dollars payoff to
our police chief was not the first large chunk of
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All right, So, WCNC, newly obtained public records show the
City of Charlotte paid Johnny Jennings moving expenses after the
city manager named the longtime Charlotte Mecklenberg Police Department employee
to be police chief way back in twenty twenty record
show that they paid him moving expenses totaling seventy seven
thousand dollars. Seventy seven thousand dollars. I have been paid
moving expenses in the past. I have never been paid
anything close to seventy seven large Holy smokes.
Speaker 1: What service did you use to move?
Speaker 2: Did you like buy like a storage facility or something like,
not just like rent a unit. I'm saying bought the
whole thing. Seventy seven thousand dollars in moving expenses. Record
show at the time, Jennings was living in a neighboring county.
From what I understand, it was Union County, way off
in Union County, and so that even if you're even
if you're doing it by mileage, there's still no way
seventy seven thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: That is absurd.
Speaker 2: The city's twenty twenty job posting for the position listed
a minimum requirement for the incoming chief to live within
the city limits within three months of the higher date. Okay,
that's pretty standard. In fact, in North Carolina, if you're
a law enforcement officer, I believe you actually have to
live in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: So it's not a that's not a.
Speaker 2: Huge surprise that there would be this residency require meant
for the chief of police. So and he would have
known this. He would have known this prior to getting
the job. Oh and by the way, with the moving
expenses thing, you usually have to submit the receipts, you know,
you got to show the receipts, and then you get
paid back what you spent. It's not just like one
big fat check and you can just spend it however
you want, and we totally trust that it's all for
moving expenses. I'm kind of getting this suspicion here, and
maybe it's unwarranted, but given the history of the payoffs
to the police chief, I'm kind I'm kind of suspecting
that maybe they just gave him a whole boatload of
money and called it a moving expense and it was
basically just a bonus. I like I cannot fathom, Like,
did you take a loss on your house or something.
Speaker 1: Like you had to move?
Speaker 2: Maybe you just moved into Like I'm trying to think
of a scenario where you could accrue that kind of
expense for moving from Union County to Mecklenburg County. Does
that How does that square? So this is obviously now
above and beyond the three hundred five thousand dollars separation
agreement that we all learned about a couple of weeks ago.
WCNC reports a mid mounting pressure and an investigation by
the state auditor, the police chief eventually released the details
of his separation agreement. The agreement includes a promise to
retire on January one, twenty twenty six. The settlement will
actually cost taxpayers more money down the road, since it's
boosting his partially taxpayer funded pension by at least nine
grand extra per year for the rest.
Speaker 1: Of his life.
Speaker 2: This is sometimes referred to as pension spiking, where you
load up a bunch of compensation in the final few
years of your tenure and then that becomes the chunk
of time that they look at. I think it's like
a four year window that they look at your highest
paid consecutive years and they take those to determine your pension.
And so you just jack up the compensation levels at
the end of your tenure, and you do that for
four years, and then you use that number to calculate
the pension, so you end up with a much higher
pension for the rest of your life. David McGary. He
is the research director at Taxpayers Protection Alliance. He's quoted
in this piece. He says, there seems to be a
consistent pattern in which the city has paid surprisingly large
amounts of money to the police chief over the course
of his career, which should raise taxpayers eyebrows. You can't
see it, but my eyebrows are raised here, mister McGarry.
They are raised. Seventy seven thousand dollars. He says, that's
the annual income of many Americans. It's higher than the
median household income in North Carolina. The TPA, nonpartisan nonprofit
has remained critical of the lack of transparency showed by
the City of Charlotte throughout this controversy. McGarry said, while
it's reasonable for a city to assume some of the
costs of a move to incentivize securing the best candidates,
seventy seven thousand dollars to change zip codes sounds excessive.
I think there's a perfectly rational, logical explanation for why
this would seem to be excessive.
Speaker 1: It's because it's excessive. That's why it sounds excessive.
Speaker 2: Because it is all right, let me go over and
chat with Earl Hello earl, welcome to the program.
Speaker 4: How you doing? Hey, all right, let me put a
little insight into this. Seventy seven thousand dollars to relocate
is really not that much. Let me give you an example.
I relocated twice with my company, and I relocated my
last relocation. It was from a neighboring state. And what
a seventy seven thousand I'm assuming what it goes towards
is Okay, I had a house in my own location.
I have to sell that house, so my relative needy
seven percent. That comes out of the seventy seven thousand. Okay.
When you moved to Charlotte, you need to be in
temporary housing. That's about three to four thousand dollars a
month just for somebody to go month to month temporary,
So that gets out of that. That goes out of
the seventy seven thousand. When you buy your new plates,
you got to play the closing costs and typically most
companies will also give you one percent towards the well,
I'll give you one point, which is typically one percent
of the mortgage, So that comes out of the seventy
seven thousand. Okay, when you move it, if you got
a wife and if they're in some type of private
school and they got to move in the middle of that,
there's probably a penalty that comes out of the seventy
seven thousand. Any why you're in short term leasing, you
got to have meals that come out of the seventy
seven thousand, And honestly, you can go through seventy seven
thousand with a supper relocation a couple of months called
just to move the furniture and packet of your own place,
that could be up to twenty thousand. So this this
is normal in corporate America to give that much as
a relocation. And then they mentioned so you.
Speaker 1: Mentioned hang on earlier. Hang On.
Speaker 2: Those are all very good points, although I would I
would question number one, why the seven percent for your
realtor thought it was six percent split three to three
and three for the buyer and seller realtors. And also,
if you're selling your house, why would the city of
Charlotte need to pay your realtor commission when that comes
out of the price of the house.
Speaker 4: Dub When I sold my house my relator, it may
have been seven percent. That's what I had to give her,
and she pretty much taken or leave it and I
was in a time crunch that I needed to sell
my house. And you know, because you don't want to
be in corporate I mean housing too long because again
it's going to eat up and being let me give
you another but but.
Speaker 1: Hang on so early. But earl the realtor commissions.
Speaker 2: Those are that happens all the I mean, that's in
every that's in every sale of a house, purchase and
sale like that. Three percent is always part of the
equation buying or selling. So why is it on the
taxpayers to pay for that? Also, why is it on
taxpayers to pay for his meals?
Speaker 4: Well, that's what corporate a mayba. Why why shouldn't it
be I.
Speaker 1: Guess he's going to be eating no matter where he's living.
Speaker 4: Well, it depends. When I went looking for short turned places,
I was in a hotel that was the cheapest I
could get. I mean, and honestly, I'm being if you
got a family and I moved here single, if you
come with a family, imagine that seventy seven thousand they
could be eating up in a month. And then and
then they mentioned the bonus that is typical in corporation.
If you move somebody, it's usually a one month a
one to three month salary in advance. Also, and the
reasoning for that lobster is, Okay, you got your new place,
You're gonna need window treatments, You're gonna probably need to
change some things. So they want to assist you in
that moment too. Typically relocation, they want to make it
seamless for the person that's moving to do that job.
They don't want to make it difficult that you got
to go in the hole to move for a corporation.
Speaker 2: Well, I have never worked for a corporation that's spent
anything near that amount of money. So that's news to me, Earl.
I appreciate the info. Okay, no problem, Yeah, YouTube, take
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Got a message here from Greg. I've been relocated a
couple of times to Georgia and Alabama. Eleven thousand dollars
I received in twenty fourteen. In twenty twenty two, I
got twenty thousand dollars for the relocation costs. I had
never heard of real estate costs being included, and how
you choose to live is pretty much on you. You
could actually pocket a lot of money if your company
pays the real estate fees, especially if you decide to
relocate to a waterfront house on Lake Norman, for instance.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, Rob, welcome to the program.
Speaker 5: Hey Rob, Hey, good afternoon. Thank you very much for
letting me on your a program. Sure, I don't get
an opportunity to listen to you as much as I like,
But I'm out this afternoon running a few errands and
I heard you talking about this ongoing scandal, and I'm
just kind of wondering why. And this is a rhetorical question. Okay,
So here we go. First of all, disclaimer, Okay, I'm
an American who happens to be black, been black for
seventy years. Okay, Okay, okay, So number one, number two
black police chief, number number number three, black mayor, number
four of black people on the council for the majority, Okay,
a black folks.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 5: So the reason I'm put this out is, you got
black on black crime here, got going on?
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 4: If black on black.
Speaker 5: You got black on black crime. And somebody had to
say it, and I'm saying it. I'm saying it loud,
and I'm saying it proud. It's black on black And
y'all liberals out there in the audience, y'all voted these
y'all voted these negroes in.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, Rob, come on, now.
Speaker 5: Live with them, y'all live with them.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well I mean that. Okay, So I all right,
I appreciate. I appreciate the call.
Speaker 4: Rob.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 2: To me, this isn't a racial thing, because bad behavior
is on display by all races, So like it doesn't like.
To me, that's not a that's not a vital part
of this story. It's to me, it doesn't matter because
anytime you have an unguarded store of value, it will
be beset upon by parasites. So you have to guard
your store of value. By the way, one other quick
point regarding Earl's call. The current relocation policy for the
City of Charlotte allows up to sixty thousand in relocation
costs for deputy department directors and higher and above twenty
four thousand would go towards expenses thirty six grand helping
with costs linked to selling an employee's primary home. Anything
above the sixty k would need city council approval, and
to be eligible, you must be relocating from a distance
greater than fifty miles.
Speaker 1: He was only thirty miles away.
Speaker 2: All right, that'll do it for this episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening.
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the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast,
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