www.thecentersquare.com – By David Beasley | The Center Square contributor – (The Center Square – ) 2025-03-21 11:40:00
(The Center Square) – Fully funding the state retirement plan is not within the budget proposal of the North Carolina governor, says state Treasurer Brad Briner.
“We are disappointed the governor is proposing for only the second time in 83 years to not fully fund our state’s retirement system,” Briner said in a statement. “This proposal sent to lawmakers today would create a $206 million shortfall in the funds for our retirees over the next two years.”
Briner expressed confidence that legislative leaders will “take the needs of the state’s retirees more seriously.”
The governing board of the state retirement system recommended in January that the state increase its contribution to the pension plan by $44.3 million for fiscal year 2026. About 371,932 people receive state retirement payments.
Gov. Josh Stein’s office disputes Briner’s allegation that the budget proposal fails to fully fund the retirement plan.
“The governor respects and values retired state employees, which is why his recommended budget more than fully funds the state retirement system,” Stein’s office said in a statement. “Governor Stein’s proposal holds the state’s contribution rate steady, which will provide over $380 million more than what actuaries say is necessary in FY 2025-26, and over $551 million more than recommended for the biennium. Governor Stein is committed to protecting the retirement benefits of these employees who have given so much to our state.”
However, Briner maintains that keeping the state’s contribution rate the same is actually a decrease.
“Under the process long used for measuring these types of proposals, the governor’s budget proposal calls for $0 in new money” for the retirement system, Briner’s office said in a statement. “That is because it would make no increase to the contribution rate for already-promised benefits” as a percentage of salaries.
According to Briner’s office, the state retirement plan’s investment performance has lagged other states for decades. The result has been that the state’s contributions to pensions have doubled in the last decade, costing taxpayers the equivalent of $2 billion.
Briner has proposed creation of a board of professional experts appointed by the Legislature, treasurer and governor to manage the retirement system’s investments. The board would be chaired by the state treasurer. Forty-seven other states have similar boards, according to Briner.
SUMMARY: North Carolina is addressing its affordable housing shortage through federal tax credits, tax-exempt bonds, and state loans to build and rehab 5,012 affordable apartments valued at nearly $1.5 billion across over two dozen counties. The N.C. Housing Finance Agency selected 50 projects from 74 applications, including units for families, seniors, and people with disabilities. The Workforce Housing Loan Program, crucial for rural and moderate-income areas, received $34.7 million for 28 projects but faces uncertain future funding. Advocates warn that without its restoration, developments may concentrate in urban areas, limiting rural housing options and disaster recovery efforts. The initiative supports thousands of jobs and significant tax revenue.
SUMMARY: Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and their families are meeting with lawmakers, demanding justice and the release of all DOJ files related to Epstein. Despite the Trump administration claiming no new information exists, survivors say they have been ignored and unprotected. The House Oversight Committee released over 30,000 pages of Epstein files, mostly public already, while a bipartisan petition seeks full disclosure. Survivors emphasize the need for accountability and urge President Trump to rule out a pardon for convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence but was recently moved to a lower-security prison. They seek justice and protection for victims.
Survivors of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and family members of those women are spending two days talking with lawmakers. Members of Congress are pushing for the DOJ to release all files related to Epstein — despite the Trump administration saying there’s nothing new in those files. In an NBC exclusive, one group of survivors shares what justice would look like for them
Mecklenburg County, a Democratic stronghold, holds key primary elections that typically decide Charlotte’s leadership. Despite low turnout—around 5% in recent mayoral primaries—the outcomes will shape policies affecting transit, public safety, affordable housing, and government transparency. Incumbent Mayor Vi Lyles seeks a fifth term, facing challengers amid calls for change and reform. Controversies include a council member’s federal indictment and conflicts involving the police chief. Transportation funding via a sales tax referendum divides candidates. Affordable housing remains a pressing issue, with debates over development priorities. Public safety concerns persist despite crime declines. Low civic engagement raises worries about accountability and the status quo’s endurance.
by Sarah Michels, Carolina Public Press September 3, 2025
Mecklenburg County is one of 10 North Carolina counties with primary elections this fall. Charlotte is one of even fewer municipalities with contests set for next week. In the largely Democratic stronghold, the primaries generally decide the overall winner.
Turnout is usually low. In the 2023 mayoral primary, about 5% of registered voters made their way to the polls, according to State Board of Elections data. This year appears to be no different. As of Aug. 29, just under 1,000 Charlotteans had voted by mail or at the city’s sole early voting site, according to the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections. The election is Tuesday, Sept. 9.
Don’t let the low interest fool you. The results of Charlotte’s primary elections will significantly impact both the city and North Carolina as a whole.
The mayor and City Council create policy, approve a budget and appoint key city staff members. And as the most populous city in North Carolina, and the 14th-most populous city in the United States, what happens in Charlotte may be a model for what happens elsewhere.
Nearly a dozen primary and general candidates shared what might be at stake in the election with Carolina Public Press.
Among the top issues were the city’s transit future, public safety, an affordable housing shortage and an alleged lack of transparency and accountability among Charlotte’s current elected officials.
Who’s running in Charlotte?
Every two years, Charlotte voters pick their mayor and 11 council members — one from each of the city’s seven districts, and four at-large members.
In the mayoral race, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles is running for her fifth term. Since winning her first primary against former Democratic Mayor Jennifer Roberts in 2017 by 10 percentage points, Lyles hasn’t faced much resistance.
Several candidates hope they can flip the margins in their favor this time around. Jaraun (Gemini) Boyd, Delter Guin III, Brendan Maginnis and Tigress McDaniel all threw their hats in the ring this cycle.
Ten Democrats are vying for four spots in the at-large City Council general election contest, where they will face Republicans Misun Kim and Edwin Peacock for four overall council seats.
Incumbents Victoria Watlington, LaWana Slack-Mayfield, James Mitchell Jr. and Dimple Ajmera are joined by challengers Matt Britt, Roderick Davis, Will Holley, J.G. Lockhart, Emerson Stoldt and Namrata Yadav.
Incumbent Democrat Malcolm Graham is running unopposed in District 2, which stretches from western uptown to the northwestern part of the city. Republican Ed Driggs is also unopposed in District 7, in the city’s southeastern corner.
In District 1, which includes most of uptown and surrounding areas, incumbent Democrat Dante Anderson faces Charlene Henderson El in the primary, but the winner will have no general opponent.
There aren’t general election opponents in the District 4 race between incumbent Democrat Renee Perkins Johnson and Wil Russell or the District 5 race between incumbent Democrat Marjorie Molina and Juan Diego Mazuera. District 4 is the city’s northern neighborhoods including the university area, while District 5 is eastern Charlotte between uptown and Mint Hill.
Three Democratic candidates — Warren Turner,Joi Mayo and Montravias King — are running against incumbent Democrat Tiawana Brown in the District 3 primary election, and Republican James Bowers will face the victor. District 3 is located in western and southwestern Charlotte.
Finally, District 6, just southeast of the city’s center, will be a contest between Sary Chakra and Krista Bokhari in the Republican primary. The winner will face Democrat Kimberly Owens. There is no incumbent in the race but the current District 6 council member is a Republican.
Local Democratic parties do not endorse in primary races, but the Black Political Caucus does. Its opinion holds weight for many voters.
BPC endorsed Lyles for mayor, and the incumbent City Council members in every district but district 3, where they endorsed Joi Mayo over incumbent Tiawana Brown, and district 6, where they endorsed Democrat Kimberly Owens in absence of an incumbent.
Current Charlotte Council controversies
There’s no shortage of drama in Charlotte local politics.
In May, council member Tiawana Brown was indicted by a federal grand jury for wire fraud. Brown and her two daughters allegedly filed false applications to get more than $124,000 in COVID pandemic relief funds, which were later used for unrelated expenses, including a $15,000 birthday party celebration.
Brown isn’t the only incumbent facing controversy.
Charlotte Police Chief Johnny Jennings allegedly threatened to sue the city for text messages he received from former City Council member Tariq Bokhari threatening to get him fired during an argument over officer protective vests. In a closed session, the city agreed to settle with Jennings for $305,000, which was uncovered by WFAE.
Bokhari resigned to take the number two spot in President Donald Trump’s transit administration. His wife, Krista Bokhari, is running to replace his District 6 seat in what many consider the only truly competitive race of the cycle. Bokhari has a Republican primary challenger, Sary Chakra, and a Democratic general opponent, Kimberly Owens.
Owens doesn’t like the proximity to Trump’s “chaos” that having Bokhari on the council might cause, she said.
“I don’t like the optics of someone sitting on our City Council who could conceivably, now that we’ve had some violence on our city lines, put up a flag and say, ‘Hey, Trump, we need you to send in the National Guard,’” she said.
At-large City Council member Victoria Watlington is also under fire for calling the city’s settlement with the police chief “unethical, immoral, and, frankly, illegal” in an email to constituents.
Jennings will retire at the end of the year, giving the new City Council power over the direction of the police department.
Mayor Lyles hasn’t escaped her fair share of criticism, either. The Charlotte Observer found that since December 2023, there were only three meetings where all council members and the mayor showed up and were on time. Lyles’ attendance record was 82%, the fourth-worst in the group.
Need for change
J.G. Lockhart feels a disconnect between Charlotte’s leadership and its tradition, culture and values. Many of the current City Council members aren’t Charlotte natives, and he wants to change that.
“A lot of people (who) are currently on (the) council have an idea of what they think is in Charlotte’s best interest, but those ideas are coming from other cities that they’re from, and Charlotte is a different kind of city,” he said.
It’s time for a changing of the guard, he said.
Namrata Yadav, who is running as an at-large candidate, wants to hold elected officials to a higher standard.
“We are growing at a pace that is surpassing expectations,” she said. “So, we need people who are competent and can see what the future of possibilities look like, and are working for the city and not just for their own benefit.”
Brendan Maginnis stepped up to run for mayor to give Lyles some competition. Maginnis, a former Marine who ran for a U.S. House seat last year, said he has the grassroots organization and campaign experience to get the job done, if people are paying attention.
That’s a big if. But Maginnis sees leadership in need of reform. Lyles has done good work Maginnis hopes to expand, but it’s time for new ideas, and a new example, he said.
“People are going to look at leaders, which the mayor is the leader of City Council, and they’re going to take their cue from them,” Maginnis said. “And so if she’s absent, then they’re absent, and then what do you end up having is a dysfunctional City Council that leaves 10 minutes early and is not really getting the job done.”
He would like to add transparency to city government through a participatory budgeting process, a citizens commission that would review major decisions and an elected official scorecard tracking their votes and attendance, he said.
Mecklenburg Transit
The separation between Democratic candidates in Charlotte is about the size of a penny — that is, the 1-cent sales tax increase referendum on November’s ballot for all Mecklenburg County residents.
In July, the North Carolina legislature passed the PAVE Act, which gave Mecklenburg County the go-ahead to raise sales taxes to pay for major road, rail and bus transportation projects, if the voters approve the ballot referendum in November.
If approved, the county would create a 27-member transit authority to decide how the money is spent.
Wil Russell supports the referendum. If the transit plan were enacted, the Red Line commuter rail would run through Charlotte’s District 4, where he’s running for office. Russell said it’s important to give people transportation options other than cars.
“I think just in general, Charlotte does need help with infrastructure and transit,” he said. “And so this is an opportunity to provide those funds in order to expand our bus system, expand roads and expand transit options across the city.”
Lockhart is staunchly against the tax. In 1998, when Charlotte passed a half-cent tax referendum to fund transportation, it went poorly, he said.
A collective of mayors with little to no transportation experience were in charge of managing the system, and all Charlotte got out of it was the Blue Line and several billion missing dollars, Lockhart said.
What Charlotte really needs is a better bussing system so fewer people are on the road, he added.
Current councilmember LaWana Slack-Mayfield can’t support the tax either. She takes issue with the financial burden falling on the city instead of the state or federal government, since Charlotte is one of the largest financial contributors to the state.
Yadav sees the need for transit, but understands the city hasn’t always been transparent about how it’s spending money. She supports putting actual transit riders on the transit authority, not just corporate representatives.
Mayoral candidate Tigress McDaniel also acknowledged that Charlotte needs to invest in infrastructure, but thinks the current plan is underdeveloped.
Public Safety
Four days after a Ukrainian woman was stabbed on the Charlotte Area Transit System’s Blue Line by a homeless man, Mayor Lyles issued a statement.
“CATS, by and large, is a safe transit system,” Lyles wrote. “However, tragic incidents like these should force us to look at what we are doing across our community to address root causes. We will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health.”
To some, the delayed response was a sign of passive leadership.
“That’s unacceptable,” said District 3 City Council candidate Montravias King. “Where are you at? Are you checked out? Has the mayor checked out four days to respond? Crime itself is a problem, and we need leaders that are going to show up and lead, get out front.”
While violent crime has significantly declined in Charlotte in the past year, property theft and car break-ins have remained concerns for residents.
Libertarian mayoral candidate Rob Yates feels that community policing efforts at CMPD have been effective, despite the prominence of crime headlines. He thinks the city should expand its current efforts, but that crime concerns are slightly overblown.
Owens has a unique solution to crime concerns: get people back in the office. While she understands the resistance to return-to-office policies, she feels that bringing more people into city spaces will make people feel safer.
She also suggested focusing on better ticketing enforcement and more camera monitoring on transit, which would require investing in the recruitment and retention of police officers.
Republican at-large city council candidate Edwin Peacock agreed that CATS needs to address its open gate system.
“Fare evasion to many just seems like kind of a minor issue, but it really is kind of an underpinning of who do you have on the train, and how safe is it when you’re riding,” he said.
Housing and development
Affordable housing is on nearly everyone’s mind in Charlotte.
In the region encompassing Charlotte, Concord and Gastonia, half of renters are cost-burdened, meaning they spend over 30% of their income on housing, according to a 2025 National Low Income Housing Coalition report. Low-cost rentals in Mecklenburg County dropped from about half to 12% of total rental stock between 2011 and 2022, according to Census data.
District 4 in the northern portion of Charlotte is one of the last green spaces in the city, Russell said. Residents are concerned about over development, said Russell, who is an affordable housing construction manager.
In general, District 5 candidate Juan Diego Mazuera feels like Charlotte has prioritized corporate and private interests over voters’ interests. While he is the youngest candidate in the election at 27, he doesn’t think seats are owned by anyone.
“We are at a crossroads where we decide who we prioritize and value most: The workers and the people who contribute to the revenue that is generated by these corporations, or the corporation?” Mazuera said.
McDaniel isn’t buying the mayor’s assertion that the city is creating more affordable housing, she said.
“The incumbent has made claims for the last three elections that she has been working with developers to combat the issue of affordable housing, and yet they build another high rise that is even more expensive rent wise than one before,” she said.
However, Peacock thinks Charlotte is doing about as much as it can do on affordable housing already. At the same time, local leaders need to focus on economic mobility — creating larger household incomes so Charlotteans can support themselves in a growing, more expensive area, he said.
How the city addresses its growth is important statewide, he added. Buncombe, New Hanover and Wake County are also growing areas, and will take notes based on how Charlotte leads the way, Peacock said.
Decisive Charlotte primaries
The stars would have to align “pretty spectacularly” for Yates to win the mayoral election, he said.
But still, he’s running to win. Yates cares more about his ideas — like putting solar panels on the top of Charlotte bus stops to generate extra electricity — seeing the light of day than holding elected office, he said.
It’s an attitude most non-Democratic candidates are forced to hold in Charlotte, where registered Republicans make up less than a quarter of voters, while Democrats and unaffiliated voters each make up about 40% of the electorate.
It’s hard to change the status quo when nobody is paying attention, though, and many Charlotteans are opting out, King said. If you asked them who their councilperson was, they wouldn’t have a clue.
“This is what keeps people in power, that really shouldn’t be in power anymore,” King said. “People have checked out on municipal elections.”
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This content presents a detailed overview of the local political landscape in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a focus on Democratic candidates, city governance issues, and community concerns such as affordable housing, transit, and public safety. It highlights controversies and criticisms primarily directed at incumbents and the existing establishment, reflecting a reform-oriented perspective often associated with center-left viewpoints. The inclusion of perspectives both supportive and critical of local Democratic leaders, as well as acknowledgment of Republican candidates, suggests a balanced, albeit slightly left-leaning, approach typical of local civic journalism aimed at informing voters about progressive policy debates and calls for change.
