Imagine if a municipal utilities department couldn’t deliver clean water, or a garbage department couldn’t pick up trash, or a fire department couldn’t extinguish conflagrations. Now suppose these departments, confronted by an undeniable failure to successfully perform their core duties, disavowed any further intent to provide potable water, or collect refuse, or put out fires. […]
Author: Michael F. Roessler
Charlotte citizen. Husband. Lawyer. Dog dad. Book worm.
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Economic Incentives and Democracy
Once again, state and local officials have thrown millions of dollars in “economic incentives” at a for-profit business, offering us a chance to examine the system of legalized corporate blackmail and bribery that mars our civic life. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles announced last month that in exchange for expansion […]
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N.C. Democrats Need A Shake-Up
If not a shellacking, then the performance of North Carolina Democrats in last year’s election came awfully close — yet state Democratic leadership, both in the party itself and in the chambers of the legislature, may well look little different this year than it did before the failure that was 2020. Of the three top-tier races — […]
If there is an article of political faith shared by elected officials from left to right and from city councils to the Oval Office, it is that public dollars should not be squandered on wasteful, ineffective government programs — with one seeming exception: law enforcement. Why should that be? Let’s ask of the police department […]
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Dan Bishop Hates Democracy
Sometimes the need to state a plain, simple truth displaces the need to analyze. Now is such a time, and here it is: Congressman Dan Bishop hates democracy. After Donald Trump lost reelection, the president unsurprisingly launched a campaign of lies and tantrums to seek to delegitimize his defeat. Thankfully, we need only tolerate him […]
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CMPD Smears Shooting Victim
Danquirs Franklin’s actions before his death don’t matter. All that matters is what the officer who shot him saw and knew when she pulled the trigger. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and the City of Charlotte sought to distract from this unremarkable point when it released irrelevant video footage this week showing events before Franklin’s death in […]
The injection of Black lives into white, wealthy space proved too much. So Charlotte City Council voted last week to allow cars and trucks to grind our Black Lives Matter mural into oblivion. On South Tryon Street between 3rd and 4th Streets, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, we had made a promise to […]
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This Is What Democracy Looks Like
The humdrum work of democracy unfolded in the gymnasium of Cochrane Collegiate Academy. There, on the east side of Charlotte, voters who live in Mecklenburg County’s Precinct 3 cast their ballots last week for public offices ranging from the presidency to the local soil and water conservation board. About ten poll workers — all of […]
Behold the human imagination! Author of the cave drawings of Lascaux, Great Pyramid of Giza, and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; written language, Euclidean geometry, and astrophysics; Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam; classical music, jazz, and rock; the steam engine, jumbo jet, and lunar rover. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder earlier this year at […]
Most people do not approve of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s performance, according to a survey conducted by CMPD. A majority also believes the department should be subject to additional independent oversight. “We have no legitimacy as a police department if we don’t have the support of our community,” Deputy Chief Sherie Pearsall said at a […]
