Weak mayor? Pat McCrory opines. In California.

Hmm. Ex-Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a Republican who's almost certainly running for governor again in 2012, has written an opinion piece for, of all things, the Sacramento Bee:
"Strong mayor or not, it's still the bully pulpit."

It seems Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is pushing to turn the office, in California's capital city, into a full-time, strong mayor form of government. And the local paper there (a McClatchy Co. sister paper to the Obs) requested the opinion of another non-fulltime mayor.

For those of you not deeply into local politics, here's a primer on strong/weak mayor systems: In cities such as Charlotte that have a "council-manager" form of government, the mayor's doesn't hire or fire anyone or run any city departments. A professional city manager does that. The council makes the decisions such as policy, and hiring/firing the city manager. In Charlotte the mayor doesn't even have a vote on the council, except in a few instances (ties, rezonings with protest petitions, etc.) Charleston's Joe Riley, Boston's Tom Menino, Chicago's Richard Daley are all "strong mayors," – they function as the chief city administrator.

McCrory concludes: "Regardless of the powers to the mayor's office it will be the mayor who will get the blame or the credit for what happens in a city. Deserved or not."

There are pros and cons to each type of government. Strong mayors can be more effective in changing city policy – witness Daley's success at and worldwide acclaim for repositioning Chicago as a "green" city. City managers tend not to want to be strong enough leaders to get out in front of those who hire/fire them, which can lead to a sense that no one is leading the city – which was a recurring criticism during McCrory's tenure. And with the job being a (wink-wink) "part-time" one, the post is only going to attract people who are wealthy, retired, self-employed, have very understanding bosses or have a job or whose pay is so low the mayor's pay is a step up.

On the other hand, strong mayors can use their power to reward political allies and punish foes, even to a greater extent than "weak mayors." (They can all do that, believe me.) And an inept or crooked strong mayor can do a lot more damage than an inept or crooked weak mayor.

My conclusion is that I'd like a strong mayor system if we had a mayor I liked and I'd hate it if we had a mayor I didn't. And that's not really all that helpful.

'Tryon Bridge Towers' artist did WWII Memorial

What ARE those things on South Tryon Street? The two metallic structures erected just past the Big O building at the bridge over I-277, are not, as you might have thought, witches-hat-derived homage to the show "Wicked." They are a gift from the Queens Table, a group of anonymous – and apparently wealthy and influential – public art donors who have brought us the Socialist-realist monuments at The Square.

Update 3:30 PM - The artist is Friedrich St.Florian, an architect based in Providence, R.I. He designed the World War II Memorial in Washington. Here's a link to a series of photos of the works being installed. The current name appears to be "Tryon Bridge Towers."

Here's a link (courtesy of the folks at CLTblog) to a presentation to the City Council in April 2009. It explains the Queens Table: "A small group of anonymous donors established the Queen’s Table Fund in 1991 to celebrate Charlotte by quietly finding and filling needs that are not otherwise being met to enhance aesthetics and quality of life in the City." (May I suggest that art teachers for CMS could be an unfilled need for the next decade?)

Among their prior gifts, in addition to the four statues at The Square, are the Queen Charlotte at the airport (often described as "going into the lane for the layup") and "Aspire," the bronze on Kings Drive outside the Temple of Karnak-sized new Central Piedmont Community College building. I have come to love the airport statue, I confess. "Aspire" will have to grow on me. The things at The Square are an embarrassment, art as envisioned by aging CFOs, perhaps. (No I don't know who really selected them.)

I am checking in with Jean Greer, Vice President of Public Art at the Arts & Science Council to see what she knows. (Update: Jean tells me the project didn't go through the ASC Public Art Commission although she knew about it through Charlotte Center City Partners. It sits on N.C. DOT property, she says. The N.C. DOT is in the process of crafting an art policy for state rights-of-way.)

Jean is one of the lucky souls who gets to stand up at occasional City Council dinner meetings and give presentations on current public art projects and endure silly jokes from council member Andy Dulin and – for the 14 years he was mayor – Pat McCrory. McCrory buttonholed me last week at the James Jack statue unveiling to say he requires two things of public art for him to like it: You don't have to be high to "get it" and it shouldn't be something a 5th-grader could do. He approved of Chas Fagan's James Jack statue.

I don't know about this new work. At first, as I went past for several weeks I kept thinking it was some odd NCDOT construction equipment abandoned to the weeds. Then it became clear it was "art."

Pardon me for sounding like McCrory but this one reminds me of robotic equipment, as portrayed on "The Jetsons," or possibly a depiction of the trash compactors on Darth Vader's Death Star. It does not make my heart soar. If anything, it destroys any soaring my heart might have been inclined to do. (Not that a soaring heart is likely as you walk across the bleak, Sahara-like I-277 bridge.)

Annual cost to the city, for maintenance, such as mowing, planting, electricity: $ 8,450.

Mayor Pat's last council meeting

We're in the middle of the Citizens Forum part of tonight's City Council meeting - when anyone can address the council. As the dinner meeting was breaking up about 6:45, Mayor Pat McCrory asked whether Martin Davis would be appearing.

Davis, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in the Republican primary, has a habit of appearing and trashing McCrory for being socialist, for his support of transit.

Told that Davis wasn't on the schedule tonight, McCrory, knowing this is his last business meeting as mayor, quipped that he might have finally told Davis what he thought of him.

But later he was clearly moved to tears when a group from the Greenville Community Historical thought Association [Greenville the neighborhood, not the cities in North or South Carolina] came to the lectern to present him with a plaque and certificate. As longtime neighborhood advocates and civic activists Thereasea Elder and Maxine Eaves spoke, McCrory's face was somber and he had to wipe his eyes.

7:29 PM - McCrory again mentions his regret that Martin Davis isn't here, and then several other old favorite council speakers, (Ballerina Man, Ben3, etc.) most notably, he said, "Helicopter Guy." That would be the famed "Rogue Helicopter"clip on YouTube. If you haven't seen it, have a look.

Mayor Pat on his last council meeting tonight

Tonight will be Pat McCrory's last real City Council meeting as mayor. Sure, he'll be there Dec. 7 for the new council swearing-in, but that's different. He's been Charlotte mayor longer than anyone - 14 years - and leaves a huge legacy, especially with the city's transportation and light rail system.

I caught up with him this morning to ask what he was thinking and feeling. Any big to-do planned?

No, he said. "I'm not big on goodbyes. I get too sentimental."

I asked, What are your thoughts? "A combination of sadness with being very proud. ... I'm a very sentimental guy so I don't like the last of anything." But, he said, "It's time to move on."

He talked a lot about a meeting last week in Greenville, S.C., with a coalition of mayors and academics and business people trying to raise awareness of the existence of an urban mega-region from Atlanta through Raleigh. He and retiring Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin are pushing the effort. The group hashed out a mission statement ("It was like making sausage.") They'll probably form a 501(c)3 nonprofit group.

And he raved about downtown Greenville, which has reclaimed the historic Reedy River Falls and built a public garden alongside it with a pedestrian suspension bridge over the river. "Just gorgeous!" McCrory said. "They let people swim in the river and play in the falls!" He told Greenville Mayor Knox White he was envious. But McCrory being McCrory, he added "He's envious of our light rail."

McCrory said he met with Mayor-elect Anthony Foxx last week and gave him advice about time-management, ethics, how best to spend his time with national groups, etc.

He intends to stay busy with initiatives such as the Mega-region initiative and with speeches all over the country about Charlotte's light rail line and the accompanying transit-oriented land use planning. He calls his presentation, "From Mayberry to Metropolis: Creating the Best of Both.," and says, "We're seen as a role model for how it's done."

He talked - again - about his dislike for the way the federal stimulus money is being spent, and his belief that the council's vote to pursue a planning and design study for a streetcar was misguided.

And you won't be surprised to hear that he figures he'll still be putting in a word here, a word there.

Keep an eye on McCrory. I expect he won't fade quietly into private life.

They'll choose next CATS chief

Who'll choose next CATS (Charlotte Area Transit System) chief? The four-member selection panel will consist of Charlotte City Manager Curt Walton, County Manager Harry Jones, , Matthews Town Manager Hazen Blodgett and Davidson Mayor John Woods (named by Charlotte Mayor and Metropolitan Transit Commission chair Pat McCrory).

According to a memo from Jones:

"The four members of the selection panel have conferred and agreed to move forward with the recruitment process as follows. Advertisements will be posted electronically with all national transit-related organizations, with a closing date of September 25, 2009. A profile of the Chief Transit Official position, updated during the 2007 recruitment process, will be subjected to a series of focus groups for input. The profile also will be posted on the city/county website for additional public input. The process is designed to name a new CATS CEO by November 30, 2009."

Jones' memo also notes that in 2015 Charlotte will host the national convention of the National Association of Counties. Hmmmm. Whole lotta politicians will be treading our sidewalks. (Lock up the silverware?) But Charlotte hosted the event in 2000 and no mass outbreaks of oratory or political skullduggery were reported.

This meeting is adjourned

You be the judge. Was Mayor Pat McCrory unnecessarily curt, or avoiding a politically sticky situation or just being time-efficient after a long meeting Monday night, when a delegation from the gay/lesbian alliance appeared before Charlotte City Council?

Here's the background: The council's 5 p.m. dinner meeting was to be followed by a Citizens Forum, a regular event where the council hears from the public but doesn't take action or engage in much discussion, though upon occasion a council member will ask questions or make comments. Only one speaker had signed up, a man from Durham.

He turned out to be Joshua Lee Weaver, accompanied by a dozen or so local folks from Charlotte's gay and lesbian community. He sought the council's approval of "A Resolution in Support of Civil Marriage for Same-Sex Couples." (He must have had Charlotte confused with Chapel Hill or something.) With his allotted 4 minutes at the microphone, he asked for their support and read the resolution.

When Weaver finished, Mayor McCrory said quickly: "Thank you very much. This meeting is adjourned." And council members began packing up. Weaver said something like, "Well, I was hoping for some feedback." McCrory said he appreciated him being here, but didn't comment on the substance of the proposal.

Afterward, Weaver said two municipalities had passed the resolution already – Chapel Hill and Carrboro – and Durham was considering it. He said other cities would be asked to pass it but wasn't sure which he'd approach next.

Observer reporter Julia Oliver asked McCrory after the meeting if he'd put the resolution on the agenda and McCrory said he wouldn't.

To be fair, McCrory and several council members afterward did go speak to Weaver afterward, and to some in the group accompanying him. I noticed Susan Burgess and Anthony Foxx, and there may have been others. Council member Andy Dulin sent a letter to the Observer today saying he doesn't support civil unions – "One man, one woman is what I believe" – and noting that none of the seven Democrats at the table said a word to Weaver. He's right. Of course, the mayor closed the meeting before anyone had time to say a peep.

McCrory's next project?

I hate to interrupt the great comment thread going on at "Developers bend city official's ear" but here goes:

Hizzoner Pat McCrory stopped by the paper today to talk about what he plans to do with his remaining eight months in office. Headlines: Economic development [recruit more companies to bring more jobs], city spending [try to cut what needs to be cut in the city budget], public safety [he's against crime and supports the police chief]. Motherhood and apple pie were probably on the list too.

But near the end of the conversation he talked about having recently gone to Atlanta for an event sponsored by Georgia Tech, to look at mega-regions. There's a lot of theorizing going on among people who study city and metro region growth that county and state lines are all but irrelevant if you look at how economies work. It's essentially the "Citistates" theory of folks such as Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson. Now folks are talking about mega-regions. One mega-region, dubbed "CharLanta," is the urbanized crescent running from Atlanta through Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C., Charlotte, the N.C. Triad and on to the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle area.

McCrory said he and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin agreed to try to get a project going, possibly with Georgia Tech and UNC Charlotte, to look at "the bigger picture vision thing."

Now I've not always agreed with McCrory, but in transportation, he's usually on target or pretty darn close, in terms of what's needed. And he's right about the need to look long-term and big picture.

One major need in the CharLanta corridor: Better passenger rail service. A significant attribute that sets apart the DC-to-Boston corridor is its clearly superior rail service. The whole Southeast region ought to get together and make the world's best pitch, to anyone in D.C. who will listen, that it's our turn for some of those rail dollars. After all, North Carolina got shafted in the federal transit-stimulus-divvying formula.

I don't know how McCrory plans to spend his time post-mayorship, but working to put a mega-region coalition together might well be a project in need of a champion.

Foxx reels in big-name backers

At-large City Council member Anthony Foxx announced today he's running for mayor next year regardless of whether incumbent Mayor Pat McCrory wins the governor's race.

Foxx, a Democrat, told me he's rounded up enough early support to go for it. Among those supporters, he said -- and I was prying, he wasn't just tossing out these names -- are retired Bank of America CEO Hugh McColl Jr. and local Democratic Party bigwig Cammie Harris. McColl usually -- but not always -- backs Democrats.

Foxx told me he had decided just within the past few weeks, although he's been thinking about running for months. But he sent letters to supporters or potential supporters late last week. "I would defind that as the point of no return."

He'll probably face impressive opposition, likely Republican council member John Lassiter (if McCrory is ensconced in Raleigh) and possibly Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Graham, who's also been thinking about running for mayor for some time. Both are generally well-regarded and, in my experience, do a good job as elected officials, as does Foxx.

"Why now?" I asked Foxx. He gave a thoughtful and even visionary answer, which in a politician is refreshing. (Note: Lassiter and Graham could probably do the same. Many elected officials can't.) Part of it was a discussion of the current problems the city faces and how many of them are, in fact, regional problems: The economy. Transportation. The environment.

"When I ask people where the city's going, it's a microcosm of the country," he said. "People don't know where we're going."

Foxx grew up in Charlotte, went to Davidson and NYU law school. He's been on the council since 2005.