First Talk (WHKY) - Monday Morning meeting with the Mayor - and the Hound

This is an MP3 recording of my question that I wanted to ask the Mayor on Hal Row's radio show during his Monday Morning Meeting with the Mayor segment: Link to MP3 (sorry the audio isn't perfect, but it is clear).

I truly appreciated the Mayor's response. I realize that he cannot say everything that he wants to say for political reasons, but if you read between the lines, then you will understand that he is as frustrated with Raleigh as the rest of us.

Where I disagree with the Mayor, is that we shouldn't play footsie with the people in the eastern part of the state just to please them. We are fiscal conservatives and we aren't going to change just to please the money-spinners in Raleigh that have led us down this path to a $2 billion shortfall. We have a surplus in Hickory. No matter how you cut it, one can see that we have vastly different philosophies when it comes to spending.

Like he says, we have a lobbyist, but what is this guy doing? I was there when he was awarded the contract. Is he earning his keep. I don't think so. The Consultant is going to represent the highest bidder. He is basically representing an assortment of cities. We aren't getting anything out of this guy that will specifically help this area.

The people in Charlotte voted against their own Mayor in an effort that elected Mrs. Perdue. That was nothing more than straight ticket voters that weren't intelligent enough to know how to vote anything other than straight ticket, so they KISSed (Kept It Simple Stupid on their voting) their best interests good-bye so that they could make sure that they wouldn't mess up their allegiance to Obama. No one other than typical North Carolina Democrat Party hacks would ever state anything other than the fact that Pat McCrory is a pragmatic and charismatic leader who could have taken North Carolina in a positive and new direction.

The people of Charlotte will continue to get slighted. They have always put Democrats in key positions of power, so this money issue has nothing to do with political affiliation. Charlotte gets the shaft from Raleigh (and the East), because they are jealous of Charlotte's stature as the largest city in the state. It is truly ashame that the people of Charlotte don't back up their fellow brethren in the west, The same can be said for Winston-Salem.

The West plays the role of the Forgotten Man in the State of North Carolina. They don't even know (or care) that we exist. It is time that we make a concerted effort to get our rightful money from Raleigh. We aren't asking for charity. We just want our money back. The Western Piedmont Council of Governments is an unelected body. They are more of a social organization than anything. It is our elected officials duty to take the lead on this. This is no different than the water transfer issue. The Mayor stumbled onto the truth at the end of this segment. If Raleigh keeps kicking us while we are down, by continued confiscation of our taxes and redistribution to their cronies, then it is time to sue them.

Moral persuasion, a sense of fairness, or even the cold calculus that if they would invest in the Hickory area, we would soon produce a return of monies doesn' t seem to work with these people. So if they insist, then hardball politics it should and shall be.