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5A OPINIONS/ QCiie qtarUittt Thursday February 12, 2004 Charlotte misplaces priorities threaten us Don Reid Since the early 1990s, Charlotte has experienced unprecedented economic prosperity, while during the same period the politicians, bureaucrats and some of the media have done a masterful job of covering up our three biggest problems. Two of the three problems, a dysfunctional educational system and high taxes, are slowly but surely being exposed. For example, we now know that only 11 per cent to 15 percent of fourth- and eighth-grade blacks, and 49 percent to 55 percent of white fourth- and eighth- graders passed the national NAEP tests on math and reading. Thanks to the John Locke Foundation, we know that Charlotte has, by far, the highest per capita tax of all the cities in North Carolina and that the per capita tax has increased over 40 per cent since Mayor McCrory first became mayor. But what about the third major problem — high crime? Despite the hype that crime is decreasing, despite the statistics and denial, most of us know that crime is a major problem in our town. Sure, there are areas of our city with low crime, but in these areas you will find gated communities, a high concentration of burglar alarm systems and in many of these communities the residents are also protected by their own private security patrols. But what about other areas? Here’s an example: In one area off Eastway Drive, over the period Jan. 1,1999-Oct. 31, 2003, less than three years, Pierson Drive had 80 crime incident reports. Woodland Ave. 86 crime inci dents, Norland Road 106 incidents and believe it or not. Eastway Drive had 5798 crime incidents!! A friend, a well know polit ical figure, who lives in the area, reported to me that recently, at 11:30 p.m., he observed a car with its lights out, parked in front of his house. The car, by flashing its lights, was signaling another car parked down the street in front of a house occupied by an 80-year-old lady. My friend followed the two cars as they left the area, at the same time call ing 911 reporting the suspi cious nature of the incident and that one car had no license plate. The police refused to respond, suggesting that they be called if the cars return to the neighborhood! The result: the 80 year old lady’s car was stolen and we apparently don’t have the desire or resources to pre vent it. With this kind of crime problem along Eastway Drive, can you imagine what it’s like in some of our inner-city neigh borhoods. The fact is our mayor and city council have not made crime prevention a high pri ority. The negative economic impact of crime would dwarf any positive impact of a new arena or convention center, not to mention relieving the tremendous stress that crime brings to our citizens. The $50 million per year from the transit tax, would put 1000 police officers on our streets and in our com munities preventing crime the number one responsibility of govern ment, at any level. And let’s talk about equity. When the mayor’s car and the mayor pro-tem’s cars were stolen, there was an immediate response with several police cars and even the police helicopter. If like Eastway Drive, there were 5798 crime incidents on say, Carmel Road, the police chief and city manager would be fired! Yes there is a conflict of interest when the mayor accepts free plane trips to playoff games from CPI Security' Systems - by not placing crime prevention at the top of his priority list, the mayor is indirectly building the business of CPI!! We’ve said all along that the only way to slow out of control spending by CATS on this light rail idiocy was to hope they run out of money. By cutting the funding for Charlotte’s system, the Federal Transit Administration may have come to the rescue of Charlotte’s over taxed citi- Exercising black political clout By Ron Walters NATIONAL NEWSPAPER PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION The results of the South Carolina primary were instructive in many ways but they primarily showed that black voters are aU over the map, splitting their vote almost equally between Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards and John Kerry at 37 percent and 34 percent, respectively, with Rev. A1 Sharpton getting 17 percent, which was less than half of what Edwards received. This says at least two things. First, it says that if the black vote has lost its unity, then it has lost its significance in the 2004 election. What does it mean for black politics if the top candidates - Kerry, Edwards, and, to a lesser extend, Clark - to have the black vote split among them? It means that a split in a minority vote will hardly be recognized by any of them. On the other hand, more unified black vote could not be ignored by any of them. Furthermore, this means that if this pattern of a split black vote in national elections continues, while we all may be hav ing fun asserting our “individuality,” what we really will be asserting is political impotence. Judging by the numbers, what black voters seem to be say ing is that we are just like every body else; we are going to hang free, let the chips fall where they may and vote for whomever is the best-looking, best-sounding and has the best chance of getting elected in November. The truth is that we cannot vote just like everybody else. The decision by many Blacks to join the bandwagon of "electabili- ty” means that we have lost our clear vision of how to use power to impact on the election system. Blacks were 47 per cent of the primary voters in South Carolina and it would have been far better for them to have voted 100 percent for one can didate rather split the black vote. The media has been always drawn to the dramatic feats of Black politics —asking why are blacks behaving differently than anyone else. This kind of action is the stuff that draws attention to the agenda of Black voters. If the black vote were used to make or break one of the leading candidates, then they would be beholden to that Black vote and their issues. Given that the white vote was distributed among the five candidates, the black vote could have determined the winner. But that didn’t happen. Black voters, ‘’just like everybody else,” seems to be shifting from their early allegiance from Howard Dean to Kerry. Dean received only 4 percent of the black vote in South Carolina. Right now, the media seems to be teUing black voters what to do and shaping the race according to its own balance sheet. I don’t support Howard Dean, but the media seems to have ejected him like a foreign substance from the body politic just because of the so-called “I Have a Scream” speech following his loss in Iowa. Sure, Dean looked un-presidential, but I still don’t think we get it. The media wants the classic fight: a well- known senator from inside the Washington power circle pitted against George Bush, the incumbent president. It doesn’t want a firebrand governor who will flame out before they have had a chance to sell many newspaper ads or TV commercials. The plain fact is that blacks need a strategy' and we need leaders to devise it, lest we expend their precious energy in this election season all for nothing. RON WALTERS is a political science professor at the University of Maryland in College Park. All Americans have a dream: Equal access to homeownership By Franklin D. Raines SPECIAL TO THE POST In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said, “...[HJalf of all Negroes live in substandard housing. And Negroes have half the income of whites. ... [W]e are likely to find that the problems of housing, education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abol ished. The poor, transformed into pur chasers, will do a great deal on their own to alter housing decay. Negroes, who have a double disability, will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the addi tional weapon of cash to use in their strug gle.” Tbday -.as we approach the 50th anniver sary of the Brown v. Board of Education deci sion that marked the beginning of the end of racial apartheid in America - minority Americans still have not achieved parity in housing or wealth. Dr. King was arguing that poverty had to be aboHshed first before there could be parity in housing. And of course, to a great extent he is correct-fami lies need a decent income and some money in the bank to get a mortgage. But we at Fannie Mae, the nation’s largest source of home mortgage funds, also stand for the converse proposition: If we can bend the housing finance system to transform the poor into home purchasers, if we can help imderserved families apply the income and savings they do have, then we can get more minority families into homes - and they can start to biuld equity wealth. Today, while the U.S. homeownership rate has reached an all-time high of 68 percent, and 75 percent for white Americans, only 49 percent of minorities own their homes. If there were racial parity in homeownership, we calculate that three million more African American families would own their homes - and would have $760 billion more in home equity wealth. For example, a $100,000 home purchased in 1990 that appreciated the national average of 4-5 percent per year would now be worth $172,000 — yielding a $72,000 gain in equity wealth, tax free. Tb do our part to close the racial gaps in homeownership and wealth, Fannie Mae has just expanded our American Dream Commitment plan. Under this plan, launched in 2000, we pledged to provide $2 trillion in housing capital for 18 million minority and underserved families by the end of the decade. Since then, following three extraordinary years for the housing industry, we have already hit the $2 trillion mark. This is on top of the $1 trillion we pro vided to 10 million underserved families from 1994 to 2000. Now Fannie Mae is renewing and deepen ing our American Dream Commitment plan, starting with an emphasis on first-time homebuyers. Fannie Mae will create 6 mil lion first-time homeownere — including 1.8 million minority homeowners — over the next 10 years, and help boost the minority homeownership rate to 55 percent. We are not satisfied with 55 percent; ultimately our goal is to erase the racial gap in homeown ership. The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies has projected that it would take until the year 2020 for the minority home- ownership rate to reach 54.4 percent. We are going take it farther six years earlier. Over the past 10 years, the $3 trillion in commitments Fannie Mae has made and met have transformed us into a company where imderserved families are the core of our business and our future. Now that we have the capital, the tools and a wide range of committed housing partners, Fannie Mae is pushing to do more with bold ideas and big plans to really move the minority homeown ership rate. FRANKLIN RAINES is chief executive officer at Fannie Mae. hr Aaron McOriicicr BUS STOF The FTA says it cannot comply with our request for federal funds because our CATS planning has not pro gressed far enough. But bureaucrats like our CATS head Ron Ibber are never deterred by little things like too little money. Tbber wants to go full steam ahead and hope the money from FTA come through later. “If theyfthe council) are nervous about buying trains until we have a doneffinan- cial) deal, we’ll have a delay” says Tbber, and then goes on to say that each month’s delay will cost the city $1 million. This is nothing but a ploy to scare the council to buy trains before the money is available. It sure would be • interesting to know how Tober came up with the mil lion bucks a month! DON REID is a former meniT her of Charlotte City Council and a founding member of Citizens For Effective Government. val 1mm. I Atkinson Judicial campaign reform The N.C. Judicial Campaign Reform Act that passed the N.C. House on September 26, 2002 allows for public funding of races for the N.C. Supreme Court and the N.C. Court of Appeals. There are tons of condi tions and provisions sur rounding this reform, but what’s important to the aver age North Carolinian is the $3.00 check off on your State tax return. Checking this block will not increase your taxes, it’s merely a confirma tion that you agree with the Judicial Campaign Reform Act and are willhig to have public funds support statewide candidates run ning for the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. Candidates agreeing to participate in this program will be limited in the amount of funds they can raise; and they must raise a minimum amount as well. Candidates running for Court of Appeals seats must raise a minimum of $33,000 and cannot raise over $66,000. Supreme Court candidates must raise $34,500 and cannot raise over $69,000. If the candi dates meet these require ments they become eligible for a $137,500 distribution for Court of Appeals candi dates and $201,300 for Supreme Court candidates. Rescue funds will also be available for candidates whose opponents are not plan participants and exceed the fund raising and/or spending limits set by the plan. Having said all that, the bottom line is that African American judicial candi dates like Court of Appeals Judges Wanda Biyant and Loretta Biggs and Supreme Court Associate Justice G.K Butterfield would have all been elected had we had a Judicial Campaign Reform Act in place, operational and functional before the general election of 2002 when all three of the aforementioned judges and associate justices were defeated by white can didates. These public funds will not impact your return- or the taxes you owe. This is some thing we all can do and it’s absolutely painless. Syndicated columnist VAL ATKINSON can he reached at: Jone.sstreet@nc. rr.com
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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Feb. 12, 2004, edition 1
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