Council Quickies: Edwin Peacock III Appointed to Rep District 6

Charlotte City Council had a long afternoon on Monday, beginning shortly after 1 p.m. for a budget adjustments meeting followed by a vote to appoint a replacement for Tariq Bokhari to complete his term in District 6, then a regularly scheduled zoning meeting. 

On the Agenda:

• Budget Adjustments
• District 6 Rep Appointment
• Zoning Decisions and Hearings

What’s Next: Council is scheduled for a final budget vote on June 9.

Budget Adjustments

Council’s afternoon budget adjustments meeting focused mostly on choosing nonprofit and community organizations and other financial partners that the city will allocate funding to as part of Fiscal Year 2026 budget, a draft of which was proposed by City Manager Marcus Jones on May 5. 

As the meeting began, Mayor Vi Lyles announced that Jones’ office had found $5.3 million in ARPA revenue replacement for one-time allocations that could be spent on items such as financial partner funding, though council was not expected to spend that much solely on financial partnerships.  

Council member LaWana Mayfield began the meeting by presenting a proposed list of financial partners and allocations that she built alongside Marie Harris with the Strategy & Budget Department. 

They built the list based on around 50 applications that came in requesting a total of $8.8 million. They graded and ranked each application based on how each organization’s work matched with the city’s budget priority categories: Well-Managed Government (equity, engagement, and the environment), Great Neighborhoods, Safe Communities, Transportation and Planning, and Workforce and Business Development. 

While Mayfield created her list in hopes that council could move forward with a vote on Monday and not have to debate each organization that had applied, in the end council went around the room suggesting organizations they believe deserve funding and sent it back to the Budget Committee and city staff to work those organizations into the budget.  

Many council members used the recommendations from the People’s Budget Coalition (PBC) as their basis for Monday’s recommendations. 

As a coalition of local advocacy groups, service providers, faith leaders, community organizations and concerned citizens working toward “a people-first, community-up vision for the City of Charlotte,” the PBC presented its budgetary recommendations in March, focusing on anti-displacement, violence interruption and prevention, respectable wages for city employees and guaranteed air conditioning for all residents.

The PBC’s list of recommendations also included 11 funding requests for community organizations and/or programs that are doing work on the ground to further the stated goals and focus areas of the coalition.

Read more: People’s Budget Coalition Releases New Recommendations for City Budget

“I’m fully committed 100% to supporting The People’s Budget,” said Tiawana Brown. For me, and my commitment and my stance has always been and will always be with the people of the community … If it’s not coming through the People’s Budget, I won’t be supporting it.” 

Mayfield pointed out that some organizations listed in The People’s Budget, such as Heal Charlotte, had not applied to be financial partners so we’re not included in her list. Others hadn’t met criteria, such as the mandate that an organization only request a maximum 30% of its annual budget. 

Dante Anderson brought up The Charlotte Museum of History, which was not included in the list of allocations due to a large ask of $400,000. 

“Of any museum entity within the city of Charlotte, we have some wonderful ones, but this one alone does so much outreach to the African-American, Latino, Asian, multicultural community and supports their efforts in terms of events and things they want to do to bring the community together,” Anderson stated, acknowledging that the ask may be too large but suggesting the city find some way to partner with the institution.  

Ed Driggs pointed out that the city’s ARPA funding had run out, leaving council more limited in funding nonprofits and other community organizations than it had been in recent years. He stated his fear early in the meeting that the council was “already straying away from what Ms. Mayfield had led us away from” in how each council member was introducing organizations that needed funding. 

“We’re going to get into this hopeless process of trying to trade off how important is this deserving organization versus that one,” Driggs said. “This is not a judgment about your organization, we’re making tough decisions because our resources are limited.” 

Other organizations that came up repeatedly in discussions included the Carolinas Metro Reds, For the Struggle, Roof Above, Block Love Charlotte, and Hearts for the Invisible. 

The Budget, Governance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee will further discuss these suggestions at its June 2 meeting, coming back in front of the full council for more discussion later that evening with a final budget vote scheduled for June 9. 

District 6 rep appointment

Having wrapped its budget adjustments meeting, council moved down to the chambers to choose a new District 6 representative who will replace Tariq Bokhari and complete the rest of his term, which lasts until December.

In ballot voting that was carried out earlier in the day or week, council split 5-5 between Krista Bokhari and Edwin Peacock III, giving Mayor Vi Lyles the tie-breaking vote. She selected Peacock to be the next District 6 rep. That vote was affirmed by a majority of the council. 

Peacock, who served as an at-large city council rep for two terms from 2007-2011, remains the last Republican elected at-large in the city. During a hearing held in front of council last week, he stressed the importance of affordable housing for the city.

“[For] everybody in Charlotte, we don’t want to see them just have shelter, we want to see them have a place that they can own and build equity in the community,” he said on Thursday.

Peacock assured council that he does not intend to run for the seat when the current term ends. He will be sworn in at an upcoming meeting. 

Zoning meeting

Moving on to the zoning portion of the meeting, council approved a development of up to 145 units comprising du-, tri-, quadplexes and apartments along Johnston-Oehler Road near Mallard Creek Regional Park in northeast Charlotte.

Certain standards were attached to the petition to encourage homeownership and curb corporate ownership: No more than 20% of units may be for rent at any given time, no entity/person shall own more than two units within site, and units can’t be rented out within 12 months of initial purchase.

Council also approved a petition to allow construction of two buildings totaling 3 million square feet for telecommunications and data storage off Moores Chapel Road. LaWana Mayfield had previously voiced her concerns that the environmental impacts of a data center would cancel out the goals of the city’s Strategic Energy Action Plan.

Developers committed to implementing a closed-loop cooling system at the data center and constructing all buildings to a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver minimum or equivalent standard. Mayfield was the only No vote.

Members of the Mountain Island Lake Community Alliance showed up for a hearing to voice their concerns about a proposed 100-unit townhome development on Mount Holly Road near the Pine Island Country Club, citing traffic and infrastructure concerns and pointing out that recent rezonings have already greenlit 2,000 units in the area.

The group requested that developers implement a reduced conflict intersection (RCI) in front of the development. “We’re not asking for something unusual or costly, we’re suggesting a proven state-supported solution that aligns with the infrastructure needs of our growing area.”

One man who said he lives nearby on Mt Holly-Huntersville Road said there is an alarming lack of infrastructure around his house, adding that he’s had multiple cars drive through his fence along the road during his time living there including three in the last year and a wreck that wiped out a bus stop.

“We want our area to look like the other side of town but we need some help from you folks first,” the man said. 

A rep for the developer said preliminary research has shown that they will likely be able to implement a “deceleration lane” as requested by neighbors but NCDOT does not appear to be supportive of an RCI.

A CDOT rep says he’s aware of NCDOT projects in the queue that will widen both Mount Holly and Mt Holly-Huntersville roads. He added that the project will likely add 700 traffic trips to Mount Holly Road, which is not enough to trigger a traffic study. 

LaWana Mayfield stated her belief that the city needs to lower its minimum standards for how many trips trigger a traffic study.