Hall of Shame 2024: The Charlotte Area’s Worst of the Worst
The darkest spots in a list of Charlotte's brightest
We hate to be downers but there are some people walking the streets of Charlotte who made the year shittier for everyone. Do better.
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WORST POLITICIAN: Mark Robinson
Since entering the political arena in 2018, when footage of him defending gun rights at a Greensboro City Council in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting went viral, Mark Robinson has remained strident on his path of extremism. Since becoming North Carolina Lieutenant Governor in 2021, the Republican has continuously made hateful, disturbing and misinformed comments publicly, garnering widespread support from his party for doing so, including earning an endorsement from President-elect Donald Trump.
Then in September, as he ran for NC governor, things got weird for Robinson when reporting by CNN revealed a new round of disturbing remarks that Robinson apparently made on a website called Nude Africa between the years of 2008-12. In a slew of posts, Robinson called himself a “black NAZI” and voiced his support for the return of slavery, adding “I would certainly buy a few,” CNN reported. Robinson also reportedly admitted to enjoying transgender porn, which contradicts his vehement and often hateful opposition to anything related to the LGBTQ+ community, especially trans rights.
Robinson, for his part, has denied ever making the comments, which include a number of other disturbing claims and revelations including obscenely detailed claims that he slept with his wife’s sister. He later sued CNN for defamation, only to then revise the suit, changing his claim for damages from $50 million to $25,000, the maximum amount one can claim without listing specific damages.
Prominent Republican party members ultimately distanced themselves from Robinson and others called on him to drop out of the race. Robinson refused to do so, clearing the way for NC Attorney General Josh Stein’s win. In his concession speech Robinson expressed his feelings regarding the loss.
“I’m disappointed,” he said. “I’m disappointed for you. Because I wanted this for you, and for the people of North Carolina.” The people of North Carolina do not agree.
WORST GOVERNMENT DEAL: Brooklyn Village
The first time the Brooklyn Village developers came before local government agencies to pitch their plan, Barack Obama was president and Queen City Nerve did not exist. Even in the beginning, we had concerns; the Brooklyn Village plan would shrink the size of Marshall Park, a well-known gathering place for civic action, and the only large park in Second Ward. Additionally, some members of the development team have a less-than-stellar track record.
Now, after a decade of waiting, it’s clear Mecklenburg County residents got the short end of the stick. The developers bought the land at a premium price and promised affordable housing units — a necessity as Uptown grows. The problem is that those units are nowhere to be found. Nor is anything else.
The latest update on progress — or lack thereof — came in August, when developers announced that they won’t even be able to start vertical construction on the project until summer 2026 at the earliest. The next time the Brooklyn Village team asks for an extension — and they likely will — both residents and elected officials should meet the request with the highest level of scrutiny.
BIGGEST BULLET DODGED: Michele Morrow
As bad as it might have been to see Mark Robinson occupy the governor’s mansion — and it would have been bad — the danger posed by another candidate in the slate of Council of State races this November may have been even greater. Fortunately, we won’t have to realize the impacts of either.
Among the positive results gained from the 2024 election, Democratic candidate Maurice Green was able to topple his Republican opponent Michele Morrow in the race for NC Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI). The role includes overseeing North Carolina’s public school system, acting as the chief administrative officer of the NC State Board of Education and directing the department’s $11-billion budget, among other duties.
Morrow, much like her pal Robinson, the now lame duck Lieutenant Governor, was a divisive figure at best, an extremist at the least, and potentially deadly to vulnerable children in North Carolina’s public schools at worst. She lobbied hard for the passage of the Parents’ Bill of Rights, a bill that LGBTQ+ organizations have called extremely harmful to trans kids for the reason of overreach.
Another troubling aspect of Morrow’s candidacy and popularity in the Republican Party is the fact that she has no experience in public schools, having homeschooled her own children. In fact, she’s called public schools “indoctrination centers” while actively working to undermine public education by supporting a private school voucher program that funnels money away from public schools and into a fund that helps pay to send rich children to private schools.
And we haven’t even gotten to Morrow’s more extremist exploits, such as when she called for the execution of former President Obama, falsely claimed that the “+” in LGBTQ+ stood for “pedophilia,” and was there in DC on Jan. 6, 2021, after which she posted a (since-deleted) video that then-President Donald Trump should have enacted the Insurrection Act and utilized the military to retain power after he lost the 2020 election. It’s hard to imagine what damage Morrow could have done had she won office, which is why even current superintendent Catherine Truitt, a Republican, refused to endorse her.
“It’s always been a mystery to me why someone who has never trusted her own children with the public school systems, and someone who’s never worked in public schools in any capacity at all, would want to be the state’s leader of our public schools,” Truitt said.
After being rejected by voters in the Nov. 5 election, Morrow sought Trump’s appointment as US Secretary of Education, a job he ended up giving to WWE co-founder and New Bern native Linda McMahon instead. Let’s just hope Truitt’s mystery remains one that we never get the answer to.
WORST POLICY FAILURE: Silver Line Elimination
In our City Life section, we discuss the excitement and anticipation around the progress that’s been made toward building the Red Line commuter line to north Mecklenburg County. The other side of the Red Line coin is the apparent loss in transit negotiations of the Silver Line, a light rail track that would run from Uptown through southeast Charlotte to Matthews. It’s the most expensive piece of Charlotte’s transit plan, and with a new, more extreme Trump administration incoming, it was already unlikely to be built in the near future. Elections have consequences.
At this point, we’re still at a speculation phase. Norfolk Southern finally made the tracks available for the Red Line and the city shifted priorities. The Silver Line was pushed to the back burner, as paying for both would be unfeasible with a new transit plan capping the amount of money that can be spent on rail infrastructure. There are still hopes that the line will run from Uptown to the airport, but the southeastern section is all but dead in the water, with city officials pushing for rapid bus transit to Matthews as a replacement.
Elected officials in Matthews aren’t wrong to feel betrayed. A transit route that connects Union County, Matthews, MoRa, Uptown, the airport and Gaston County would be transformative for our region as the suburbs and exurbs continue to grow at a faster rate than the city proper. Not to mention we’re all facing the existential threat of climate change, and electric vehicles aren’t going to solve all of our problems.
DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU: John Bogdan
UNC Charlotte Associate Vice Chancellor for Safety and Security John Bogdan announced he would retire from his position on June 30. A controversial figure on campus since his hiring in 2018, the retired US Army colonel’s career at UNC Charlotte was subject to speculation and protest due to his previous work as commander at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.
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In August 2019, an anonymous flier circulated on UNC Charlotte’s campus accusing Bogdan of overseeing multiple human rights violations during his time at Guantanamo, including torture and religious humiliation as a strategy to pacify detainees. Numerous attempts to urge UNC Charlotte officials to fire Bogdan went unheard over the years, including a petition for termination formed by the “Coalition to Remove John Bogdan.”
Bogdan’s past came up again in May amid the formation of a student-led Gaza solidarity encampment on campus and the university’s controversial response, raiding and breaking down the camp early on the morning of May 6. In the caption of a post about Bogdan’s retirement, the coalition questioned whether his leaving was a victory.
“While one struggle ends, another arises from the same contradiction,” the post said. “The students and faculty of UNC Charlotte continue to be brave and hold strong convictions, as they always have, in the face of a repressive, hostile environment. I can only hope we made Bogdan’s time in North Carolina just a little bit more miserable.”
MOST HEARTLESS ENFORCEMENT OF SCHOOL POLICY: Cramerton Christian Academy
All Bailey Griggs wanted to do was play music. The up-and-coming musician had already turned down multiple opportunities to graduate early as she transitioned into her senior year of high school. As a homeschooled student participating in Cramerton Christian Academy’s homeschool bridge program, she was determined to live out some aspects of the “normal” teen’s life. The program allowed her to participate in intramurals and she captained the school’s cheerleading team.
She also continued to build on her promising music career, playing gigs wherever she could find them. At 17, it can be tough to find venues willing to host acts so young. She found one in Goldie’s, the South End bar and restaurant that opened in 2023. Once word got around to Cramerton Christian Academy in Gaston County, however, the school told her she could no longer participate in the bridge program, citing a rule that prohibits students from attending “night clubs or bars” or “gatherings with alcohol or drugs present.” She was expelled and made to finish out her senior year at home.
The school never did answer for the selective enforcement of their rule, considering that most students presumably attend restaurants where alcohol is sold on a regular basis. And what about Jesus? Didn’t he turn water to wine? What would he do?
