Anthony Foxx Takes Questions On Twitter

On Sunday night Mayor Anthony Foxx told his Twitter followers that he would be taking questions for an hour. It was a nice concept, maybe inspired by Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker's active approach to winter storm cleanup. So despite the timing (AFC Championship Game!) I sent a couple questions to the Mayor.

Here was my first: Will further Streetcar expansion stay with the city, and not CATS? Does the city plan on pursuing more federal money to pay?

Then I followed up with my second question: assuming DNC 2012 comes to Charlotte, who pays security costs for protesters? DNC notorious for extremist protests.

Here's what Foxx had to say in response (he answered second question first)

@mattmercer In recent past, a federal security grant has been provided to both RNC and DNC.


@mattmercer For now, streetcar will stay with city...need to make progress on UNCC line and Northern line...after that, we'll see.

So, we get the responses we expected, not too much to read into on that note. Interestingly, "for now" the streetcar stays with the city and I expect at some point, the City Council will make a push for CATS to take over. After, of course, CATS says it shouldn't be done but they push through anyway to fulfill campaign promises/buy votes. It's going to be the duty of everyone to make sure the streetcar issue isn't put on the backburner and we hold the incumbents that voted for it responsible in November.

Also, here's one nugget that maybe some haven't seen yet: possible Republican frontrunner for Mayor, Scott Stone, sent this to Foxx - "why didn't you fight to keep school resource officers when council asked city mgr to pull them from budget?" Fox replied "fight isn't over...city funds them still but funds scheduled to be eliminated this year."

Public safety, fiscal responsibility... I think Scott's right on target so far.