NEWS RELEASES

Mayor's Campaign Continues "Green" Tradition
November 13, 2007

Theresa Rucho recycles signs at the McAlpine Recycling Center.
Helping Theresa are Christian Greve and Mary Kenley.

Mayor Pat McCrory's campaign has been "green" for over a decade now by continuing to recycle their campaign yard signs.

"Every campaign since 1995 we have made the effort to do the right thing and that is recycle our yard signs," Victoria Smith, Mayor McCrory's campaign manager states.

"This year we recycled over 700 signs and over 500 pounds of scrap metal," Smith continued to say.

Mayor Pat McCrory has been committed to the environment his whole life by advocating Catawba River conservation, mass transit, cleaning up brown fields, reducing visual clutter with billboard ordinances, the building of more sidewalks and bikeways and enhanced tree ordinances.

The Mayor encourages all candidates to recycle their yard signs not only for this year's campaign but for all future campaigns.

McCrory also asks that all candidates comply with the new sign ordinance which will help reduce litter in and around the City and region.

Gang Legislation Call to Action
August 1, 2007

TODAY is the day to contact your State Senators about the gang legislation - please call and e-mail them today!

Yesterday the House passed the Gang Prevention Legislation by a vote of 107 - 9. It has now been sent to the Senate for action. It is questionable whether or not the Senate will take up the House legislation before they try to adjourn this week.

Please contact the State Senate leaders by e-mail and phone, as well as the five Senators that represent Mecklenburg County (contact information below).

In your communications, I would encourage you to include the following information:

- The House passed the Street Gang Prevention Act (House Bill 274) and the Senate needs to adopt the House version before it adjourns.

- The House bill is much stronger than the weakened Senate bill.

- The House bill did allow first- time offenders who are 16 or 17, who want to leave their gangs, to get their records expunged. This is much more conservative than the more liberal Senate version regarding expungement.

- The Senate has had good debate on the gang legislation over the past month and now is the time to adopt the legislation.

- Gang issues are not an urban or regional issue in North Carolina -- it is statewide.

- We need your support to help law enforcement better address gang crimes that have invaded the State from the Mountains to the Coast.

- North Carolina is the only state in the region that has not enacted meaningful gang legislation. Virginia, Tennessee, and South Carolina have all taken strong measures to combat gangs.

- The Senate must act this year and not adjourn until it has passed the Street Gang Prevention Act.

Thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule today to contact your Senators. Also, please encourage family, friends and coworkers to also make separate contacts with the State Senators. This is our last chance to get gang legislation adopted this legislative session!

Caravan to Raleigh Update
February 21, 2007

I am pleased to report that 250 citizens answered the call to join me in an effort to lobby the Governor and state leaders to make the criminal justice system a top priority in Raleigh this legislative session. The Caravan left at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday, February 13 and included five buses and rallied around the message of "Pay 4 Crime."

This is the first time a grassroots effort has been led and I was very encouraged by the cross-section of Charlotte citizens who participated (Republicans, Democrats, black, white, Latino, Asian, rich, poor, crime victims, neighborhood leaders and business leaders). This was a historic effort, not just because of the number of participants, but because it was a group of citizens lobbying in Raleigh together for one objective - making Public Safety a Major Priority in the State.

The State Criminal Justice System is not supporting the work and arrests by our police and the problems we face in Charlotte with the criminal justice system are statewide problems! This was evidenced by the many Mayors, Police Chiefs, Sheriffs, DA's and citizens from other cities who joined us in Raleigh to help lobby. Some of the other cities joining the Charlotte contingent included Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Burlington, Boone, Asheville, Gastonia, Weddington, Greenville and Concord.

The good news from our lobbying visit included:

• We had grassroots lobbying to give a dose of reality of what is happening on our streets, in our businesses, and in our neighborhoods, which was much more effective in being listened to by state politicians than anyone else including Your Mayor.

• Senate Pro Tem Marc Basnight and the new Speaker of the House Joe Hackney graciously met with us to hear our issues along with at least seven members of our own legislative delegation.

• The Governor’s top two advisors in Public Safety and Budget met privately with 25 of us, including seven mayors, to hear our concerns and told us the Governor will discuss this issue during his State of State address.

• We were very successful in giving detailed facts and statistics about the grave situation of criminals not being being tried, or serving time for their crimes, even after being arrested over and over and over again.

Now for the bad news:

• Some members of our own N.C - Mecklenburg legislative delegation expressed dissatisfaction, in both the newspaper and in person, that we came to Raleigh.

• The leaders of the NC House and Senate expressed surprise when confronted with statistics of the breakdown in State Criminal Justice System and seemed to be unaware of the seriousness of issue. Several tried to change the subject to education which is indeed an important issue. Our group stated clearly that we cannot educate children if they are not in a safe environment in their schools or neighborhoods.

• The Governor could not find time in his schedule to meet with the Mayors, police chiefs, DA's, crime victims, etc from the largest metropolitan populations in the state.

• The editorial staffs of North Carolina’s largest newspapers, including the Charlotte Observer, gave no comment, much less support to our efforts. (Maybe a more politically correct death penalty moratorium Caravan would have gotten them writing.)

The most positive thing, however, is that a consensus was reached on the way home by the Caravan participants that this is only the beginning in getting our voices heard in Raleigh.

We have much work to do to educate, lobby, identify specific pieces of legislation, and put pressure on policy makers and the media to insure that a DA, a judge, a drug rehabilitation facility, and a jail are all available to back up every arrest made by police throughout North Carolina.

Many thanks to all of you that participated in the Caravan. I hope everyone will take the time to drop the Governor and their state representatives a note to make public safety a top priority this legislative session. Contact information for all state officials can be found at www.ncleg.net.

Below are a few comments made by participants of the Caravan to Raleigh:

“We should all be thanking you for organizing this trip and making it a great success! I personally cannot thank you enough! I feel as if we were heard yesterday and the Caravan was the perfect first step to draw attention to the crime problem in Charlotte and across NC. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” -- Kelly


“Thank you for all your effort. This was one of the best organized and executed events of this sort I have experienced. With us.... the public.... it is sort of like herding cats.... You and all the staff did a marvelous job which not only ensured a successful outcome but a most enjoyable experience.” -- Dwight
“My group of victims had some very good meetings where shock, with Charlotte’s conditions, was pretty much universal from the surprised legislators. I believe they are used to people lobbying, but didn’t expect to hear our horror stories and how it relates to their neglect for funding of our criminal justice system.”-- Tony, whose son was murdered

Charlotte Update: NASCAR Hall of Fame Visit
August 19, 2005

Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory presents NASCAR Chief Operating Officer George Pyne with a T-shirt promoting the city's desire for NASCAR's Hall of Fame. (AP Photo)

The enjoyable part of being Mayor is being part of a team effort to help our future economic viability in Charlotte.

This week, we had a private/public sector team which presented an excellent proposal to NASCAR for the future home to their Hall of Fame.  The team effort brought back great memories of a past team effort which successfully recruited Johnson and Wales University to Charlotte three years ago.

We hope to have the same successful results for three strong reasons

1)      The plan is totally financed by the hotel industry through a 2% increase in their tax. The industry agreed with this revenue tool because they see a direct return on investment because the Hall of fame will "put heads in beds" which in turn will help the over 50,000 employees dependent on the travel and tourism industry.

2)      The NASCAR industry lives in the Charlotte region similar to the country music industry stars all residing in the Nashville region.  It makes no sense to put the Hall of Fame anywhere else.  The “NASCAR Valley” concept is similar to Napa Valley where Charlotte Hall will be the jumping off point for fans to visit the racing shops throughout region like San Francisco is jumping off point to visit wine country.  Rick Hendrick has been a great partner in helping lead this effort.  We also had Robert Yates, Ray Evernham and Gibbs racing at our major luncheon for NASCAR to make our point.  

3)      The design of our building is original and will be an impressive presence for fans, NASCAR, and Charlotte citizens for generations to come.

I was amazed at the number of people who not just lined the streets to wave at bus, but also by their passion of support.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for a city to have this branding and tourism opportunity.  We are putting our best foot forward and I will keep you informed by our progress. 

To a read a summary of what our competition is doing please click here for the Sports Illustrated article about our efforts to bring the Hall of Fame to Charlotte.

Charlotte Update: Anti-Gang Initiatives & Center City Safety
August 8, 2005

Anti-Gang Initiatives

The Police Chief and I recently made a trip to Raleigh to make a strong push to our state legislators to pass a bill which would enforce anti-gang measures through State laws.  At this time, most strong actions can only be enforced through Federal guidelines and Federal Courts.

Like with the Mafia of the last century, gangs are involved in brutal killings, robberies, drug dealings, and the intimidation of businesses and neighborhoods, but what makes gangs even worse is the recruitment of children to join what they perceive as "family.”

At this time, state law does not give our police the tools necessary to fight these gangs.

The Street Gang Prevention Act (Senate Bill 733 and House Bill 50) must be enacted, but both bills have been sitting in Raleigh with no action taken.

These two bills untie our Police hands and allow State enforcement of gang activity including:

1.       Increasing penalties for street gang offenses.

2.       Confiscation of any revenue derived from gang activity.

3.       Establishment of a state-wide database to follow gang activity across political jurisdictions within our state.

4.       Allocation of money for street gang prevention and intervention measures targeting juveniles.

The gangs we have in Charlotte are local, national, and international - 60% of gangs are African-American, 30% are international, and the rest come from all areas of our region.

What you should also know is that the gang problem is also very serious in rural areas of our State and in our metro areas.  Durham, for example, has the most serious gang issues where gang ages are typically from 12 to 25 years of age.

The turnout to our visit last week by both the media and, most importantly, the number of state legislators exceeded all expectations.  With the help of Senator Malcolm Graham, my former City Council colleague, this visit is now giving the bills some political legs for possible passage.

Center City Safety

Good news regarding Center City safety.  During the past three weeks, as I suggested in our meetings, the Police Chief has taken aggressive action toward any inappropriate actions and behavior.

Cruising is now almost gone due to aggressive citation enforcement and the changing of our red light sequence after 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

Additionally I have taken two late night tours of the Center City with our police and have suggested two more actions as a result. 

1.       Increased tree pruning to help clear dark shadows.

2.       Increased lighting on side streets, alleyways, parking lots and along rail line.

 If you have not been in the Center city for the past several years, you will not believe the number of people enjoying the restaurants, theater, pubs, trolley, and also living downtown.

 In past decade, residential living has gone from 2,000 to over 10,000 people.

Charlotte Update: Public Safety and Arts Proposal
July 26, 2005

Public Safety

During the past two weeks I have had four meetings with our Police Chief to ensure that the city takes strong, assertive action in certain areas regarding the safety of our citizens. These actions include:

We are hiring 55 new police officers in this year’s budget to supplement the over 300 additional police officers who have been hired since I’ve been Mayor.

I also vetoed a budget which would have cut assistance to our District Attorney’s office which would have taken resources away to help us prosecute criminals.

This would be only the second time in 10 years that my veto would be over ridden. The first time was three years ago when I vetoed a resolution calling for a death penalty moratorium, which would have included delaying the sentence for a man who killed two of our police officers.           

Arts Proposal

Last night the Arts and Science Council (ASC) proposed to the Charlotte City Council a $150.5 million plan for new museums and theaters. Their proposal also includes a hike in the car-rental tax.

Because of the following concerns, I vetoed the plan and proposed an alternative to their plan:

Because of these three concerns, I made a counter-proposal which asked the ASC to reduce their cost by 20% through streamlining and implementing better cost efficiencies.

I recommended using these cost savings to hire 14 additional police officers and to have long-term money available for maintenance and upkeep of new buildings.

My proposals were rejected and therefore I felt it was my responsibility to veto because of my strong adherence to fiscal responsibility and public safety.

An anticipated override is expected.

I welcome your feedback and appreciate your support.

Campaign Announcement (click here for video)
July 13, 2005

Ten years ago I asked the voters of Charlotte to elect me as their Mayor. Standing next to me at that time were two beautiful and wonderful women.

First my wife Ann, who even after incredible sacrifice taking late night calls from constituents, hardly ever seeing her husband, and listening to critics throughout the media she continues to be a great first lady for Charlotte.

There was also my mom, Audrey. A woman who, when in her 60’s earned a doctorate degree with a specialty in geriatrics. Sadly for the past 8 years she has been dealing with Alzheimer’s, however her spirit is still with me today and her lessons of always continuing to learn help me as Mayor.

Also during the past ten years there has been another name that I have devoted my energy and passion to…her name is Charlotte and she is the greatest city in the United States of America.

She is most appreciated when you leave, go elsewhere, and come home. She is a city of beauty. She is clean. She is a tree canopy giving shades for all generations. She has beautiful tall buildings glistening in the Carolina blue sky. She is a city with beautiful neighborhoods, both old and new, with energy and life. She is a city of opportunity and hope

But most of all Charlotte is a city on the move…

In fact, looking back ten years…

This was not done by accident…it was done through strong leadership

Yes, Charlotte is a city on the move…

Ten years ago we did not require sidewalks and bikeways

This was not done by accident…it was done through strong leadership

Yes, Charlotte is a city on the move…

Ten years ago Earle Village, Dalton Village, Fairview Homes were housing projects with some of the highest crime rates not just in Charlotte but in the country. Now they are safe, new viable neighborhoods in which people from all economic classes are moving to

This was not done by accident…it was done through strong leadership

Yes, Charlotte is a city on the move…

Ten years ago our city was averaging 89 murders a year, now it’s under 60 per year (a 32% reduction) despite a 20% increase in population

This was not done by accident…it was done through strong leadership

Yes, Charlotte is a city on the move…

Ten years ago we had not spent $150 million on new roads

This was not done by accident…it was done through strong leadership

Yes, Charlotte is a city on the move…

And we’ve had all this success because of the strong leadership of your Mayor, who has ensured that our government has been working effectively and efficiently.

This was not done by accident, it was through strong leadership and as Mayor I will continue to use my powers, even using a veto, as I have done in the past to ensure that Charlotte remains an affordable city.

But now we must move faster in some new and important challenges.

As Mayor, and through this letter that I’m holding, I have asked our Police Chief and City Manager to take specific steps to deal with emerging new issues as they relate to public safety.

First, I am asking the City Manager and our Transit Director to allocate additional money from the existing CATS budget and use that money to provide immediate additional police protection through over time pay and additional police officers to protect our transit center, major bus stops (i.e. Eastland Mall), park-and-ride lots, and our buses. These resources would be used primarily to ensure no criminal or gang activity threatens or even intimidates our citizens using out transportation system. In addition these police would be used to deal with Homeland Security efforts as it relates to our metro transit system.

Secondly, I am asking our Police Chief to present a thorough and concise strategy regarding how we as a community will take additional steps to combat both present and future gang activity in our city, including in our schools. This strategy must include specific enforcement techniques, partnerships with federal and state agencies, and recommended laws needing to change within our criminal justice system.

Thirdly, I am asking our Police Chief for an immediate review and implementation of police resources needed during special events in both our Center City and throughout Charlotte.

Lastly, I am asking our Police Chief and City Manager to make policy recommendations on Charlotte’s relationship with federal immigration authorities for the enforcement of undocumented workers especially as it relates to when city and state laws are broken.

Last year I expressed very strong opposition by a decision made by City management to temporarily close restrooms and rope off benches in our Transit Center due to groups of young teens converging on this facility. I believe that this and other actions, in response to disorderly conduct, are too passive and in fact give strength to those inappropriate behaviors. We must create a zero-tolerance toward inappropriate behavior by our youth and all citizens including violence, stealing cars, breaking into homes, and especially inappropriate behavior in our schools. None of this will be tolerated and accepted by this Mayor.

And I will continue to veto efforts by some of my colleagues on the left to give a moratorium on the fair and just sentences given to those who kill our police officers and for those who want to take away resources to help prosecute criminals. These are the wrong types of signals.

Our transportation system is of extreme importance not only to our quality of life but to the economic stability of our great city. We must continue to move forward on the completion of the entire outer beltway with a minimum of 6 lanes around the entire city. I would like to commend my fellow Republicans for successfully getting an agreement with the state to complete the northern and southern loops, and we must now look for a way locally to speed up the construction of our outer beltway. I will not stop pressing the Governor and the state leadership to keep insisting, along with mayors of theother large cities, that we must build roads where the cars are and not based on politics.

And I will continue to care about jobs in this community…

That’s why I’m going to help the travel and tourism industry in pressing for a once in a lifetime opportunity, and that’s the NASCAR hall of fame. This is not just to provide entertainment, but it will further job security for the over 60,000 employees who are dependent upon travel and tourism in the city and will also compliment a growing automobile industry in our region.

I will also continue to build a bigger airport, complete the third runway, and ensure that Charlotte is always a destination for world air flight, which is crucial to our economic vitality and the future of Charlotte.

As you can see, we have had much success…

We are a great American city with hope and opportunity, but it is a city that as Mayor I will not take our success for granted and I will keep moving forward.

I have the passion...the will…the energy…the vision…and now even the experience of wisdom necessary to make sure Charlotte is a city on the move.

It is therefore my honor to declare my candidacy for a 6th term as Mayor of the greatest city in the United States of America.

Thank you and God bless Charlotte and America.