Page 4 of 5

• Pessimism among Democrats about the chances of defeating McCrory.

• Earle's name recognition is nowhere near McCrory's, largely due to her having spent years in the legislature in Raleigh while McCrory has been mayor for 12 years.

• The Charlotte Observer's coverage of Earle's failure to officially report all of her contributions in an earlier finance report, and the abovementioned repayment of her son's loan, on which she was a co-signer.

• McCrory has traditionally done well among moderate white Democrats, which could offset Earle's very strong support in the black community.

• Transit tax opponents, many of whom are Republicans, may come out in force in the general election. At least some of those voters will vote for McCrory even though he's seen as Mr. Transit, while it's doubtful they would vote for Earle. One source, however, said he thought Earle may get some of the anti-transit tax vote simply because McCrory is so inextricably linked to the city's light rail plans.

Agreement On Transit And Little Else

Support for the transit tax, and opposition to its repeal, is one of the few things Earle and McCrory agree on. Earle says, "Some people may not realize the implications of doing away with the transit tax. We are so far down that road of planning for all the different parts of transit for the city, there's just no turning back in some of those areas." In other words, some if not most of the city's transit plan will have to continue, but would need to be paid for by an increase in property taxes.

With the transit tax, says Earle, "the taxation is spread around. Paying for a good transit system (65 percent of the transit tax goes toward operating the bus system) is a shared responsibility. It's part of living in a city that wants to be thriving, just like paying for schools or police. We want to keep thriving, and part of that means having an infrastructure that encourages people to come here. Plus, we need to be able to move everybody around efficiently. We can't afford to keep paving all the open space in the city; it doesn't even make sense to think that way. You'll wind up with one big parking lot. You know, 'pave it and they will come' -- buildings follow the roads and the roads then become just as congested as they were before."

Earle says she's confident the transit tax will be retained, after which the city can go on to other issues she says have been ignored. "It's time to start catching up. Affordable housing is another issue I want to address. It's so critical, and needs to be addressed better. There are families with children that are homeless -- that's just totally unacceptable for a city like Charlotte. We're doing away with public housing as we know it, but then what are we doing to accommodate the people we're displacing? And I mean in something that is affordable, without those folks having to go to these by-the-week hotels. We need to see what needs to be done, and see how we can work with developers to build more affordable housing. One of the things the state is doing is funding the North Carolina Housing Trust Fund. They've subsidized affordable housing in other areas, particularly smaller areas in eastern North Carolina; maybe we can entice developers to tap into that, and maybe use some city funding, too, and see if they can build more affordable homes. We cannot continue to allow families with children to be out on the street, homeless."

Earle touched on other issues in our interview, as well. She says she would support a revival of the Living Wage Ordinance for city employees, phasing in a gradual increase in wages for the city's lowest paid employees -- something City Council passed in 2001 but was vetoed by McCrory. At the time, the mayor said he opposed the living wage approach because, "It's a free market that we live in."

Earle says she supports the living wage because "a lot of times government loses good people because they go into private business where the pay's better. We certainly don't want the kind of government that says, 'We don't pay our people for a job well done.'"

When asked, Earle said she would also support a non-discrimination ordinance for city employees that included sexual orientation.

She also thinks the city should sign on to the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement, which says the city will work toward reducing greenhouse gases. The USMCPA has been signed by over 400 U.S. cities, including a dozen in North Carolina. Although Mayor McCrory chaired the mayors' committee that drafted the agreement, he vetoed City Council's attempt to add Charlotte's name to the list of participating municipalities. He later wrote an op-ed in the daily paper in which he said he opposed the agreement because it didn't tout the value of nuclear energy. McCrory is employed in the economic development department of Duke Energy, which is pushing to revive nuclear power as a popular option. Earle says, "I would definitely support the agreement; we need to send a signal that our city's interested in protecting the environment."