Charlotte city council at-large: Shawn Greeson on the issues
Name: Shawn Greeson
What office are you running for? City Council at-large
Party: Green Democrat
Neighborhood: Plaza-Midwood
Political Experience: Currently Serving As An Elected Mecklenburg County Soil & Water Conservation District Supervisor (Nonpartisan); Mecklenburg County Democratic Party Precinct Delegate; Mecklenburg County Democratic Party Executive Committee Member; African American Caucus Member; NAACP Member; Grassroots Activist & Community Organizer
Family: Happily Married To Katie Arroyo Greeson; Proud Father Of Tallulah Margaret Greeson (5 Month Old); Dog Owner (Omar The Italian Mastiff & Mortimer The Yorkshire Terrier); Proud To Come From A Family Of Small Farmers
Work Experience: Special Education Teacher & School Administrator
Campaign contact: www.shawngreeson.com; shawngreeson@shawngreeson.com; https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005542037930; https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shawn-Greeson-Charlotte-City-Council- At-Large-Candidate/397356890420435
1) Why are you running for office?
I am not naive, I am an idealist. I believe that I can make a positive difference in the world. I am not a city councilman now, and if I wake up a year from now not a city councilman, I'll be just fine. I have a wonderful life and go home each night to a house filled with so much love. I simply enjoy making the world a better place. If I am elected to serve on the Charlotte City Council, I will donate 100% of my city council salary to various nonprofits, charities and individuals/families in need. I do not consider myself to be a rich man, but God has given me more than enough. I will not line my coffers with the hard-earned money of my fellow taxpayers. I have grown tired of giving my vote, my support and most importantly my trust to politicians and then seeing what they did with it. When I die God isn't going to ask me how many times I got elected to city council. He'll ask me how many of my brothers and sisters I tried to help. I try hard every day to ensure that my answer will never be 'one'. I hope I get the chance to be the kind of politician people can be proud of.
2) What would be your top priorities if elected?
Fighting poverty and protecting the environment will be my top priorities. Charlotte is a beautiful city. I want to make it an even more wonderful place to live. I will fight with an unmatched fierceness to protect our trees and our history, build bike lanes, improve our parks (especially regarding their accessibility), restore our creeks and streams to healthy levels, and provide every Charlottean with an equal opportunity to pursue whatever their version of the "American Dream" is. I want every Charlottean to be able to enjoy the beautiful & opportunity filled Charlotte that I have been able to enjoy. True socioeconomic equality isn't everyone being treated the same. True socioeconomic equality is everyone having the same opportunities to be successful.
I will also fight for greater local governmental transparency. Charlotte is the largest US city in which city officials are not required to report their interactions with lobbyists.
3) Would you support the city's proposed expansion of its non-discrimination ordinance to include the LGBT community, including a provision that would allow transgender residents to use the bathroom of their choice?
Yes. It is sad that rights even have to be voted on. They are called rights for a reason. The word 'rights' means that a person is entitled to them. Elected officials should not have the power to dictate which members of our society do and do not have rights. Using the restroom is not a crime. I will implement the following step-by-step program to help address the issue of a citizen being in public and finding themselves questioning the gender of someone about to use the restroom. Step 1 - Don't worry about it.
4) Do you support the N.C. DOT's plans to add express toll lanes to Interstate 485 in south Charlotte and U.S. 74? Or would you prefer to widen the highways with general-purpose free lanes?
I support general-purpose free lanes. Charlotte needs to commit fully to connecting and integrating all of Charlotte’s corridors and quadrants to lay the foundation for Charlotte to effectively maximize its growth potential. If seen to completion, this connection and integration will simultaneously mitigate many of the potential environmental issues that often accompany a city’s rapid growth.
Furthermore, an effective, well-planned and fully completed transit plan can assist Charlotte in tackling its ever escalating issue of inequality. Charlotte’s upward economic mobility ranking is dead last. To compound the problem, Charlotte recently ranked as one of the worst cities in the US in terms of poverty growth. Not surprisingly, studies have found that a city’s poorest residents are often forced to commute the furthest to work. Additionally, multiple studies have found that a city’s poorest residents are the most likely to drive the least fuel efficient automobiles.
Charlotte City Council must implement and fully commit to a transit strategy that creates solutions that intertwine transportation, affordable housing, workforce development and jobs, while simultaneously providing access to educational institutions and healthcare facilities. Addressing all of these factors are key to assisting our poorest residents in their struggle to escape the shackles of poverty and make economic opportunities more obtainable for all Charlotteans.
5) Would you support spending hospitality tax dollars to renovate or rebuild the county owned Memorial Stadium in hopes of the city winning a Major League Soccer franchise?
No. We must end Charlotte City Council's policy of "Paupers Feeding Decadents". The Charlotte City Council continues to make financially unsound decisions that can best be described as an absurdly distorted form of bountiful socialism for the wealthy (corporate incentives, stadium financing, the Hall of Fame bailout, etc.) & the harshest form of capitalism possible for the poor (inadequate financial investment in our poorer communities, a council held mentality of "fend for yourself economics" regarding our poorest, most in need citizens). Countless independent studies have concluded that a government’s financing of a professional athletic venue does not financially benefit the government or its overall citizen population enough to justify the use of public funds. Proponents of using public funds in an effort to build/renovate athletic venues will often offer biased, over inflated economic impact studies as a tool for validating the need for public funds, in an attempt to influence public support. The same public funds that would be used to renovate a professional athletic venue could have much broader economic benefit if spent on improving public education, mass transit, small-business development, etc. Individuals who enjoy a particular professional sports team and/or benefit directly from it, should pay for stadium construction/renovation costs. This is a relatively simple solution to solving a complex problem. Additionally, I am discouraged by the common governmental practice of intentionally obscuring the financing method so that taxpayers have a difficult time in determining exactly how the public financing of a stadium’s construction/renovation will affect their overall tax status. There is a way however to wisely support the building or renovating of an athletic venue. In 2006 the new Busch Stadium was constructed in St. Louis, Missouri. The stadium was financed through private bonds, bank loans, a long-term loan from St. Louis County, and money from the team owners. The St. Louis Cardinals covered 90% of construction costs, the city of St. Louis provided relief from a local admissions tax on tickets, and the state assisted with public infrastructure costs to clear and prepare the stadium site for development.
According to researchers, the financing for Busch Stadium was a huge success due to the small amount of public funds used.The lessons learned from Busch Stadium’s financing can benefit the financing and construction of other stadiums by using similar techniques to create efficient blends of capital sources to better balance and serve the goals of team owners, players, municipalities, and the fans, while meeting the requirements of financial investors. St. Louis' experience is of particular note due to the fact that is also not considered a major media market. That being said, when tackling the issue of public funds possibly being used for the construction/renovation of professional sporting venues the best alternative in relieving the burden often placed upon the backs of taxpayers is the concept of PSLs. The selling of PSLs are the only way to truly and effectively target users of a product, while at the same limiting the collateral costs passed on to non-users. If a fan wants to keep their favorite team from leaving town, all they need to do is purchase a PSL. This allows the fan to help their favorite team build a shiny new stadium decked out with all the latest bells and whistles. In return, the fan gets to enjoy the stadium and product being offered. However, if even the fans of a team are not willing to financially support their favorite team by purchasing PSLs, forcing non-fans to financially support the aforementioned team hardly seems like an intelligent and rational decision. The burden of renovating the stadium should be placed on the potential franchise owners, not the taxpayers.
No. We need fiscal responsibility not higher taxes. While I am a proponent of addressing Charlotte's transportation issues, I will not support further taxing an already over-taxed population. Using taxpayer dollars to fund stadiums, arenas and the NASCAR Hall of Fame, giving corporate tax breaks to large corporations, spending $7,700 on city council dinners, and exorbitant employee travel costs are just a few examples of why we do not need to raise taxes. Charlotte City Council needs to practice greater fiscal responsibility by reducing wasteful spending, increasing financial transparency, limiting financial risks, and simply following the most basic of economic principles.
6) Would you support an increase in the general sales tax to support more transit projects, such as additional miles of streetcar and a commuter train to Lake Norman?
No. We need fiscal responsibility not higher taxes. While I am a proponent of addressing Charlotte's transportation issues, I will not support further taxing an already over-taxed population. Using taxpayer dollars to fund stadiums, arenas and the NASCAR Hall of Fame, giving corporate tax breaks to large corporations, spending $7,700 on city council dinners, and exorbitant employee travel costs are just a few examples of why we do not need to raise taxes. Charlotte City Council needs to practice greater fiscal responsibility by reducing wasteful spending, increasing financial transparency, limiting financial risks, and simply following the most basic of economic principles.
7) There has been a significant amount of redevelopment in neighbors close to uptown, with older, sometimes historic buildings being demolished for new apartments. Would you support more restrictions on tear-downs?
Yes. I am a proud Plaza-Midwood resident. Developers are destroying the heart and soul of my neighborhood. For example, the VanLandingham owners, along with developers are trying to build town homes and an elitist swim club for the wealthy against the wishes of many Plaza-Midwood residents on the beautiful historic property located right in the middle of a historic district. I strongly feel that the rezoning process has been less than fair and transparent. With all of the rezoning taking place in my neighborhood and others, developers motivated by greed will turn our beautifully diverse and eclectic neighborhoods into concrete communities littered with monstrous towering condos. They are rapidly packing people into areas without any regard to transportation concerns, the overall well-being of current community members and without any regard as to whether or not the buildings fit in with the existing culture of the neighborhood.
8) A goal of the city is to increase affordable housing. In some instances, however, the City Council is asked to approve rezoning requests for low-income apartments, even when an area plan says single-family homes should be built on a site. Should the council follow the area plan recommendations or approve multi-family projects to increase affordability?
If done properly and truly geared toward affordable housing for our most in need residents, then I would support the approval of multi-family projects. However, I question the motives and results of current rezoning practices. Sidewalks, improved transportation, green spaces, etc. are not the primary causes for gentrification. Uncontrolled development, a sudden influx of extremely higher value homes, condos and apartments compared to a surrounding area's average values, accompanied by a large decrease in the percentage of affordable housing units throughout an area are, however, the primary reasons. Poverty in Charlotte continues to become more heavily concentrated. This makes it harder for impoverished citizens to get out of the generational cycle and escape the effects of living in a "distressed neighborhood" (areas with 40% or higher poverty). Bluntly speaking, spreading out affordable housing will allow for kids from lower socioeconomic households to attend better schools, grow up in safer areas, have better access to healthcare facilities and statistically have a better chance of ending the cycle of poverty. Right now, Charlotte ranks 50th out of the top 50 largest US cities in terms of economic mobility (i.e. the poor stay poor). A lot of that is contributed to the fact that our impoverished citizens are continuously packed into the same areas. We need to spread out affordable housing and make decisions that link transportation, workforce development, jobs, education, and healthcare together. Essentially killing multiple birds with one stone.
9) Should the city change its guidelines for offering Business Investment Grants for companies considering expanding or relocating to Charlotte?
Yes. The city should focus more of its efforts on promoting and protecting Charlotte's small business owners. Small business owners are the heart of a healthy and stable local economy. They actually care about the local community and their employees. I will not support tax incentives for corporations worth billions of dollars while kids in Charlotte are going to bed hungry and families are struggling to pay their bills. Corporations are not people. Corporations do not care about our citizens. A corporation will always do what is in the best interest of the corporation (i.e. profits). Government should protect the people and regulate corporations. Sadly, our government seems to be protecting corporations and regulating people.
10) What makes you the best candidate?
Of the 15 candidates running for Charlotte City Council At-Large I am the only environmentalist, the only educator, the only one with a M.Ed, the only one who has been endorsed by the Charlotte Area Green Party, the only one who has offered to donate 100% of his salary to charities and those in need, the only one who has publicly called for a public referendum regarding term limits for city council members, and the only one has been bold enough to call out many of his fellow elected officials for ignoring the people's will. I will make the right decisions, not the political decisions. I currently serve Mecklenburg County as an elected Soil & Water Conservation District Supervisor. Our environment is continually being forsaken in a misguided attempt to promote unplanned, uncontrolled development that our current transportation system can't adequately support. Many of our schools (especially those with high percentages of minority students) are grossly under-educating our youth. This does our children a huge, debilitating disservice. I am an grassroots activist and a community organizer, I am not a politician. Once elected, I will stay an activist and I will always fight for the people.
11) What else should voters know about you?
I am ridiculously proud that my daughter Tallulah recently learned to roll over all by herself. She is my whole world.
This story was originally published September 2, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Charlotte city council at-large: Shawn Greeson on the issues."