The Republicans’ glaring double-standard on I-77 tolls repayment | Opinion

This month, Mecklenburg County residents began paying the new 1% local sales tax authorized by the PAVE Act. Families across Mecklenburg County will pay more on every purchase. Yet one of the most significant promises tied to that legislation, transformational transit for south Mecklenburg, was removed from the final bill. Taxpayers, especially those in House District 105, are now paying more while receiving less than promised.

At nearly the same time, the North Carolina General Assembly included language in the state budget that punishes municipalities and local entities that voted to withdraw support for the I-77 South toll lane project. I disagree with that decision. Local elected officials should not be punished by the state for making policy decisions they believe are in the best interests of the people they represent. Whether someone supports or opposes the toll project is beside the point. The legislature should not use its power to retaliate against local governments for disagreeing with Raleigh.

What makes this especially troubling is the hypocrisy.

Republican leaders justified the punishment by arguing that local officials wasted taxpayer money after years of planning and investment. If that is truly the standard, then where was that concern when those same lawmakers supported the PAVE Act?

Before the PAVE Act became law, more than a decade had been spent planning the Silver Line East extension. Over $40 million in taxpayer money had already been invested in engineering, design, environmental studies, public outreach, and planning. Charlotte, Matthews, regional partners, and countless public servants dedicated years of work to advancing that project.

Then, with the stroke of a pen, Republican leadership eliminated it.

No one proposed punishing the legislators who threw away years of planning. No one suggested repaying the taxpayers for the tens of millions of dollars that had already been spent. Suddenly, concerns about wasted public money disappeared.

I traveled to Raleigh during debate on the PAVE Act to make exactly this point. I attempted to warn legislators that eliminating Silver Line East to Matthews would waste tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and erase years of work that local communities had invested in good faith. I was not allowed to finish my remarks. Rather than answer the criticism, the Republican legislative leadership banged the gavel and shut down the conversation.

That experience reinforced what many in Mecklenburg County have come to believe. The rules change depending on who is making the decision and where that decision is made.

When Mecklenburg County invests in its future, and the General Assembly dismantles those plans, the wasted taxpayer dollars are dismissed as the cost of doing business. When local governments reject a state-backed project after listening to their residents, wasted taxpayer dollars suddenly become grounds for punishment.

That is not consistency. It is selective outrage.

Leadership means applying the same principles regardless of whose decisions are under review. If protecting taxpayer money is the priority, it should matter every time taxpayer money is wasted. If local governments deserve respect, that respect should not disappear whenever they disagree with legislative leadership.

Too often, Mecklenburg County is treated differently. Local priorities are rewritten, local investments are discarded, and local leaders are punished for exercising the authority their communities elected them to use. The message is clear. Local control is celebrated only when it produces the outcome the Republican-led legislature wants.

This is bigger than transportation policy. It is about whether the General Assembly governs by principle or by politics. Right now, the evidence points to politics.

North Carolinians deserve better than selective accountability. They deserve leaders who apply the same standards to themselves that they demand of everyone else. Until that happens, claims of fiscal responsibility and local control will continue to ring hollow, especially here in Mecklenburg County.

Ken McCool is the former mayor pro tem of Matthews and the Democratic nominee for N.C. House District 105.