{"id":99654,"date":"2025-10-16T07:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T07:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/?p=99654"},"modified":"2025-10-16T10:51:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T10:51:16","slug":"crickets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/es\/crickets\/","title":{"rendered":"$25 Billion and Still No Answers: Silence from the \u201cExperts\u201d Speaks Volumes"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>\n\t\t\t5 years of planning and still no answers!\t<\/h2>\n\t<p>When you&#8217;re asking the people with the <i>least<\/i> to pay the <i>most<\/i>, you better have your answers ready.<\/p>\n<p>But when Mecklenburg County Commission Chair <i>Mark Jerrell<\/i> recently asked a <b>basic question<\/b>, something fundamental about the proposed 1-cent transit sales tax hike, the response wasn&#8217;t clarity, evidence, or even spin.<\/p>\n<p>It was silence.<\/p>\n<p><b>Crickets.<\/b><\/p>\n\t<style>\n  .video-container {\n    position: relative;\n    width: 100%;\n    padding-bottom: 56.25%; \/* for a 16:9 aspect ratio; adjust if needed *\/\n    height: 0;\n    overflow: hidden;\n  }\n  .video-container iframe {\n    position: absolute;\n    top: 0;\n    left: 0;\n    width: 100%;\n    height: 100%;\n    border: 0;\n  }\n<\/style>\n  <iframe src=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1M-eurVyFb5Be15tdO-B-0aV8KfHH5KhF\/preview\"\n          allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\"\n          allowfullscreen>\n  <\/iframe>\n<h2>\n\t\t\tFive Years of &#8220;Work,&#8221; and This Is Where We Are?\t<\/h2>\n\t<p>According to city officials and transit advocates, this plan has been &#8220;in development&#8221; for five years. That&#8217;s half a decade of meetings, studies, slide decks, community listening sessions, and glossy mailers.<\/p>\n<p>So why can&#8217;t the Chair of the County Commission get a simple answer to a simple question in public?<\/p>\n<p>Why, after all this time, do supporters still fumble the most basic accountability metrics, like who benefits, who pays, and how we&#8217;ll prevent another decade of cost overruns and unmet promises?<\/p>\n<h2>\n\t\t\t$25 Billion Isn&#8217;t a Plan, It&#8217;s a Power Grab\t<\/h2>\n\t<p>This isn&#8217;t just about one awkward moment in a meeting. This is about a <b>$25 billion tax-and-spend scheme<\/b> with no enforceable protections for working families. No serious commitments to minority contracting. No guarantees for bus riders. No built-in audit schedule or spending cap. And certainly no equity impact statement.<\/p>\n<p>Yet despite all that, the burden of this plan is being squarely placed on <i>working-class residents and fixed-income seniors<\/i>, not the developers, not the lobbyists, not the corporate real estate machine.<\/p>\n<h2>\n\t\t\tSilence Is Not Neutral. It&#8217;s a Red Flag.\t<\/h2>\n\t<p>When one of the most powerful elected officials in Mecklenburg County can&#8217;t, or won&#8217;t, get an answer a basic question, <b>that&#8217;s not just a political misstep. It&#8217;s a warning<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>It tells us that what&#8217;s being sold as a &#8220;transformative investment&#8221; might just be another blank check signed by the people who can least afford it.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve seen this play before. Shiny renderings, lofty goals, and glowing testimonials. But once the tax is locked in, the dollars go elsewhere, and the promises fade.<\/p>\n<h2>\n\t\t\tJoin the NO&#8217;alition. Demand Accountability.\t<\/h2>\n\t<p>Voting NO is not voting against transit. It&#8217;s voting <i>for transparency, for priorities, and for working families who deserve more than silence in exchange for their hard-earned money.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>Vote AGAINST between October 16 and November 1, or on Election Day, November 4.<\/b><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>5 years of planning and still no answers! When you&#8217;re asking the people with the least to pay the most, you better have your answers ready. But when Mecklenburg County&#8230;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99654"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99658,"href":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99654\/revisions\/99658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}