In an effort to give consumers of this column more of what they want, I’ve dashed off a Citizen Servatius Christmas edition loaded with sex, drugs, violence and mixed-use development for your reading pleasure. Happy Holidays!
IT’S JUST SEX
At a meeting last week, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
Safety Director Ralph Taylor explained to school board members that they shouldn’t
fret too much initially when they hear reports of rapes occurring in our schools,
because kids often cry rape when they get busted doing the nasty.
“Most of the time it started out as consensual sex on campus,” Taylor explained. “Ninety-five percent of (reported) rapes end up that way.” Apparently satisfied with that explanation, school board members moved on to the next subject without batting an eye.
After the meeting, I cornered Taylor at the elevator in an attempt to get an answer to a question I’d been asking CMS officials for weeks.
“How many kids were expelled last year?” I asked him.
“None,” he said. “We don’t do that.”
Apparently, copulation on campus is just another part of “preparing kids for greatness.”
TAXES OF STEEL
Last year during county budget time, the Parks and Rec department wailed about
how poor inner city kids could be deprived of pools for the summer, softball
leagues and more if taxpayers didn’t cover a $32 million county budget gap.
Naturally, the commissioners raised taxes. There was just no other way, they
said.Now it appears that the supposedly cash-strapped Parks department has made
a miraculous comeback from the brink of financial disaster. It’s offering taxpayer-subsidized
tummy toning classes — cost $1 — and free yoga classes. No buns of steel classes
are available at this time, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they
add those to the county budget, too.
THT ALIEN SPIN-CYCLE
The Charlotte Observer recently reported
that the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had rounded
up 22 illegal aliens — 16 of whom had criminal convictions — as part of its
plan to apprehend and remove more than 400,000 immigration fugitives who have
been ordered to leave the country but are hiding to avoid deportation.
That didn’t strike me as odd until I happened to read a Chattanooga Times Free Press article about how the Department of Homeland Security border patrol has been releasing illegal aliens because they can’t deport them without a legal hearing and have no space to detain them all until then.
ICE, meanwhile, is spending hundreds of millions to round up illegals who didn’t show up for their deportation hearings after they were released by the government.
That’s right. One federal agency releases them because it has no place to hold them until their hearings, then another federal agency spends millions to hunt down just a fraction of the aliens other government agencies release. They call this homeland security.
PROFITING FROM PIT BULLS
The Charlotte City Council, in response to Tameka Brown’s campaign to ban
pit bulls after her son was mauled to death, hiked fines and fees for pet owners.
This is a money grab that will do nothing to address the “dangerous dog” problem.
Without meaning to, Brown played a useful role for the city in a tight budget
year, and public officials fell all over themselves to meet with her and feel
her pain.
During all those meetings about dangerous dogs, these officials apparently never got around to asking her why she left 8-year-old Roddy with his father, a man who she says used and sold crack cocaine the entire time she knew him. Other inconvenient details no one wants to talk about include Brown’s admission that one of the dogs had shown aggression toward her son in the past.
So a mother who left her kid with a strung-out, crack-dealing pit bull abuser has become a hero, the city got its money, and everyone feels good.
BREATHING VS. SHOPPING
When city leaders contemplate development proposals for land close to uptown,
it’s mixed-use retail and condo developments they want, on the logic that if
shopping and restaurants are nearby, people won’t have to drive very far —
or at all — and thus won’t generate the traffic that could result in enough
air pollution that the EPA could ultimately ban business and road expansion
here.
But they’re apparently willing to let air quality go to hell before they’ll allow new retail in the burbs to compete with retail near uptown.
Last week, the key reason city planners gave for urging the council to turn down a developer’s request for more retail at Albemarle Road and Interstate 485 was that it might draw business away from existing retail closer to uptown.
The intersection is at the county’s edge, so you have to assume they’d rather folks drive 15 miles to uptown, polluting all the way, then chance them shopping closer to their homes. Somehow, this is called smart growth.
Contact Tara Servatius at tara.servatius@cln.com
This article appears in Dec 22-28, 2004.
