Good news — all is not lost in the quest to build low- and medium-income housing in the Ballantyne area. Yesterday, the Charlotte Housing Authority announced it was pulling out of a public housing project for the city’s No. 1 nouveau riche area. Publicly, the reason was CHA's concern about the cost of the project. The fact that CHA’s withdrawal comes right after a wave of wailing and moaning by Ballantyne residents is merely a coincidence. No, really. Seriously.

You see, we have discovered, after about three Heinekens and four Manhattans, that CHA and Ballantyne representatives have worked out a new compromise. The deal is a startlingly original resolution to the controversy, and will allow low-income residents to live in Ballantyne while also fulfilling the previous project's opponents' vision of a proper relationship between the poor and the city’s elite.

The project, called “High Cotton,” is a complex arrangement that will include dedicating 200 acres just outside Ballantyne to growing cotton. In addition, CHA will partner with S. Legree Inc., a new development company, to build 200 small homes — cabins, really — that will be occupied by low-income folks who, as part of their lease, agree to devote each October to picking the cotton grown on the 200-acre planta ... umm, neighborhood.

“It’s a win-win for everybody,” says Lester Legree, who named the development company after his great-great-grandfather Simon. “We’ll have 200 acres of beautiful cotton, made in the U.S.A., to sell to all the area’s cotton mills. Of course, they’re all in Mexico or China now, but you know what I mean. And the ni ... er, poor people will have a nice place to live.” Legree said he even planned to install running water and working toilets in the cabins “as soon as we turn a profit.” Meanwhile, he said, "there's a nearby creek where they can wash their clothes." No spokespersons for public housing residents was available for comment.

Note: the above is satire, OK?

• Artist's rendering of part of Ballantyne's planned High Cotton project

The County Commission brawl over CIAA tickets has been a big fat mess, a surrealistic spectacle, an embarrassment, and a strong reminder that when government officials get serious about disagreements, both sides can wind up looking really bad. To keep this as short as possible, here’s a recap of what has happened, with my own comments in brackets.

Since 2006, the county has given the CIAA $200,000 per year to help the league pay for its tournament. The CIAA gives books of tourney tickets to the Charlotte Regional Visitors' Authority, which turns around and gives tickets to the County Manager’s office, who then distributes them to whichever commissioners request them, or, ostensibly, to others who’ve expressed interest.

This year, Commissioner Bill James called out the arrangement as a conflict of interest, saying that commissioners should not accept gifts from a group that receives money from the county. [James’ assertion is so obviously true, it’s amazing that anyone has argued the point with him.] Actually, James went farther than calling it a “conflict of interest,” using terms such as “bribes” and calling the CRVA a “bagman” for County Manager Harry Jones [I’d stick with “obvious conflict of interest,” which is bad enough, but hey, I’m not Bill James. It is interesting, though, that James waited until an election year to expose the conflict of interest.]. The commission’s two other GOP members joined James, saying they would give their tickets to charities, which could sell them to help the poor. [That’s the surreal part — Republicans using the term “help the poor” as a weapon against Democrats.]

Commission chair Jennifer Roberts, so far the only person in this story who has kept her head, said she planned to pay for her own tickets to the CIAA tourney, thank you very much. Harry Jones proceeded to distribute tickets to the rest of the Dems on the commission, but didn’t give any to the three Republicans. In an e-mail to James, Jones said restrictions on the tournament tickets forbid reselling them, and as is his style, Jones piled on, writing, “You have made it very clear that you do not want the tickets, so none are being offered to you."  [Mr. Self-Importance strikes again.] James raised hell, saying, in effect, that Jones was being a jerk [no argument here], and was setting up the Dems for an electoral butt-kicking. Meanwhile, the CRVA offered six books of tickets it had purchased to James so they could be given to the charities. [Anyone who thinks this arrangement wasn’t cleared by, or come from, Jones’ office is probably more naïve than it’s safe to be.] James turned the tickets down, saying it would be an ethics violation to accept them. [Although he had been OK with taking the tickets from Jones for the same purpose — which shows up the original offer to help the charities as a cynical political ploy (probably an effective one, but cynical nonetheless.)]

End result: James is absolutely right that the commissioners’ acceptance of the tickets is a glaring conflict of interest; Jones continues to think he can do whatever he wants; Roberts is both ethical and savvy; and the rest of the commission’s Dems are either clueless or don’t care about ethical issues (or even ethical appearances). ‘Round and ‘round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows.