“I am energized by the amount of interest there is in the convention,” Mayor Anthony Foxx told me on Tuesday. The inclusive answer came after I asked him his thoughts on the Carolina Regional Minority Partnership Coalition, minority businesses working for a chance at opportunities the 2012 Democratic National Convention will bring to Charlotte.

Foxx said he “applauds the effort” to create any access points for businesses owned by women, minorities and the disabled, and said the local host committee has staff dedicated to incorporating support for local businesses.

When I talked with civil rights attorney and coalition chair James Ferguson, he was enthusiastic about the support of Foxx, former Mayor Harvey Gantt and U.S. Congressman Mel Watt of North Carolina, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. “We are lobbying on behalf of minorities, to make sure goals are set and met,” said the 68-year-old Ferguson. “We’re in the best possible position to make it happen.”

Ferguson and Charlotte business owner Colette Forrest had the same idea after the Democratic National Committee announced Charlotte as the site of the 2012 convention — and the Carolina Regional Minority Partnership Coalition was born. “We wanted to see minorities come together to be a voice, to be a force, to be heard,” Ferguson told me last week in his historic Excelsior Club on Charlotte’s west side. The occasion was the launch of the coalition’s website. It includes a member directory, a clock ticking down to the convention’s start date and information about the group, which includes members from North and South Carolina, from Winston-Salem to Columbia. (Membership is $50.)

“We’re not official,” Ferguson said. “But we’re doing outreach and we are going to make sure that the Democratic convention is doing what it’s supposed to do.”

• CMPD Chief Rodney Monroe

Early this week, the Charlotte City Council approved a request of close to $600,000 so the police department can renovate its downtown headquarters in preparation for the 2012 Democratic National Convention. On Thursday night, Rodney Monroe, Chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, gave some details on the “command center” he said, that will be “the department’s management arm for the convention.”

Monroe has been “somewhat tight-lipped” about security, he said. But, though he said, “I wish it was Sept. 8, 2012 and it would be done,” Monroe added, “2012 is going to be an exciting year for us ... it’s going to unfold, you’re going to be in the moment, you’re going to respond to things.” The command center is set to be up by the end of the year or in early January.

Speaking to a meeting of the Charlotte Area Association of Black Journalists, Monroe said the goal was “not to prevent people from coming out and exercising their First Amendment rights” nor “to shut anything down” during the convention, a fear of some businesses and city residents who are still wondering how an influx of more than 35,000 delegates and visitors will affect their lives.

Some protesters are “looking to be disruptive,” he said. “Anarchists, they’re out there; they’re here in the city. We’re just trying to gather as much information as we can.” The CMPD is, he said, working with partners — local, regional and national — that represent the Secret Service, FBI and an alphabet soup of agencies and departments. They are meeting every three to four weeks, he said. “You name it, we have a committee for it.”

Charlotte has sent police officers to help other jurisdictions for events such as the inauguration and economic summits, and departments in other cities will reciprocate, sending officers for the convention. Charlotte and Tampa, Fla., site of the Republican convention, are expecting about $50 million each from Congress for security, the policy since 9/11.

Monroe said he knows the challenges and expectations. Political conventions “determine the leaders of our country.” And Charlotte will be hosting a sitting president, one who “has probably received more threats than any president in history.”

In more than two decades of police work in Washington, D.C., Monroe oversaw arrangements for large gatherings such as the Million Man March. “Events similar to this were common occurrences in Washington, and that gave us a leg up.” As he prepares for DNC 2012, he is investigating technology and social media tools, and said he has studied “flash mobs” in cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago. “Law enforcement will have a legacy,” he said. “We want people talking about the way we were able to conduct the convention,” safely and with “as little disruption as possible.”

He said he doesn’t want residents to think the convention will be the only thing on the department’s radar during that week in September 2012. “We also have the responsibility of the rest of the city,” he said, and amid the crowds and the international attention a political convention will bring, that’s one thing he said he wants the people of Charlotte to remember.

Mary C. Curtis, an award-winning Charlotte, N.C.-based journalist, is a contributor to The Root, NPR, Creative Loafing and the Nieman Watchdog blog. Her “Keeping It Positive” segment airs Wednesdays at 7:10 on TV’s Fox News Rising Charlotte, and she was national correspondent for Politics Daily. Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mcurtisnc3.

• Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann

With the first in the South primary next door in South Carolina, it was inevitable that Michele Bachmann would head this way after her first-place finish in the Iowa straw poll of Republican hopefuls. She scheduled a fund-raiser this week in Charlotte and (along with Rick Perry, who announced his presidential bid in Charleston) planned appearances in South Carolina.

But preparations for the DNC 2012 in Charlotte didn’t stop. They just took a lower profile as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security came into town this week for training exercises with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. It’s all part of the effort to get ready for President Barack Obama, more than 30,000 delegates, plus the media and visitors expected next September.

Congress is still considering a $55 million request to help Charlotte ramp up its security needs for the convention, after Mayor Anthony Foxx made his case (with the mayor of Tampa, site of the GOP convention) in Washington.

When he visited Charlotte after it was chosen as the site of the convention, then-DNC chair Tim Kaine pointed to Chief Rodney Monroe’s more than two decades of police work in Washington, D.C., as a plus in dealing with federal officials and security for high-profile officials. The CMPD, under Monroe, has called on surrounding departments for assistance.

Department spokesman Robert Tufano said, “We cannot discuss specific security training and strategy for obvious reasons but I can tell you that the goal of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is to develop and implement, with numerous participating agencies, a seamless security plan that will create a secure environment for the community, dignitaries, event participants and the general public.” He cited planning for venue security, air space security, training, communications and credentialing, but said “the means, methods, specific resources or numbers utilized to carry out protective responsibilities will not be discussed to ensure public safety.”

While the terrorist attacks of 9/11 precipitated the policy of using federal funds to supplement state and local convention security efforts, recent incidents of street crime across the country also must be causing concern. After Memorial Day weekend violence in Charlotte, many noted that crowds filled the streets near the Transportation Center — just across from the Time Warner Cable arena home of convention events. A quick response by community members brought street volunteers and mentors over the July 4th weekend for a peaceful holiday celebration. It was a move that other cities are trying.

Recently, during a visit to Philadelphia, I ran across that city’s mayor, Michael Nutter, and a parade of community groups and others who joined along in a nighttime stroll to counter the images of recent “flash mob” attacks there. It was all about “staying safe” while “having a good time,” he told me. Though he didn’t cite Charlotte’s action as inspiration, Nutter said that he and Mayor Anthony Foxx “stay in touch.”

Expect Charlotte to keep an eye on small efforts to keep the peace even as the feds coordinate more dramatic counter-offensives.

Mary C. Curtis, an award-winning Charlotte, N.C.-based journalist, is a contributor to The Root, NPR, Creative Loafing and the Nieman Watchdog blog. Her “Keeping It Positive” segment airs Wednesdays at 7:10 on TV’s Fox News Rising Charlotte, and she was national correspondent for Politics Daily. Follow her on Twitter. http://twitter.com/mcurtisnc3.

• Republican mayoral candidate Scott Stone

Mayor Anthony Foxx formally announced his re-election campaign with a nod to the past and an eye on the future. It was a clever setting — Irwin Avenue Elementary — with an introduction by his former principal, Frances Waller, who remembered “young Anthony” for his “love for learning.”

Foxx talked about job growth and a local economy that has “diversified” on Monday, the day of a stock market sell-off. After the announcement, he acknowledged the economic “headwinds,” but told me he’s “working even harder to help our small businesses, in particular,” and said the city is investing in infrastructure.

His Republican opponent, Scott Stone, an executive with engineering and architecture firm Merrick & Company, has been touting his business bona fides, counting his lack of political experience as a positive, especially when it comes to job creation.

And, in this Charlotte mayoral campaign, DNC 2012 is an issue.

On his website, Stone says a GOP mayor will better safeguard the interests of Charlotte taxpayers and businesses during the event, and he predicts the DNC will use the convention to get a “toe-hold in North Carolina” for union labor.

In his announcement, Foxx counted securing the convention as a big plus, “which will bring thousands of visitors from across the world to our city and generate hundreds of millions of dollars of economic impact and international exposure.”

Though hardly the No. 1 thing on voters’ minds, dueling narratives on just what the convention will mean to the city have nudged into conversations about jobs, education and transportation.

Yes, local and national are inevitably intertwined, with the DNC team saying it’s much too soon to speculate about the fate of the transit center during the convention. (Will it or won’t it be moved?) Democratic National Convention Committee communications director Kristie Greco said: “Any assumptions about security plans or how the transit center will function during the Democratic Convention in September 2012 are extremely premature. Security plans will not be determined until much closer the convention. … The Uptown area and Charlotte's transit system will be open for business during the convention.”

Mary C. Curtis, an award-winning Charlotte, N.C.-based journalist, is a contributor to The Root, NPR, Creative Loafing and the Nieman Watchdog blog. Her “Keeping It Positive” segment airs Wednesdays at 7:10 on TV’s Fox News Rising Charlotte, and she was national correspondent for Politics Daily. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcurtisnc3.

Was it only six months ago that Charlotte was celebrating its besting of four other finalist cities to be named the site of the 2012 Democratic National Convention? With a little more than a year to go, a few grumbles are intruding on the party mood, but for now, organizers say everything is progressing nicely.

At a meeting organized by the Charlotte Chamber in June, local and regional businesses asked for assurances they would be able to share in opportunities the convention would bring. This week, Democratic National Convention Committee CEO Steve Kerrigan said: “The DNCC is committed to ensuring that businesses directly and indirectly involved with the convention reflect the diversity of the city. In addition to a robust outreach effort, the Host Committee will soon publish an online vendor directory of local businesses so organizations hosting events around the convention can search for local goods and services that fit their needs. It will be a tool that helps outside groups meet and maintain the same standards of diversity and inclusion that we have established at the DNCC.”

At the same time, a group of black businesses has formed the Carolina Regional Minority Partnership Coalition (CRMPC) “to ensure that minority business owners are able to equally participate with the 2012 DNC Convention and have timely access to information concerning the 2012 DNC Convention.” The group's chair and spokesperson is Charlotte attorney James Ferguson II.

And in a move that reflects the partisan prism through which any politically related move is increasingly being judged, the conservative National Review online has tweaked the city with the headline “The DNC War on Public Transportation.” The move reflects talk — very much in its early stages — that the Uptown bus station may have to be moved as a security precaution during the convention just across the street.

Six months in, Kerrigan said everything is on track. “The DNCC has moved into office space Uptown and has begun setting up our operation … reaching out to counterparts in the city, and starting the planning necessary to put on the Democratic Convention,” he said. “We will continue to grow in stages as we approach the convention.”

Still, Charlotte and its players are realizing that the euphoria of capturing such a high-profile event can calm when met with the realities of what’s at stake.

Mary C. Curtis, an award-winning Charlotte, N.C.-based journalist, is a contributor to The Root, NPR, Creative Loafing and the Nieman Watchdog blog. Her “Keeping It Positive” segment airs Wednesdays at 7:10 on TV’s Fox News Rising Charlotte, and she was national correspondent for Politics Daily. Follow her on Twitter. http://twitter.com/mcurtisnc3.

In a recent press conference, Mayor Anthony Foxx was pretty optimistic about the $55 million Congress has been asked to allocate toward the security set-up at DNC 2012 in Charlotte. After all, he explained, he made his pitch to members of both houses of Congress with the mayor of Tampa, Fla., whose city is hosting the 2012 Republican National Convention.

While he called the political climate in Washington “tough,” particularly when the topic is spending, Foxx said of the federal money, "We don't contemplate not getting it.” Of course, partisan bickering over raising the debt ceiling has only gotten more acrimonious since then.

On Tuesday, Foxx issued a formal statement on the debt debate consuming D.C. “I implore Congress to do what Charlotte businesses, parents, and every member of our community do every day,” it said. “Mourn the absence of better choices and make the difficult calls required to move us forward.”

The statement said: “If our nation fails to maintain the bedrock of its own full faith and credit, no one will remember the stand taken by Republicans or Democrats. They will not recall failed bills or negotiations. They will remember that, despite the known risks, our government failed to act.”

Since 9/11, convention sites have been designated as a “national security event” as a first step before receiving funds from Congress. For Denver in 2008, the money came in May before the late summer meeting.

In Charlotte’s case, Foxx said the money would be used for, among other things, bringing in between 2,400 and 3,400 additional police officers. He cited the need to protect the public as well as those attending the convention “in a world that’s every bit as dangerous as it was four years ago.”

But, the mayor also acknowledged that he’s “concerned about everything we need from the federal government.”

While the Charlotte host committee, city officials and the DNC staff inexorably march toward the 2012 convention, with plans taking shape every day, they are hardly operating in a vacuum. The toxic cloud emanating from Washington can’t be ignored.

Mary C. Curtis, an award-winning Charlotte, N.C.-based journalist, is a contributor to The Root, NPR, Creative Loafing and the Nieman Watchdog blog. Her “Keeping It Positive” segment airs Wednesdays at 7:10 on TV’s Fox News Rising Charlotte, and she was national correspondent for Politics Daily. Follow her on Twitter. http://twitter.com/mcurtisnc3.