I come to you from the Queen City, where the week kicked off with high drama in the chambers of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center.
Monday night’s Charlotte City Council meeting started off with a stacked agenda—a data center discussion, a public hearing for the proposed budget, and an I-77 toll lane resolution. Fireworks were ensured. But a surprise vote to rescind the city’s support for a hugely controversial project ended the meeting with a bang heard ‘round the city.
I’ll have those details in just a minute, but my point here is that it was a refreshing twist to see council members act in the interest of their constituents on an issue where all the power seemed to be leaning to the other side.
Many people feel jaded and helpless in politics these days, and rightfully so, but Monday night’s vote goes to show that, sometimes, the power still rests with the people.
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Charlotte City Council rescinds support for controversial toll lane project
Back in 2024, the Charlotte City Council voted to move forward with a public-private partnership that would fund toll lanes along an 11-mile stretch of interstate 77 from Uptown Charlotte to the South Carolina state line (think Carowinds).
The vote wasn’t huge news then, mostly because nobody knew what the NC Department of Transportation (NCDOT) project would look like.
“Last night was a reminder that public engagement matters.”
When NCDOT dropped potential designs in fall 2025, all hell broke loose. That’s when residents learned the plan threatened dozens of homes in historically Black neighborhoods like McCrorey Heights, deepening the negative impacts first done to those neighborhoods when the highway was built through them in the late 1960s.
In the months since, organized opposition has been loud and consistent, with residents packing the chambers of Charlotte City Council meetings and pleading with the current body to stop the project or find alternatives.
During Monday’s meeting, after city council voted on a resolution that asked NCDOT to carry out “a targeted reevaluation and design analysis” on its own project—a resolution many felt had no teeth to begin with—council member Renee Johnson turned the tables by moving to rescind the council’s vote of support from 2024.
Shockingly, council approved her motion by a 6-5 margin. The vote was so unexpected that council members have admitted to being surprised by it as it happened despite having just discussed the topic for around an hour.
The issue will now be sent back to the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization, where enough reps from surrounding municipalities have already signaled their intentions to help Charlotte halt the project in its tracks and send planners back to the drawing board.
“While this vote does not end the discussion around the project, it is an important acknowledgment that the community deserves a more thoughtful process before decisions of this magnitude move forward,” read a statement from Sustain Charlotte, an environmental advocacy group that lobbied against the project.
“Most importantly, last night was a reminder that public engagement matters,” the statement continued. “Thousands of residents across Charlotte spoke up consistently and clearly about the kind of future they want for their neighborhoods and their city. They attended meetings, contacted elected officials, and continued advocating even when many believed the outcome had already been decided.”
Lawmakers take aim at concert ticket scalpers
Last month, I brought you some good news about a ruling in the Live Nation suit that could make concert tickets more affordable (no promises).
Now lawmakers are taking another step in the right direction, introducing a bill that aims to protect consumers from predatory ticket resellers and bots that run up prices on concert tickets.
NC Sen. Jay Chaudhuri (D-Wake) and NC Sen. Vickie Sawyer (R-Iredell) joined venue owners from around the state for a press conference at the Pour House Music Hall on Wednesday to push for action on Senate Bill 849—the Real Tickets, Real Fans Act—which was introduced late last month.
The bill would implement five new protections, according to Chaudhuri: require resellers to clearly identify themselves as resellers; ban the use of the entertainer’s name, logo, or branding by resellers without authorization; require resellers to provide an active link to the primary sellers; ban the sale of speculative tickets (reselling tickets to fans that do not actually exist); and ban “bots” and the software used to sweep up thousands of tickets in seconds before a fan can even load the page.
“Our constituents and fans don’t need a fraud protection course to buy a concert ticket,” Chaudhuri said on Wednesday.
In a post on Thursday, he encouraged “every North Carolinian who has been cheated at the ticket windows” to reach out to their representatives and ask them to support the Real Tickets, Real Fans Act.
“With this bill, artists, venue owners, and audience members alike will no longer have to fear bots and unfair selling practices in North Carolina ticket sales,” he wrote.
Red wolf litter born in Durham
A little over a year ago, I wrote about the progress conservationists have seen in their efforts to save the red wolf in North Carolina.
I’ve been closely following that progress since, which is why I was psyched to see The Museum of Life and Science announce the birth of five critically endangered pups this week.
“Each pup born is crucial for the species’ survival and offers hope for the broader Red Wolf population.”
The actual birth of the pups—three males and two females—took place on May 5, a week before the museum made things public, and they are all reported to be in good health.
The litter represents the first for wolf parents Carolina (2293F) and Jacques (2152M), who were paired in New York in 2024 and moved to Durham in 2025.
“Institutions within the SAFE American Red Wolf program, like ours, hold a significant responsibility, especially as we face limited numbers of wolves in the wild population,” said Sherry Samuels, senior director of Animal Care at the museum.
“Each pup born is crucial for the species’ survival and offers hope for the broader Red Wolf population. This is an exciting time for the species and the Museum.”
