City Smart: Charlotte infrastructure to auto racing

• May is Charlotte Small Business Month  – If you’re thinking of starting a small business, celebrating small businesses, or (our personal favorite) shopping at a small business, now is the time! In addition to the whole month of May being small business month in Charlotte, May 4-8 is National Small Business Week.  Find out more about it here.
• Infrastructure: If something exciting happens, we’re doing it wrong – the bad news is that 65% of roads in the US are rated at below “good” condition, 25% of bridges need to be repaired or replaced, and public transit faces an $86 billion repair backlog.  The good news? Charlotte is making inroads on its transit plan (we just have to make sure we can fund it). Read more here.
• Legislature takes a pass on protecting police whistleblowers – the NC House voted down a bill, co-sponsored by Meck’s own Rep. Tricia Cotham, that would have offered protection against retaliation to police officers who blew the whistle on fellow officers who violated the law, committed acts of fraud, misappropriated government resources, and/or abused their power. Read more about their reasoning here.

2 Happy Things

• Homelessness is down in Charlotte. An extensive three day count found that Mecklenburg County, a county with 1 million people, has 516 chronically homeless people. That’s down 36% from when the last count was done 5 years ago.

• May is Motorsports Month in NC! The sport brings in $6 billion and 200,000 jobs, much of it during this busy time of the year at the speedway.

1 Random Thing

• In honor of Motorsports Month: Charlotte’s first foray into auto-racing took place on October 24, 1924 when the first Charlotte Speedway opened on the south side of  town. The wooden track hosted a 250-mile race on Oct. 24, 1924 that drew nearly 50,000 spectators.