City Smart: Voter IDs to Doorstep Delivery

• Voter ID road trip. The NC Board of Elections was in Charlotte last Monday, June 8th to hear public comments on the regulations it has proposed to implement the new voter ID law in 2016. The regulations focus on the procedures election judges will use to determine whether you bear a “reasonable resemblance” to the photo identification you will be required to present in 2016 when you go vote (no ID will be needed to vote in this year’s elections). Comments included an urging for leniency when it comes to matching names on IDs to names on voter rolls (e.g. not disqualifying “William” because his ID says “Bill”), the need for student ID to be on the list of acceptable types of ID, the need for extensive training for poll workers, election judges and observers, as well as the need to keep tabs on when people are being turned away so that any patterns of bias that certain polling sites or poll workers may exhibit can be kept in check.
• Wanted: Teachers. Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools have such a grave need for teachers that they’ve turned to Craigslist to post want ads. CMS has traditionally used websites like CareerBuilder or LinkedIn (you know, sites that advertise for professionals) to recruit, but there’s such a demand for teachers that CMS has had to spread its net wider. Out of 8,586 teaching positions within the district, there are 749 vacancies to fill for next year with applicants be processed for 364 of them.Thus, your child’s teacher next year may find his job at the same place he finds a sweet deal on that used sofa.

• Economic Development Task Force. The economic development task force concluded their year long study of  how to drive economic development in the region on Friday. The task force, comprised of business and civic leaders, released a report outlining their suggestions for maintaining the region’s “exceptional and prolonged history of success in job growth.” Recommendations focused on clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce and the Charlotte Regional Partnership, working more on business retention, and developing a set of metrics to measure success.

Quick Veto update: The past two weeks we’ve brought you information about SB2, which allows magistrates to opt out of performing marriages for religious reasons. The Governor vetoed the legislation on Constitutional grounds. As of last Thursday, the bill will nonetheless become law, as the veto was overriden by a margin of three votes.  

2 Happy Things

• Guacamole to your door is on it’s way. Doorstep Delivery has expanded its service to the Charlotte area, beginning with a 9 mile delivery radius around SouthPark. Restaurants that have already signed on include Libretto’s, Bill Spoon’s BBQ and, excitingly, Chuy’s Tex-Mex.

• The Labor Department last week said the U.S. economy added 280,000 jobs in May and job openings were up more than 20 percent from a year ago.

1 Random Thing

• Since railroads first linked Charlotte to global markets in the 1850s, the city has never seen a decade without population growth. From about 3500 people at the close of the Civil War in 1865, city population climbed to 18,224 in 1900, to 100,899 in 1940, to nearly 800,000 today.