Why the City of Raleigh has a Charlotte address
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I grew up in the Triangle and am now a committed Charlottean. I’ll admit that I have some pretty strong feelings when the two areas are compared.
So it more than caught my eye when I saw a tweet showing that the City of Raleigh lists an address in Charlotte to direct utility payments. It forced me to find out why.
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“It’s been asked on this end, too. Raleigh residents have asked us,” said city spokesman John Boyette. Then he gave the short answer: “It’s like a clearinghouse service for us. We don’t have the manpower to do it.”
The long answer is this. Raleigh uses Wells Fargo as its primary bank, which has its largest employee base in Charlotte after acquiring Wachovia back during the financial crisis.
Wells spokesman Josh Dunn said that many of its government and corporate clients use a lockbox to take in payments by mail – and one of the big ones for this region is in Charlotte.
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Other out-of-town companies directing money to our city: Waste Industries, Wake County, Western Kentucky University, WakeMed, Southeast Toyota Finance and Capital One.
This is important because it’s undoubtedly creating jobs in the Charlotte market, and pretty recession-proof jobs at that. Business and professional services is a huge chunk of the city’s economy and are a key reason Charlotte is able to rebound from economic downturns more quickly than the country as a whole.
Ask me anything
I’m really good at finding out the answers to questions like this, whether they be trivial or weighty. And I’m all about solving problems and “news you can use.” Send your questions my way on Twitter or email me and I’ll get to work for you.