Decision 2010: Board of Commissioners at-large race

(Editor’s note: The following is part of The Mecklenburg Times’ coverage of the Nov. 2 elections.)

Harold Cogdell

Age: 41

Hometown: Kingston, N.C.

Family: Single; no children

Education: Bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; juris doctor degree from North Carolina Central University

Political affiliation: Democrat

Harold Cogdell’s political career began with a term as a Charlotte City Council member from 2001 to 2003 — one that was, he admits, overwhelming.

“I realized that balancing a law practice and serving in public office was an extremely demanding undertaking,” he said. “And, frankly, I felt like I had not done all that I should have done to prepare myself to serve in that capacity.”

Five years later, having established the Law Offices of Harold Cogdell Jr. in Charlotte, Cogdell saw the opportunity to serve again and decided to run for an at-large county commissioner seat in 2008. He won and was subsequently elected vice-chairman to the board – just in time for the recession to hit.

Despite the economic downturn, Cogdell says Charlotte’s economy has remained strong. He points to successes over the past year, including the recruitment of companies, such as Electrolux and GMAC, and the expansion of locally headquartered companies, such as Celgard. The successes, he said, are because of the way local government — including the board’s economic development committee, for which Cogdell is chair — works with economic development groups, such as the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce.

“We were very fortunate to see 300 new jobs created in Mecklenburg County since 2010,” Cogdell said. “And you have to keep in mind that there are so many urban areas around the nation that have seen zero growth during that time.”

That success, he said, is proof that the county’s high property tax rate is not a deterrent to businesses, despite what some of his political opponents claim. Cogdell adds that when other factors, such as the costs to buy or rent facilities and for employees to commute to and from work, are taken into consideration, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area has a low cost of doing business.

What are the top needs and/or problems you plan to address if elected?

The top issue that Cogdell expects to face next year is continuing budget constraints, partially because of the slow economy.

By the end of your term, what major accomplishments do you hope to have achieved?

Cogdell said that he plans to address the county’s budget constraints by developing new and more efficient government processes, including the integration of more public-private partnerships to offset the cuts in the county budget.

For example, the county’s Park and Recreation Department could partner with a local athletic association to build a sports complex, he said. In return, the athletic association gets to use the facility at certain times, such as for special events, but the facility is open to the public at other times.

“We have to look at all our capital assets within the county and find out if there are opportunities to partner with nonprofit organizations to utilize current recreation facilities,” Cogdell said. “We don’t have, frankly, the capacity to continue to operate at the levels we’ve done in the past.”

Cogdell also said that as county revenues return, he intends to make sure the board plans for its financial future by putting aside money every year for future capital needs. That way, he says, the county would have to take on less debt in the future, which would make capital expenditures cheaper.

When it comes to cutting or increasing taxes, Cogdell said he aims to develop a revenue-neutral budget. But he refuses to speculate on what that might mean for an individual’s tax rate. Since the tax rate won’t be set until next year, he said no one has the full picture of what projected sales tax revenues might look like.

“I just believe in reality over rhetoric,” he said. “It sounds good to say, ‘We’re going to cut the tax rate.’ It sounds good to say, ‘We’re going to be able to put more teachers in the classroom, fully fund the library system and cut the tax rate.’ But the reality is that you have to have a balanced budget. And that money has to come from somewhere.”

Dan Murrey

Age: 45

Hometown: Pulaski, Tenn.

Family: Wife: Katie; children: Sam, 14, Lucy, 11

Education: Bachelor’s degree in religion from Davidson College; doctor of medicine degree from Harvard Medical School; master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John. F. Kennedy School of Government

Political affiliation: Democrat

2008 was a big year for Dan Murrey. In July, he was appointed CEO of OrthoCarolina. In November, he was elected to his first term as an at-large member of the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners.

The two positions, he said, ultimately serve the same purpose.

“This is really an extension of that mission to make people’s lives better, whether it’s through medicine or public policy,” said Murrey, an orthopedic spinal surgeon. “I see patients, and I do what I can for them in the operating room, but the reality is their problems are frequently more complex than the medical side of it.”

Murrey said he’s always felt a calling toward public office and always knew that he would end up serving in some form.

In 2005, when a vote for school bonds failed to pass, he joined a school building solutions committee, which was made of community members and charged with developing a new capital bonds package that the public would support.

“I really saw an opportunity to bring different viewpoints together to build consensus in a way that respects all people’s opinions and treats them with dignity,” Murrey said. “That’s the one consistent thing I’ve done in my medical career and in public policy.”

Murrey decided to run for a seat on the Board of Commissioners because he saw it as the one office that addressed all of his passions, including health.

“There had never been a physician on the public health committee before,” Murrey said. “That alone was reason to run.”

What are the top needs and/or problems you plan to address if elected?

The things that people want in their county are pretty basic, Murrey said: Good schools, safe neighborhoods and an economic base to provide jobs.

“There are plenty of other things that we could do to enhance the county, but if we could take care of those, we’ve come a long way towards creating a platform to do the fun stuff.”

By the end of your term, what major accomplishments do you hope to have achieved?

“There’s a limit to how much you can do at the county level,” Murrey said, “because there are larger factors at play. But there are some things you can do.”

Murrey said he would continue to support incentive grants, which he said have brought more than 4,000 jobs to the county in the past two years, and focus on bringing not just white-collar jobs to the county but jobs in manufacturing, energy, green building and health care.

But the big picture, Murrey said, is still about education.

“What can you do to stimulate jobs? Spend money on education,” Murrey said. “Those jobs are attracted by a well-trained work force.”

In Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, there must be a focus on making sure that the schools are performing at a high level, graduation rates are high and children are not being held back in large numbers between grades, he said.

In addition to CMS, Murrey said the commission has to be sure it continues to support Central Piedmont Community College, to which the county gave $41.4 million in fiscal 2009-10, because CPCC provides valuable training in the fields of science and technology.

“That’s actually where the jobs are right now, so the more we can get people trained in those areas, the faster we’ll move out of this economic doldrums,” Murrey said.

To address the tight county budget, Murrey said the commissioners would have to do “what every household is doing right now” and find new ways to stretch dollars. Looking at the library system and the schools, Murrey said there are a lot of services that are duplicated between the two.

The county’s Park and Recreation Department could share facilities with CMS, Murrey said, suggesting that they could build regional athletic facilities that are maintained Park and Recreation to be used by different schools, rather than each school having its own facility.

“The reality is, we don’t need 32 football fields with grandstands and everything else,” he said. “What we need is enough to cover the athletic events we have, to make sure they’re well-maintained and safe, and let’s work out the scheduling of the games.

“Those are the kinds of things that take two, three or four years to figure out. It doesn’t happen overnight. But I think we’re in the process of doing that, and one of the reasons I want to run again is because I think we still have some work to do, and we need to take care of it now because when the economy turns back around, that pressure will go away.”

Jim Pendergraph

Age: 60

Hometown: Charlotte

Family: Wife: Lori; children: Ryan, 32, Jimmy, 27, Andrew, 26

Education: Associate’s degree in criminal justice from Central Piedmont Community College

Political affiliation: Republican

Jim Pendergraph’s name is a familiar one to many locals.

He served as Mecklenburg County sheriff for 13 years, from 1994 to 2007. During that time, he started the 287(g) program locally, which deputizes local police officials to enforce federal immigration law.

In 2007, Pendergraph retired to take a job with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, but returned to the county a year later because he said he couldn’t stand the micromanagement.

“‘It was the worst year of my life because I was handcuffed and gagged,” Pendergraph said. “You couldn’t send an e-mail without getting permission first and telling them exactly what you were going to say.”

His time in Charlotte since then has not been much better, he says. He likens the situation to coming home from work one day to see that your spouse has spent all the money in the checking account.

“I got disgusted watching the news and how our budget situation was with the county,” Pendergraph said. “I watched the Democratic commissioners make decisions that I strongly disagreed with regarding spending.”

What are the top needs and/or problems you plan to address if elected?

Pendergraph said he considers the county’s shrinking budget, coupled with overspending, and high unemployment to be the most pressing issues facing the Board of Commissioners next year.

“The budget cuts from last summer and last spring, they’re a drop in the budget compared to what we’ll see this year,” he said.

By the end of your term, what major accomplishments do you hope to have achieved?

“You’re going to see, by necessity, the county government resorting to funding their core mission only,” Pendergraph said. “Most of that is public safety and education.”

What that means, Pendergraph said, is the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament, to which the county contributed $200,000 this year, will have to be cut, as will some of the county funding going to assistance programs such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

“There are people who need help, for instance, through DSS (the county’s Department of Social Services) and welfare, but that’s just gotten out of control,” Pendergraph said.

When it comes to deciding what further cuts should be made, Pendergraph said he intends to put together a council of advisers — made of local residents and businesspeople — to discuss what cuts they’d like and what services they think are most important for the government to provide for them. Community members should be involved with that process, he said, because they’re the people the government serves, a fact that Pendergraph said many elected officials forget.

But the solution to a shrinking budget is more cuts, not higher taxes, Pendergraph said.

“We can not increase county revenue by decreasing private revenue,” he said. “What that means is we can’t tax you to death to help the county, because if we tax you to death, it’s just going to run you bankrupt or you’re going to leave.”

The other side of the budget crisis is high unemployment within the county, he said, adding that raising taxes would have two negative consequences when it comes to attracting businesses: The work force would shrink, because people would move out of the county, and businesses won’t want to do business here if it means paying high taxes.

Instead, Pendergraph said he would like to see more incentives, such as tax breaks, for businesses that expand or relocate to the area.

“I’m not saying give away the farm,” he said. “But we need to encourage business here so we can recover from this recession.”

Dan Ramirez

Age: 63

Hometown: Bogota, Columbia

Family: Wife: Cecilia; children: Christina, 37, Marce, 34, Claudia, 28

Education: Bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from University Grancolombia in Bogota, Colombia

Political affiliation: Republican

Forty years ago, Dan Ramirez and his then-pregnant wife, “Cecy,” came to Charlotte from Columbia, South America, with “$70 in one pocket and the other pocket full of dreams.”

Not all of those dreams came to fruition, Ramirez said. But one that did was a dream to serve in local government.

In 2002, at the urging of then-Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, Ramirez decided to run for the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners.

“It was kind of a curious thing for me, because I’d never really been involved in politics, and didn’t know anything about politics,” Ramirez said.

But he did know business, as the owner of an engineering firm in Charlotte, Nova Digital Systems. Ramirez said he decided to treat the campaign as a business proposition and to sell himself as a candidate the same way he would sell his services as a businessman.

The campaign worked: He won in 2002.

“It was a surprise even for me,” he said.

Today, Ramirez has two terms as a county commissioner under his belt.

When he lost his bid for re-election in 2008 “with the Obama tide,” Ramirez said it didn’t hit him too hard.

“It was disappointing, but it wasn’t really an upsetting situation for me,” he said. “I still had a life.”

When friends encouraged Ramirez to run again this year, he said he was hesitant at first and wanted other people to have the chance to serve.

But the state of the economy and high unemployment spurred him to run for the sake of his children and grandchildren.

What are the top needs and/or problems you plan to address if elected?

Ramirez says the property tax rate in Mecklenburg County is too high, and he expects the burden on residents to increase if the Board of Commissioners remains under Democratic control.

Though the board did not raise taxes this year, Ramirez thinks it had more to do with the impending election than any concerns about the high tax rate.

The high tax rate, he said, is driving people who work in Charlotte to surrounding counties, so the county is losing tax revenue and economic stimulation, compounding the county’s budget problems.

“I like to run because I’m a fiscally conservative individual,” Ramirez said. “I know how to run a small business, and when you have tough times, you have to make tough decisions to survive. And we need those tough decisions in this economy.”

By the end of your term, what major accomplishments do you hope to have achieved?

If elected, Ramirez plans to hold or cut the property tax rate to attract more residents and businesses to the county. If the tax rate is lowered, he said, the county would get an economic boost from new businesses, which would increase tax revenue even though the rate would be lower.

When it comes to the county budget, Ramirez said he intends to look closely at every county department that receives county funding and prioritize where the money goes. State-mandated programs, such as the local school system and the county health department, should be prioritized. Any nonmandated services that got funding in boom times and continued to get funding out of habit might hit the chopping block, he said.

“Most of these programs start out to be very good,” Ramirez said. “But then the following year, they come to the commission and say, ‘We’ve been so successful, we need a funding increase to continue.’ It becomes an entitlement.”

When pressed, Ramirez could not name any specific examples of the sort of projects he was talking about, but he said he would look at any organization that receives county money.

“Let’s be businesslike,” Ramirez said. “I’m a businessman, I’m pragmatic, and I know we have to make those hard decisions.”

Jennifer Roberts

Age: 50

Hometown: Charlotte

Family: Husband: Manley; children: son, 11, daughter, 13 (declined to give names)

Education: Bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; master’s degree in international affairs from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; master’s degree in European history from University of Toronto

Political affiliation: Democrat

The past few years have not been the best time to be Jennifer Roberts.

Roberts, chairwoman of the Board of Commissioners, where she is on her third term, has borne the brunt of criticism from residents who believe the county has been spending too much, supporting the wrong things or just headed in the wrong direction.

“I’ve developed a pretty thick skin.” Roberts said.

But Roberts says the accusations that her opponents are slinging — about overspending or the county government growing too large — are unfounded.

It’s strange, she says, the way some Republicans and her opponents label her as being very liberal when she considers herself to be very moderate, especially when it comes to spending. In fact, she said, the county budgets for 2007-08 and 2008-09 were approved unanimously.

“Once you get in governance, other than a few hot topics like immigration, most of the decisions are bipartisan,” she said. “When you get into the neighborhoods, people want a safe place for their kids to grow up. They want to have nice parks, good schools. It’s not as full of conflict.”

The past few years have still been difficult, she said, especially with the current budget crisis. Roberts says she remembers hearing news about banks being in trouble, wondering who would buy them and what would happen, feeling like the economy was in free fall and afterward facing a revenue loss that meant difficult cuts to parks and the library system.

“It was really hard, because those are things that I love and things that we do very well,” she said. “But the alternative would have been to let go of more sheriff’s deputies, more mental health workers, more social workers. And if we cut across the board 11 percent, we would have jeopardized the essential functions that we are mandated to provide.”

What are the top needs and/or problems you plan to address if elected?

Roberts went into local government because she said she cared about public education, and that continues to be one of the primary areas of focus for her campaign: keeping children in school, closing the achievement gap, making sure every child in the county can read.

Another priority, she said, is making sure county government is efficient in order to address budget constraints and maintain transparency.

By the end of your term, what major accomplishments do you hope to have achieved?

Roberts said she wants to make sure local government is functioning as efficiently as possible.

One way to increase efficiency, she said, could be consolidating similar county and city departments, such as the public information offices.

She said another potential consolidation would involve the Charlotte Area Transit System and the school system, a plan that, besides helping each group’s budgets, could improve the city’s environment.

“If we coordinated our transportation better, it’s better for our air quality, instead of people taking all those car trips,” she said.

When it comes to ensuring transparency, Roberts said she is working to have audits performed on individual programs that receive county funding.

The commission has also changed the makeup of the audit-review committee so that no staff members from county departments are part of it: It’s all members of the commission and an outside auditing committee.

“I know I hear the public saying they want to see a big audit,” Roberts said. “But I think we’re already doing a lot of what they’re talking about.”

To facilitate job growth, Roberts said she wants to look at the county’s incentive programs to see what the county can do to lure businesses. However, she said she knows that the county does not play a big role in economic development.

“But that little part that we do control, we have to work really hard at,” she said.

Roberts also said she intends to focus on programs to keep children in school — but only the programs that have shown results.

Jack Stratton

Age: 55

Hometown: Marietta. Ga.

Family: Wife: Kathy; children: Spencer, 26, Isaiah, 25, Solomon, 21, Tanna, 20, Rachel, 18, Simon, 16, Michelle, 15, Maria, 14, Stephanie, 13, Leah, 12

Education: Attended Central Piedmont Community College’s computer programming program for one year but did not earn a degree

Political affiliation: Libertarian

Jack Stratton has one priority in his campaign and life: getting his children back and exposing what he says is the county’s Department of Social Services’ stealing of children in the county.

In 2001, Stratton’s 10 children were taken by DSS. He said his quest to get them back has been an uphill battle full of lies, deception and outright kidnapping.

“There’s a conspiracy in this county to steal children,” Stratton said, “and I’m going to expose it.”

In Stratton’s case, after his children were taken from his custody, he said he was never given a hearing, despite a state law saying that no juvenile can be held for more than seven days without a hearing. Instead, Stratton claims he was introduced to his court-appointed attorney but not allowed to offer any defense of himself or his children’s home life.

“I have it all on tape,” Stratton said. “You can hear me saying, ‘I want to fight this,’ and (District) Judge (Libby) Miller saying ‘Now’s not the time for that.'”

Stratton said he later found out that the hearing was his one opportunity to present evidence that his children were safe to stay with him. He was prevented from fighting, he said, so the court could issue documents saying that a hearing had been held and that  the Strattons had consented to releasing their children into nonsecure custody, thereby waiving their right to additional hearings.

“I never consented,” Stratton said. “I would never have consented.”

The nonsecure custody order says the Stratton children were taken because of a “substantial risk of physical injury or sexual abuse,” a claim Stratton says is false.

“First they said it was because we were homeschooling the children without a license,” Stratton said. “So we got that. Then they claimed some other thing. Now they’re retroactively claiming abuse.”

Since his children were taken nine years ago, Stratton said that he has heard that at least one of them was sexually abused.

What are the top needs and/or problems you plan to address if elected?

Stratton believes that DSS has been taking children from families in Mecklenburg County in order to get hundreds of millions of dollar from the federal government.

“Once they take the children, the federal money starts flowing,” he said.

By the end of your term, what major accomplishments do you hope to have achieved?

Stratton’s campaign to bring down DSS is the single driving factor behind his commissioner campaign, he said, refusing to answer questions about any other issues facing the county.

“If I’m elected, this is going to be exposed,” Stratton said. “If I were a county commissioner, they would say, ‘Let’s investigate this.'”

Corey Thompson

Age: 34

Hometown: Charlotte

Family: Wife: Jenny; children: Charlie, 2

Education: Bachelor’s degree in history from The Citadel-The Military College of South Carolina and minor in prelaw/criminal justice; teachers certification from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Political affiliation: Republican

Corey Thompson understood the teacher layoffs that took place last year. A teacher himself at West Mecklenburg High School, he watched as colleagues lost their jobs.

What he didn’t understand was how the county commissioners, facing budget constraints and making cuts to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools budget, could turn around and award county manager Harry Jones a $40,000 bonus that same year.

“That could have paid a well-qualified teacher’s salary,” Thompson said. “And the county manager was the one who had overseen the budget and had brought us to this point.”

It was the final straw for Thompson, a history teacher who had always had an interest in politics.

The youngest candidate in the commissioner race, Thompson, 34, who says he’s one of the most conservative candidates, exudes optimism. He said not all tea party members, particularly him, are bitter, right-wing reactionaries throwing a tantrum over having a Democratic majority at the local and federal level.

“I want people in Mecklenburg County to know that I believe in them,” he said. “I believe that our best days are still ahead. People are tired of feeling bad about things. They’re tired of bad news.”

But while Thompson said he’s a “solid Republican,” he adds that he’s a new sort of candidate in the at-large race.

“While neither of them hold office right now, they are both incumbents,” he said of his fellow Republican opponents, Dan Ramirez and Jim Pendergraph. “Nine times out of 10, that’s a disadvantage. Right now, though, it’s an advantage.”

Thompson, unlike his opponents, with the exception of Jack Stratton, has never held public office, although Thompson has been involved in the Charlotte Tea Party.

What are the top needs and/or problems you plan to address if elected?

Unsurprisingly, Thompson, who’s been a teacher since 2000, ranks education as a top priority for the county.

“We’re living in a county that’s having discussions every year about laying off teachers,” he said. “Now we’re talking about closing schools and closing libraries. That points to some very fundamental problems with education.”

Related to the education problems, Thompson said, is the issue of reprioritizing the county’s budget. He said the level of spending is such that during good times, the county is living within its means but there’s no cushion for slow times.

“How are we going to continue giving money to all of these organizations if the economy turns sour? We really need to reprioritize what our wants are and what our needs are.”

The No. 1 issue Thompson said needs to be addressed has more to do with county residents’ perception of government than with dollars, cents or jobs.

Thompson said that with recent scandals — the head of the county’s Giving Tree charity has pleaded guilty to embezzlement and there have been probes about misuse of funds by a former head of the Mecklenburg Open Door nonprofit — county residents needed a member of the Board of Commissioners or the county manager to take responsibility for not overseeing the funds.

“I have not seen (commissioners Chairwoman Jennifer Roberts), on any occasion, step up and say, ‘I’m the chairman of the county commission. I take responsibility for what’s going on,'” Thompson said.

By the end of your term, what major accomplishments do you hope to have achieved?

If elected, Thompson wants to address areas of wasteful spending, including the annual Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament and the compensation for the county manager.

“A lot of people don’t realize that our county manager, who makes around $300,000 a year, is given over $1,000 a month in an automobile allowance,” Thompson said. “I think a lot of people would raise an eyebrow for that.”

He said the county is giving too much money to nonprofits. While many nonprofits are struggling, he said, it might come down to a choice of giving money to such organizations or to schools or libraries.

Thompson is quick to add that he would consider restoring funding, at least partially, once revenues begin to return to prerecession levels.

Thompson also said he would get tougher on county leadership, particularly the county manager.

“If they fail to be performing at a level suitable to Mecklenburg County, we’ve got to look elsewhere for a county manager,” he said.

Thompson said he would support cutting taxes, acknowledging that there is some contradiction in saying it’s a priority to cut taxes while also saying there’s a need to balance the budget. The unpopular reality, he said, is that more services are going to have to be cut and the ones that are preserved – including the school system  – are going to be under more scrutiny.

“If they’re investing the money in programs that aren’t working, that aren’t showing the results, we’re going to have to ask if we can continue to justify spending millions of dollars on them,” he said. “It’s going to take a board of county commissioners that are willing to go through the budget line by line and distinguish between our wants and our needs.”

Caitlin Coakley can be reached at [email protected].