Charlotte Mayor Pro Tem Julie Eiselt has made her campaign fundraising account inactive, which means she is not raising or spending money before the 2022 election.
The City Council’s election was supposed to be held this fall, with primaries in September and the general election in November. But they were pushed back until March because of delays with population data from the U.S. Census Bureau needed to draw new maps for district members.
While Eiselt filed the paperwork to shut down her campaign in April, she said she hasn’t decided for sure about not running for reelection. She could make her campaign active again.
“I just haven’t made that decision,” Eiselt said Thursday.
She said she made her campaign inactive because she isn’t campaigning for reelection.
“Your treasurer doesn’t have to go to the work of filling out and filing a report if you haven’t been raising money and I haven’t been focused on raising money for the past six months,” said Eiselt, a Democrat who was first elected in 2015. She represents one of four at-large seats.
Eiselt said she is focused now on working on several high-profile projects, such as the city’s proposed $13.5 billion transportation plan and the Unified Development Ordinance. The UDO is meant to be fine print for the city’s controversial 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which council members narrowly approved earlier this year.
The delays with the census meant the city’s seven district elections had to be postponed until 2022 because the city didn’t have accurate population data to draw new maps. Council members also decided to push back the mayoral and four at-large races until March, as well.
If Eiselt doesn’t run for reelection, it could create two open seats among the four at-large seats. Greg Phipps was appointed to one of the at-large seats earlier this year. He has said he isn’t going to run.
Campaign finance reports were due on July 31. More than three weeks after that deadline, several prominent local politicians do not have campaign finance reports posted on the Mecklenburg Board of Elections website.
They include Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles and City Council members Malcolm Graham.
Mecklenburg County Commission chair George Dunlap does not have a report online. Commissioners Marke Jerrell and Ella Scarborough also do not have reports posted. Scarborough has not filed a report since January 2020.
Mecklenburg Elections Director Michael Dickerson said he does not have the power to fine candidates who don’t file reports. He said he turned over a list of names to the state Board of Elections in mid-August.
“We have tried calling them and reminding them,” Dickerson said. “We want to make it easy for them.”
