Charlotte’s mayor usually doesn’t get to vote alongside the City Council’s 11 members.
But the mayor can veto council members' decisions.
You could be forgiven for not knowing that Charlotte’s mayor even has a veto because it had been at least 13 years since a Charlotte mayor wielded that power. But on Monday night, Mayor Rob Harrington struck down a council decision to delay by 45 days an important vote on a new 10-year lease agreement between American Airlines, other carriers and Charlotte Douglas Airport.
WFAE’s All Things Considered host Nick De La Canal talks to WFAE’s Steve Harrison about why the mayor wielded his veto – and the backstory at the airport.
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DE LA CANAL: Steve, we saw a mayoral veto for the first time in a very long time. Tell me how unusual that is.
HARRISON: Vi Lyles was mayor for more than eight years — she never exercised the veto. Before her, mayors Jennifer Roberts, Dan Clodfelter, Patrick Cannon and Patsy Kinsey didn’t either. You have to go back to Anthony Foxx, who served from 2009 to 2013, as the last mayor to do it.
DE LA CANAL: So we had almost forgotten the mayor could do this. Why did Mayor Harrington veto the council’s decision to push back a final vote on this 10-year lease agreement?
HARRISON: The backstory is that the Service Employees International Union is pushing for more benefits for contract workers at CLT. The SEIU wants better working conditions and more pay for the people who do jobs like push wheelchairs and clean planes.
American Airlines opposes this. Republican lawmakers in Raleigh this summer handcuffed the city by passing specific language in the state budget that prohibits municipalities from dictating working conditions for private employers.
So there isn’t much the city can do. But you have a group of council members aligned with the SEIU who want to show that they are still doing everything they can to get at least some benefits from those workers.
Last night, City Council voted 6-5 to push the lease vote to late November.
DE LA CANAL: And what did the mayor say when he voted it?
HARRISON: He was a bit unclear.
HARRINGTON: With some trepidation, I don’t think we have had significant discussion of the timeline. I’m very willing to entertain additional discussion of the timeline. I’m going to veto that motion.
HARRISON: He later put out a written statement that said he didn’t necessarily disagree with the later vote on the lease, but thought the whole motion? Monday night was rushed.
But I should note that council members decide on the spot to delay votes all the time.
DE LA CANAL: And it should be noted that Harrington is an appointed, interim mayor who was named to the job after Lyles resigned this summer. He wasn’t afraid to use his power even though he wasn’t elected.
HARRISON: He sure wasn’t. We should also note that Harrington is considered a pro-business mayor. He’s spent much of his career as a corporate litigator. American Airlines was one of his biggest supporters in the jockeying over who would be named mayor.
And I think Harrington really wants to be in control of the process on this lease. The controversy over Interstate 77 toll lanes spiraled out of control because council members took the initiative and moved to stop the project on the spot one night in an unexpected vote. The mayor seems to be saying here: That will not happen again.
DE LA CANAL: So let’s move on quickly to the lease. What will it mean for passengers?
HARRISON: The main thing is that American and other carriers have signed off on the airport’s $2.1 billion expansion plan. They’ll fund it by paying CLT more in landing and other usage fees, although in return they’ll get a bit more of the shared revenue, almost half, from things like parking and concessions.
Now let’s look at what’s going to be built over the next decade.
CLT wants to expand the main atrium that connects all of the concourses. It wants to extend Concourse C and add more gates. And this is interesting – the airport plans a tunnel from the main terminal to those new C gates.
That’s an acknowledgement that it can take a really long time to get from one end of the airport to the other.
DE LA CANAL: And there’s talk of even more, outside this 10-year window, right?
HARRISON: That’s right. The agreement calls for planning to begin on an expanded international concourse, which would go where some of the E gates are today. And another expansion, this time the B concourse.
The airlines don’t want to pay for things that they don’t think they’ll use. So reaching this agreement shows there is consensus that there is more money to be made flying from CLT, and American is willing to pay for a bigger airport.
