The Charlotte City Council held its first state legislative briefing of 2025 on January 13, 2025, from approximately 12:00 PM to 1:10 PM at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center. The meeting brought together Mayor Vi Lyles, city council members, and members of the Mecklenburg County legislative delegation to discuss the city's 2025 state legislative agenda, with a focus on transportation, public safety, water infrastructure, and growth preparedness. The session featured presentations from city staff and an open discussion with state senators and representatives.
City Legislative Agenda Overview (Dana Fenton, City Manager's Office)
Mobility Update (Ed McKinney, City Manager's Office)
Q&A and Discussion
There we go. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the time and attention that you've given to us today. We really appreciate it. This is our first legislative briefing for the new delegation and for all of you that have taken these positions and are going to help us with the work that was that needs to be done for our community. I want to say thank you very much. And so welcome. And I want to say that we're really glad to have the General Assembly being here today for every thinking about all of the things that you do in Raleigh, even for our city, region, and our state. The city really wants to develop a relationship with our groups of people that help us advance our interests. And so I want to say to everyone, thank you for your time and your attention and what you're going to do. So we've got some themes that we want to talk about today. You know, we all have ideas of what we can do to make our community, our residents, happier, safer, and all of those kinds of activities. And so we wanted to do this in a way that engages all of our delegation, engages our city council, and engages our residents. We're working across jurisdiction, you know that. You know, you can know that we have gotten opportunities to work with the towns to the north and the towns to the south, as well as many other groups that we have in our community that work with us. And we're preparing for growth and community safety, all of these things that we've been working on for quite some time. So I know that most of you know how important transportation is, and it's a regional issue. I think I called a lot of you, and I said, you know, when we start talking about transportation, we're not talking about Charlotte. We're talking about our region and what's necessary for our growth and how we do this. And so I hope that every one of you has some attention or some idea about how to move this forward so that we can support the people that need jobs, poor people that need a way to get to work so that they can be successful in their own family lives. So I want to say it has never been more important right now for us. We have worked for a number of years trying to make sure that we can build a city that you can see the growth in, but also the ability that growth could give us a way to make sure that people would thrive. And that's our goal. Our goal is to get people to work, to get them to their jobs, to be able to actually be a part of our community, and so that's what we're here. We're looking forward to that topic, but we're also looking forward to the other topics that we have that mell into that. And so today I want to say thank you, and I'd like to actually bring on to our first speaker of the evening, and that is Senator Waddell. If you would join us, um, we're really glad to see that you have been chosen to lead the delegation, and so thank you for taking the time to be here today. I want to thank the mayor for that wonderful introduction. And I want to thank all of you who are here today as we talk about transportation as we talk about working together and moving forward. We know how important it is in Raleigh. When we address the needs of our communities, when we think about the citizens and our constituents who are in these areas. We're here to listen, we're here to move forward, and we are here to serve. You elected us to serve you, and that's what we're going to do. We're going to be open with our ears, with our eyes, and do the research that's necessary so that we can move forward and so that we can work together and so that we can listen and we can take on the agenda that you've assigned us to do. We always listen, we're productive, and we want to always be able and willing to serve. Want to thank you for all that you do because we're in this together. It's not an I, not a we, it's all of us working for the citizens. And the mayor just mentioned about getting people to work and moving forward with the small towns. She also mentioned about how important transportation plays when people can get to work and get out of their cars, and when they can really enjoy the things that you've planned so that things are peaceful and so that things move smoothly. This is not the really beginning. We've been working on this sometime. And some of you have been working more diligently and longer than others. So we'll continue to work to make things better. And really the best is yet to come. Thank you very much, Senator. And now I have the great honor of introducing Vicky Sawyer, who has worked with us for a number of years, it feels like now. Maybe it's just 24 months or whatever, but it feels like a few years. So Senator, please, remarks. Thank you. Um I often joke that um a politician usually runs to a microphone.