December 23, 2025 • 35 mins
Tune in here to this Tuesday edition of Breaking With Brett Jensen!
Breaking Brett Jensen is joined in the studio by David Longo, chair of the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance and board member of Charlotte Center City Partners. Longo discusses his role on the newly formed Metropolitan Public Transit Authority. The goal of the transit authority is to ensure safety across all Charlotte Area Transit System services once the recently approved one-cent sales tax referendum goes into effect.
Safety on Charlotte transit is a central theme throughout the interview. Longo emphasizes that safety and security are his top priorities and says implementing a system that supports those goals is critical. To accomplish this, Longo suggests leveraging technology to identify individuals who should not be allowed to ride the light rail or bus system. He also notes that expanded technology on the CATS system could help alert authorities to potential escalations before they become more serious issues.
Listen here for all of this and more on Breaking With Brett Jensen.
To be the first to hear about Breaking Brett Jensen's exclusives and more follow him on X @Brett_Jensen!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I Oh, let's go oh, let's go oh, let's go oh.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Bostalg eleven ten and ninety nine three WBT, Bred Jensen
here with you on this Tuesday night edition of Breaking
with Brad Jensen. As we go up until seven o'clock tonight,
seven oh four five, seven eleven ten. And by the way, guys,
case you haven't figured it out. In case you haven't
figured it out, news Talk, I think I said, News
Talk eleven ten, ninety nine three. Again, it's such a
(00:53):
hard habit. It's like the San Diego Chargers, like we
were talking about last night, the Washington Redskins. It's Charlotte's
news Talk one oh seven point nine FM WBT. But
we are technically on eleven ten for about another two
weeks or so, so two and a half three weeks.
But anyways, so again one o seven point nine FM,
we are the new news talk leader in Charlotte. Well
(01:16):
on the FM side, I should say, Okay, so last night,
you know, we got into politics and everything else in
all the races, and I broke down all the races
local elections. I didn't really get into the state Senate.
I didn't get into congressional seats or anything like that.
It was just basically the local elections that we went
through and who filed, who didn't file. You know, not
a single Republican filed, and the county commissioners at large
(01:38):
race and not a single Republican filed in the two
districts that they actually used to hold in District five
and District six. And there's no reason too, because those
two districts have been so gerrymandered. When they refused to
go with the same lines as the school board, they said, nope,
we're gonna draw our own lines. We're not gonna worry
(01:58):
about school board lines. We're just gonna draw our own lines. So,
uh so we talked about that last night. But tonight
I told you that tonight David Longo, he was in
studio I don't know, a month and a half ago
or so something like that, where we talked about the
CATS system and I did this last time and I'm
gonna do the same thing again. First of all, David,
(02:19):
I appreciate you joining us, and I think it's best
if you tell people your titles and you're in what
your position is with the CATS and the new transit authority.
That was just and you just had your first meeting
last week on Thursday, if I'm not mistaken, So just
tell people your title about you, and then your relation
with the new transit authority overseeing cats.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's great. My most important title is pop up by the.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Way, Okay, they.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Beyond being Papa, I have a small business here in town.
And then I'm a trustee on the new Metropolitan Public
Transit Authority. I also current chair of the Charlotte Regional
Business Alliance, outgoing at the end of this year, and
we'll stay on as a past chair role. Also serve
(03:08):
on Center City Partners Board and the UNC Charlotte Boarder Trustees,
so a number of interlapping organizations, and then also on
the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I did not know about the I knew about all
that except UNCC. I did not know that. I did
not know you were on the board of UNCC. I'm sorry,
I'm from here, so I still call it.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Unccorry, well, we call it UNC Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Right, UNC Wilmington, un CG un CW. I got UNCA,
I got you, I got you all right. So there's
gonna be a lot that we're going to get into tonight.
And last time we spoke, the committee had not been
formed yet, the members had not been named to the
committee yet. So how many members are on the transit authority?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Twenty seven?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Twenty seven and those people were nominated from the county,
the city, the state government who else?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So governor had one pick, the Senate had won, the
House side had one. City of Charlotte had twelve, three
of which came from the business community, and then Mecklenburg
County had six. And in all the towns, so that's
an additional in Mecklenburg County each had one, So that's
(04:25):
an additional six.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Okay, So you had the twenty seven. You got twenty
seven people that are going to oversee cats independent of
the city, independent of the county, and all that correct.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
So you had your first meeting Thursday night, if I'm
not mistaken, with the twenty seven people that have been appointed.
What was the first meeting last Thursday? What was that about?
And what transpired?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So the primary purpose of the first meeting was bringing
together all the trustees in to elect our officers. So
we elected our chair, our vice chair, our secretary, and
treasure and then the next order of business, as we're
working to put together by laws for a new organization.
(05:09):
We adopted Roberts Rules Order as kind of our parliamentarian
process for conducting our meetings, and then we also approved
sending to Raleigh the five required studies that needed to
be submitted before we're on or before January first, and
(05:31):
those studies essentially were to look at key areas to
essentially outline whether it was feasible to do what we
have now been commissioned to do, which is essentially take
these assets transferring them from the city to the new authority.
It's very complex because there's debt instruments involved, and there's assets,
(05:56):
some of which might not be able to be transferred
for years to come, so therefore they'll be managed through
innerlocal agreements, et cetera. Essentially, in the end, the studies said, yes,
this is feasible, outline the big rocks that we'll have
to work through over the upcoming year to make all
(06:18):
that happen, and so they were unanimously approved to send
on to Raleigh.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
And it just occurred to me. The last time you
were in here was about almost exactly two months ago,
because it was a week or two before the election,
and we were talking about the one sent sales text
and how all the business leaders were in favor of it.
And while you know, and you know, whether it's Republicans
or Democrats, they would tell you, while it's not perfect,
(06:47):
it's better than nothing. And I know that we had talked,
you know, privately and everything else like that that you
thought maybe the ones that when me as well and
everyone else that I spoke to, thought minimum it would
pass fifty five to forty five everyone that I spoke to,
and maybe even sixty forty. And what people did not
(07:07):
expect was Pinval voted against it, mint Hill voted against it.
We knew North Mecknburg was going to vote against it,
like we knew there was a ground surge of happening.
But it passed what fifty two forty eight something like that.
So what were your thoughts after the election, after you
saw the total numbers, what were your thoughts?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
It was a little bit the margin was a little
bit tighter than I would have expected, by a couple
of points to get to sixty. It would have taken
everything to in our models to go perfect, and it didn't.
And so when I look at it, here's the interesting
(07:49):
part of that referendum number one. I feel good about
the work we did. We drove the highest voter turnout
ever for an off cycle election, twenty one per A
little bit sad that only one percent of our population
will come out to vote for these elections, but it
was huge margins, and so I think that that was important.
(08:12):
If I look at it, I can say that forty
eight percent of our community voted against it. That forty
eight percent of the people that came out voted against it,
So really only about ten percent of our community voted
against it if you look at all the people that didn't.
When I also look at the fact that every other
(08:33):
community that's tried to pass an initiative like this has
failed at least once, if not two or three times
to get it passed. Nashville failed multiple times. I believe
Austin failed multiple times, and this initiative was about three x.
I believe Nashville and Austin were just under seven billion.
(08:56):
This is twenty billion dollars plus the federal money. So
I think it was pretty historic that we were able
to actually get it through the first time. And I
think the message is the people that voted against it,
we need to continue to listen to them and make
sure that as we move forward as an authority, that
(09:19):
we're listening to our community and that we're delivering a
system that is safe, that is efficient and effective and
meets the needs of our whole community.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So you just mentioned the words safe, and when we
come back, we're going to talk about safety on the
light rail and the cats, buses and everything else, because
obviously the Rina Zuitska thing brought global attention to Charlotte,
and then we had national attention just a couple of
weeks ago with another stabbing on the light rail by
another person who did not buy a ticket to get
(09:52):
on the system. So we'll talk about that with David
Longo when we return. We'll go back to Charlot's News
Talk when I was seven point nine FMWBT. Brent Jensen
here along with David Longo, who's part of the Metro,
(10:12):
will give me the exact type.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Of Metropolitan Public Transit authority.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Okay, Metropolitan Metropolitan Public Transit Authority MPTA. Correct, okay.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
And he's also with you know, Charlotte City Center Partners
as well as the CRBA Charlotte Regional Business Alliance Board
of Trustees on the UNCC among many other things, and
business owner, but we're in here to have him talk about.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Specifically the cats situation. Be it the safety because he's
sort of sort of I guess, I don't know if
the right term is overseas what's going on with the
transit authority, the metropolitan Public Transit Authority, but he's still
sort of overseeing it a little bit, so at least
it would seem so I guess my I want to
(10:58):
start with safety, because you talk to safety. So when
we had you in here two months ago and arenas
the risk, it had happened three months prior, and it
was still national news and people were, you know, you know,
up in arms about the safety or like thereof, and
what are they spending eighteen million dollars a year for
(11:19):
if they can't have people on the train or whatever
so or at the very least check tickets. Because both
of these crimes here we are again just a couple
months later, both people who actually wielded knives and stab people.
Neither one should have been on the train because neither
one had a ticket. And so when the one cent
(11:43):
sales tax kicks in, what's the number one priority for
you in terms of safe safety and hopefully the MPTA. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Well interesting when you talk about transit, talk about safety
and security in transit world. The way I simply think
about it is safety, as we don't crash to trains
and buses. Security is how you secure the system, and
obviously both are hugely important. I think safety and security
(12:15):
is our number one priority, and having a safe, secure
system where writers feel comfortable and they are safe as critical.
I think, as in any of these situations, easy to
identify the problem, much more complex to come up with
the right solutions, and even harder to implement them. I
(12:39):
think one of the keys to implementing a safe secure
system is leveraging technology. When you think about the latest
incident about two weeks ago. With advanced technology, the ability
to identify people who are on the system who should
(13:01):
not be there when you have a situation that's escalating,
and being able to have rapid response to be able
to get there and secure this system is critical. So
if I were to step this situation back to as
I understand it, you had a perpetrator who entered the
(13:25):
system who won is in the country illegally, So if
we knew that and he was identified in our system.
Using the right technology, that would have been one flag
that would have went off. Another flag is his ban
from the system. The challenge is remembering every person who's
(13:48):
banned from the system. Even if we have a police
officer on every car on every train is still difficult.
But with the right technology you could have flagged. He
could have been flagged immediately, and even if there wasn't
a police officer on the car, by the next stop
or two, you could have interdicted. The third is having
(14:11):
the right type of technology around, for example, a tap
to pay system using your app, we would have been
identified that we had people who entered a train who
hadn't paid. Once again, somewhere along that ride, you could
have had people enter the train. So I look at
his three different opportunities with the right technology to have
(14:34):
interdicted that person. By the way, the person who was
stabbed also, I understand potentially had warrants out could have
interdicted that person, So we had the opportunity to have
gotten two people. The third part is with technology today,
(14:54):
you can sense escalation in a situation, another opportunity to
enter and disrupt something before it becomes a problem. So
I'm a huge believer that we have to invest in technology.
The next part is I said it earlier on we
had moved from a private security force to a private
(15:17):
policing force. I believe strongly and know that best practice
in transit is for that to be a sworn police
officer force. So although I'll be working with twenty six
other members of an authority, it is definitely in my
(15:38):
perspective that's something that we have to move to, and
we have to move to as rapidly as possible.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Well, and to that point in Lottie knows this, and
I said this on air many many times right after
the second stab it happened that you could ban me
right now and within two hours, soon as I leave here,
I'll be on the lightrail. You can ban me and
I will be on the light Did I not say
that many times? Yeah? I mean there's no way to note.
I equated it to like banning fans from a baseball stadium.
(16:06):
How in God's name or is every usher going to
know the one hundred and eighty seven people that have
been banned from Yankee Stadium or whatever it is. There's
no way, there's no way. Facial recognition. So that's what
you're talking about with technology facial recognition, correct.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, facial recognition scanning technology that for example, is not
these intrusive long line backing up type scanners, but ballards
that if you come on and you have your for example,
carrying a weapon, we know, we know when you've gone through.
The cameras can identify it. The ballards could identify, the
(16:40):
censors could identify it, and now we can enter whether
if we're not right there, we can enter at the
next station, and we can interject stuff and keep it safer.
You know, I talked about UNC Charlotte. If you talk
to Chief Baker there does an amazing job. Chief Baker
gets up every morning thinking about the safety and security
(17:03):
of everyone on campus, and he goes to bed every
night thinking about it. So he is one hundred percent
focused on it. They have technology. We were talking the
other day at a meeting where they identified someone who
was a concern. They were able to through their real
time response center, track this person all the way back
(17:24):
to their car, identify them through their license plate, so
when they interdicted the individual, they knew exactly who they
were dealing with. That's the type of thing that technology
can bring to the table and be a game changer
for these type of situations, because yes, you can't know
every person who's been banned.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
When we come back, I am gonna ask you some
questions about some more questions about the safety, because there
are people will say that's great, but under this possible proposal,
without having someone on every train arena, still would have
been stabbed and still probably would have died and the
other person would have stabbed when there was an escalation
(18:05):
in a fight broke out and nearly died. If you
don't have anyone on the train, how are you going
to prevent that? So we'll talk about that when we return.
Welcome back to Breaking with Brad Jensen here on Charlotte's
News Talk. One of seven point nine FMWBT. David Longo
(18:29):
is in studio with me today and he's part of
the Transit Authority, the local transit authority overseeing the cats
and the light rail. He's one of twenty seven members.
He was sort of helping oversee it to get the
one scent sales tax passed to be part of this
today and so he's he's going to be looking at
this quite a bit. He's part of the Triple CP,
(18:50):
which the CCCP. I still laugh every time I see that.
I don't know why. You know, the Soviet Union, those
are the old initials of the Soviet Union CCCP, but
the Charlotte Center City partners in the h in the
Local Regional Business Alliance. So let's talk about safety. We
were just talking about safety on the light rail, because
the bus is a whole separate issue. That's a whole
(19:13):
that's a nightmare. I can't even begin to imagine how
you deal with something like that, right, I mean I can't.
I don't even know how that even begins. But I
want to finish our discussion real quick before we get
to the bus side of the light rail, because more
of our listeners would ride the light rail than the bus.
So in terms of safety, and you talked about possible
(19:35):
facial recognition, and you know, technology that can determine whether
or not somebody's got a weapon hidden in their you know,
their clothing or whatever. And it can pick things up.
The technology can pick things up. It can flag if
someone's not supposed to be who didn't pay or is
it it has warrants against them, a legal a little
legal alien whatever. But let's say something like and I
(19:59):
don't think anything could have prevented the arenas of the
risk of murder from happening other than the person not
being allowed on the train for not having a ticket. Okay,
because it happened in the very very back and she
never let out of yell, she never let out a scream.
Nobody even knew, like you know, what was really going on.
But with that being said, if you have to wait
(20:20):
for an officer to get on at the next stop
or potentially two stops down the road, a lot of
damage can be done in three minutes to five minutes,
a lot of damage, and then all of a sudden
that everyone's going to go, it's still not safe. So
(20:40):
how do you alleviate that particular problem?
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I think when I I'm a broken window theory guy,
which is you sort of have to have this no
tolerance level and you have to enforce your laws, and
you have to make sure that people understand that if
they come onto the system, the laws are going to
be enforced. Whether you can put look at you can
(21:08):
put a person an officer on every single car on
every single train.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And there's only twenty there's only twenty cars. Yeah, there's
ten trains.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Ten trains typically twenty hours on average twenty hours a day,
and so if you were to put someone which is
not beyond consideration here as we start to ramp things up,
I think ultimately where you need to get to beginning
with the end in mind, is that people understand that
if they come on our transit system, whether it's trains
(21:40):
or buses or whatever, and they are being bad actors,
then there is going to be consequences with those which
means you talked about the buses. Not to debate into there,
but the same technology I talked about on trains can
easily be and when I say easily costs money, can
(22:01):
be implemented on our bus system also. I think that
that's going to be critical. I think that when people
start realizing and using this type of technology that if
anytime anyone who is banned from a system, who is
wanted on a warrant, etc. Is going to be identified
(22:23):
and arrested on that train, people are going to think
twice about getting on those that system. They're going to
choose an alternate mode of transportation potentially, But I believe
that enforcement is going to be critical. I do believe
in the right amount of deployment of police is critical.
I believe that having a sworn police officer force is
(22:45):
absolutely critical to the safety of our system.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
How do you how do you go about making sure
that people that are on the train are the ones
that are supposed to be on the train by actually
buying a ticket.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Again, that's part of the software that you part of
the technology that you can put in place so that
if you walk on today, if you ever tried to
have you tried to buy the paper pass thing. Quite frankly,
it's I won't use the word, but it's a pain,
right so, and now if you use your app like
I can pull up my cat's app here, a lot easier.
(23:22):
We need to move towards those type of technologies. If
you get on. When we were in Boston with the
Regional Business Alliance and we purposely spent some time on
their transit system, I just pulled I didn't have any
app or anything. I pulled my credit card out, walked
up to turnstile, hit it, and walked right in. By
(23:42):
the way, that is a secure system. A lot easier
to have a secure system when it's a subway system
than when it's above ground. But there are potential ways
that we can look at our platforms to make them
more secure. But again I would tell you that if
you can walk up with your app or with your
card and tap in, there are people who not paying.
(24:06):
Through a activated camera system with the right technology behind it,
we can identify you getting on that and then we
can start to interdict that. Again, the more interdictions, the
less people are going to do it.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
The problem though is criminals are criminals are criminals are criminals,
and no amount of you could potentially go to jail
is a deterrent because people still commit murders and commit
crimes and assaults and everything else knowing what the consequences are.
And so again it's I guess from a civilian looking
(24:40):
in from the outside, it would be I don't feel
safe unless I know there's security on that train. That
would be my eternal thoughts. And there may be a
lot of Now, granted, if you go into a concert
or Panthers game, there's always group in safety in numbers
and there's a lot of people, and I don't think
anyone worries about I would never worry about it like that.
If the light rails pack as you're coming back from
a hornse game, a concert, panthers or whatever. I would
(25:03):
that would never concern me. It really never would. But
a random Tuesday night right now at six forty five
on a Tuesday night, yeah, I might be I would
be leary. I'd be immediately looking around going all right,
who's on this train? Who's on this train?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Well, there's no question in that environmental considerations. You know,
as we worked on this public safety task force that
we talked about last time, which we've had some really
significant progress in. If you're walking down a dark alley,
you're gonna feel less comfortable. If you're walking down a
bright lit alley, you're gonna feel a little bit more comfortable.
(25:37):
If you're walking down an alley and there's a whole
bunch of people getting out from the game, you feel
even more comfortable. Maybe that's part of the solution. As
we explore you'd say, Okay, do we need to put
someone and I'm just brainstrong with you here, do we
need to put someone in every car in every train?
Or do you have someone if they're moving between platforms
(25:59):
around A and then are on car B and there's
enough of a presence where they're going back and forth
every other platform that might make people feel more comfortable.
Maybe when you have less people, when you're not in
peak rush hour, people feel more comfortable. That's where you
deploy police officers on every car. I think that there's
(26:19):
lots that have to be explored. I am not closed
to any of those things. What I am committed to
is we have to create a safe and secure system.
Otherwise you will start to lose ridership and then the
whole system doesn't work. And every person should feel safe
in our community. It's not just on our train, not
(26:41):
just on our buses, but in our whole community. Which
is why I think the work of the Public Safety
Task Force has been critical. It started with focusing on
Center City it needs to expand, But since implementing that,
they brought back the Entertainment District Policing Unit, which was
critical for example getting the Brooklyn night club closed down
(27:05):
and having more engagement in interdiction there. The Crown initiative
that was announced about I want to say about eight
ten weeks into our work, which is essentially taking no
tolerance policy and half a mile radius of trade and
try on our police chief has new police chief has
announced this program for operations safe City, which I think
(27:29):
she deemed it for this period of time, but intends
to continue her heavy focus on policing in our urban
core because what she's personally told me is if we
can't secure the urban core, nothing else is going to
be safe. And we have to do that, and we
have to do that, but we have to police our
whole community. And by the way, the way we police
(27:50):
our urban core might be different than the way we
police other areas, and we have to be nimble enough
to tailor our policing to that. And yes, I do
believe that we have to grow the number of sworn
police officers in CMPD also, so we have to get
the full staff and then we have to continue to
grow that, but we have to do it a smart way.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
When we return, we'll talk to David Longo about potential
outside influences going on with a transit authority. Are they
going to be just sealer and they have their own
input or is there going to be outside government influence.
We'll talk about that when we return. Welcome back to
(28:36):
Breaking with Brett Johnson here on Charlis Snows Talk. When
I seven point nine FM WBT, David Longo in studio
with me for a few more minutes as we're talking
about the regional Transit Authority, the one sent sales tax
passed recently, and you know, up to thirty billion dollars
over the next thirty years if I remember correctly, So
you guys will start receiving some of that money when.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Could be as early July first and as late as October.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
First, okay, okay, so minimum six months, no later than
nine months, okay. So outside influence, we've seen Charlotte go
in a tailspin from a governmental standpoint for quite a
while now. And Charlotte City Council has been under the
(29:23):
fire for quite a while as like it was the
most dysfunctional city council, one of the most dysfunctional city
councils in the country. They had to bring in outside
people to try and build team leaders and teams to
teach people how to get along because they all hated
each other. And now you've got half the city council
likes the mayor, the other half hates the mayor, even
though they're all the exact same party, and you know,
(29:47):
and so now and they're all trying to maneuver their
way to run for mayor at least four of them,
probably in two years. Four of the members that are
on city council right now. So how do you ensure that,
whether it's city council, county commissioners, state legislative, state senators, whomever,
how do you ensure or are you concerned that outside
(30:07):
political influence will try to alter the way you guys
do things.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I think there's always the potential for that to occur.
You know, you can't divorce human nature. I would start
by saying, for this authority to work effectively, there has
to be a hand in glove relationship with the city
in county. Because although the authority has a responsibility for
(30:35):
running and operating the system and building out the system,
if you think about all the development that will occur
around it, that still sits in the purview of the
city in the county. So I think it's critical that
we work together to establish a strong working relationship. I
think there are gonna be times that we're going to
(30:56):
agree unstuffed, and there are gonna be times where we
might agree to just agree. When you think about the
role of a trustee, when everyone was sworn any other day,
we swore our allegiance to our nation, to our state constitution,
and to our responsibility as a trustee of the authority.
(31:18):
My responsibility is to serve the authority and not any
individual group, meaning the town of Pineville, the City of Charlotte,
the County of Mecklenburg, or the state. Does it all
need to work together? Yes? Do I think that it's
important that people in other parts of government allow the
(31:43):
authority to operate as it's intended as an independent authority
to serve the citizens of this county. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Okay. One thing I do want to talk about real quick,
and we've got like maybe two minutes or so, is
I've never used it, but you mentioned it earlier and
it sort of peaked my curiosity is the Cat's app?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
So what do I need to know about the cats app? Well?
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I think one, it's once you have it loaded, it's
an easy way to load funds on to be able
to use them for your fares. But really importantly, one
of the challenges that you have around safety and security
is understanding where problems are. And so if you think
about the concept of see something, say something. If you're
(32:30):
a rider on a trainer on a bus and there's
something going on you pull up your cat's app. Right
on the front page, there's a report a problem the cats.
You click on that. You don't have to say anything,
you don't have to hit any emergency buttons, and then
you can select what you want to report, So for example,
a security concern, a maintenance concern, or just some other
(32:51):
kind of comment or complaint. You can then type it
tap you know there's an assault, crime in progress, disruptive behavior,
human trafficking, legal parking. You can hit any of those
things and then you could submit it either so we
know who you are, or you can hit the button
that says anonymous and it automatically notifies our mont Crime
(33:14):
Monitoring Center, which then would allow them to notify our
security police force to be able to come in and
interdict something. It's critical. This is noted on the trains,
it's noted on the buses, but it's just really important.
Our eyes are amplified if every rider is helping us understand,
(33:35):
hey this train is like really dirty, Hey there's broken
something on it, or there's a crime in progress. That
I believe that in the last stabbing incident, no one
on the train notified anyone and as I understand it,
the escalation occurs began around the Scaley Bark stop in
(33:56):
the stabbing didn't occur until we were up at Parkwood,
and I I think there's six to nine stations between there,
and so if someone had notified, hey, there's unruly behavior here,
I think we would have had an opportunity. Would it
have prevented Arena Zaruska now.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Other than preventing him from getting on the light rail,
because you take.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
It absolutely right back to my technology.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Right exactly exactly well, and again I appreciate everything you're
coming in here tonight because I know these are the
questions like, yeah, I know the buses and everything else,
but the light rail, I mean that that's a major,
major part of that gets the most widespread use. And
like you said, if people are afraid to use it,
it's going to die and it will just become, you know,
(34:44):
a way for people to ride the rails like hobos,
you know, and that's what nobody wants. So, David Longo,
the CCCP, Charlotte City Center Partners, and there's you know,
Charlotte Regional Business Authority and our Business Alliance rather and
and the Metro, the Transit Authority, and just the UNCC
Board of Trustees. Like business owner, this is way too
(35:07):
much going on over here. But seriously, thank you for
coming in tonight and breaking everything down and making it
simple for our listeners to understand, including myself.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Thank you for having me all right, TJ.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Ritchie is coming up next, I just real quick. On
December thirty first and January first, I will be doing
my top ten breaking stories that I broke this year,
so make sure you stick around for that, and so
until then, my name is Brett Jensen and you have
been listening to Breaking with Brett Jenson
I Oh, let's go oh, let's go oh, let's go oh.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Bostalg eleven ten and ninety nine three WBT, Bred Jensen
here with you on this Tuesday night edition of Breaking
with Brad Jensen. As we go up until seven o'clock tonight,
seven oh four five, seven eleven ten. And by the way, guys,
case you haven't figured it out. In case you haven't
figured it out, news Talk, I think I said, News
Talk eleven ten, ninety nine three. Again, it's such a
(00:53):
hard habit. It's like the San Diego Chargers, like we
were talking about last night, the Washington Redskins. It's Charlotte's
news Talk one oh seven point nine FM WBT. But
we are technically on eleven ten for about another two
weeks or so, so two and a half three weeks.
But anyways, so again one o seven point nine FM,
we are the new news talk leader in Charlotte. Well
(01:16):
on the FM side, I should say, Okay, so last night,
you know, we got into politics and everything else in
all the races, and I broke down all the races
local elections. I didn't really get into the state Senate.
I didn't get into congressional seats or anything like that.
It was just basically the local elections that we went
through and who filed, who didn't file. You know, not
a single Republican filed, and the county commissioners at large
(01:38):
race and not a single Republican filed in the two
districts that they actually used to hold in District five
and District six. And there's no reason too, because those
two districts have been so gerrymandered. When they refused to
go with the same lines as the school board, they said, nope,
we're gonna draw our own lines. We're not gonna worry
(01:58):
about school board lines. We're just gonna draw our own lines. So,
uh so we talked about that last night. But tonight
I told you that tonight David Longo, he was in
studio I don't know, a month and a half ago
or so something like that, where we talked about the
CATS system and I did this last time and I'm
gonna do the same thing again. First of all, David,
(02:19):
I appreciate you joining us, and I think it's best
if you tell people your titles and you're in what
your position is with the CATS and the new transit authority.
That was just and you just had your first meeting
last week on Thursday, if I'm not mistaken, So just
tell people your title about you, and then your relation
with the new transit authority overseeing cats.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's great. My most important title is pop up by the.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Way, Okay, they.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Beyond being Papa, I have a small business here in town.
And then I'm a trustee on the new Metropolitan Public
Transit Authority. I also current chair of the Charlotte Regional
Business Alliance, outgoing at the end of this year, and
we'll stay on as a past chair role. Also serve
(03:08):
on Center City Partners Board and the UNC Charlotte Boarder Trustees,
so a number of interlapping organizations, and then also on
the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I did not know about the I knew about all
that except UNCC. I did not know that. I did
not know you were on the board of UNCC. I'm sorry,
I'm from here, so I still call it.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Unccorry, well, we call it UNC Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Right, UNC Wilmington, un CG un CW. I got UNCA,
I got you, I got you all right. So there's
gonna be a lot that we're going to get into tonight.
And last time we spoke, the committee had not been
formed yet, the members had not been named to the
committee yet. So how many members are on the transit authority?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Twenty seven?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Twenty seven and those people were nominated from the county,
the city, the state government who else?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So governor had one pick, the Senate had won, the
House side had one. City of Charlotte had twelve, three
of which came from the business community, and then Mecklenburg
County had six. And in all the towns, so that's
an additional in Mecklenburg County each had one, So that's
(04:25):
an additional six.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Okay, So you had the twenty seven. You got twenty
seven people that are going to oversee cats independent of
the city, independent of the county, and all that correct.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
So you had your first meeting Thursday night, if I'm
not mistaken, with the twenty seven people that have been appointed.
What was the first meeting last Thursday? What was that about?
And what transpired?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So the primary purpose of the first meeting was bringing
together all the trustees in to elect our officers. So
we elected our chair, our vice chair, our secretary, and
treasure and then the next order of business, as we're
working to put together by laws for a new organization.
(05:09):
We adopted Roberts Rules Order as kind of our parliamentarian
process for conducting our meetings, and then we also approved
sending to Raleigh the five required studies that needed to
be submitted before we're on or before January first, and
(05:31):
those studies essentially were to look at key areas to
essentially outline whether it was feasible to do what we
have now been commissioned to do, which is essentially take
these assets transferring them from the city to the new authority.
It's very complex because there's debt instruments involved, and there's assets,
(05:56):
some of which might not be able to be transferred
for years to come, so therefore they'll be managed through
innerlocal agreements, et cetera. Essentially, in the end, the studies said, yes,
this is feasible, outline the big rocks that we'll have
to work through over the upcoming year to make all
(06:18):
that happen, and so they were unanimously approved to send
on to Raleigh.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
And it just occurred to me. The last time you
were in here was about almost exactly two months ago,
because it was a week or two before the election,
and we were talking about the one sent sales text
and how all the business leaders were in favor of it.
And while you know, and you know, whether it's Republicans
or Democrats, they would tell you, while it's not perfect,
(06:47):
it's better than nothing. And I know that we had talked,
you know, privately and everything else like that that you
thought maybe the ones that when me as well and
everyone else that I spoke to, thought minimum it would
pass fifty five to forty five everyone that I spoke to,
and maybe even sixty forty. And what people did not
(07:07):
expect was Pinval voted against it, mint Hill voted against it.
We knew North Mecknburg was going to vote against it,
like we knew there was a ground surge of happening.
But it passed what fifty two forty eight something like that.
So what were your thoughts after the election, after you
saw the total numbers, what were your thoughts?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
It was a little bit the margin was a little
bit tighter than I would have expected, by a couple
of points to get to sixty. It would have taken
everything to in our models to go perfect, and it didn't.
And so when I look at it, here's the interesting
(07:49):
part of that referendum number one. I feel good about
the work we did. We drove the highest voter turnout
ever for an off cycle election, twenty one per A
little bit sad that only one percent of our population
will come out to vote for these elections, but it
was huge margins, and so I think that that was important.
(08:12):
If I look at it, I can say that forty
eight percent of our community voted against it. That forty
eight percent of the people that came out voted against it,
So really only about ten percent of our community voted
against it if you look at all the people that didn't.
When I also look at the fact that every other
(08:33):
community that's tried to pass an initiative like this has
failed at least once, if not two or three times
to get it passed. Nashville failed multiple times. I believe
Austin failed multiple times, and this initiative was about three x.
I believe Nashville and Austin were just under seven billion.
(08:56):
This is twenty billion dollars plus the federal money. So
I think it was pretty historic that we were able
to actually get it through the first time. And I
think the message is the people that voted against it,
we need to continue to listen to them and make
sure that as we move forward as an authority, that
(09:19):
we're listening to our community and that we're delivering a
system that is safe, that is efficient and effective and
meets the needs of our whole community.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So you just mentioned the words safe, and when we
come back, we're going to talk about safety on the
light rail and the cats, buses and everything else, because
obviously the Rina Zuitska thing brought global attention to Charlotte,
and then we had national attention just a couple of
weeks ago with another stabbing on the light rail by
another person who did not buy a ticket to get
(09:52):
on the system. So we'll talk about that with David
Longo when we return. We'll go back to Charlot's News
Talk when I was seven point nine FMWBT. Brent Jensen
here along with David Longo, who's part of the Metro,
(10:12):
will give me the exact type.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Of Metropolitan Public Transit authority.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Okay, Metropolitan Metropolitan Public Transit Authority MPTA. Correct, okay.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
And he's also with you know, Charlotte City Center Partners
as well as the CRBA Charlotte Regional Business Alliance Board
of Trustees on the UNCC among many other things, and
business owner, but we're in here to have him talk about.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Specifically the cats situation. Be it the safety because he's
sort of sort of I guess, I don't know if
the right term is overseas what's going on with the
transit authority, the metropolitan Public Transit Authority, but he's still
sort of overseeing it a little bit, so at least
it would seem so I guess my I want to
(10:58):
start with safety, because you talk to safety. So when
we had you in here two months ago and arenas
the risk, it had happened three months prior, and it
was still national news and people were, you know, you know,
up in arms about the safety or like thereof, and
what are they spending eighteen million dollars a year for
(11:19):
if they can't have people on the train or whatever
so or at the very least check tickets. Because both
of these crimes here we are again just a couple
months later, both people who actually wielded knives and stab people.
Neither one should have been on the train because neither
one had a ticket. And so when the one cent
(11:43):
sales tax kicks in, what's the number one priority for
you in terms of safe safety and hopefully the MPTA. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Well interesting when you talk about transit, talk about safety
and security in transit world. The way I simply think
about it is safety, as we don't crash to trains
and buses. Security is how you secure the system, and
obviously both are hugely important. I think safety and security
(12:15):
is our number one priority, and having a safe, secure
system where writers feel comfortable and they are safe as critical.
I think, as in any of these situations, easy to
identify the problem, much more complex to come up with
the right solutions, and even harder to implement them. I
(12:39):
think one of the keys to implementing a safe secure
system is leveraging technology. When you think about the latest
incident about two weeks ago. With advanced technology, the ability
to identify people who are on the system who should
(13:01):
not be there when you have a situation that's escalating,
and being able to have rapid response to be able
to get there and secure this system is critical. So
if I were to step this situation back to as
I understand it, you had a perpetrator who entered the
(13:25):
system who won is in the country illegally, So if
we knew that and he was identified in our system.
Using the right technology, that would have been one flag
that would have went off. Another flag is his ban
from the system. The challenge is remembering every person who's
(13:48):
banned from the system. Even if we have a police
officer on every car on every train is still difficult.
But with the right technology you could have flagged. He
could have been flagged immediately, and even if there wasn't
a police officer on the car, by the next stop
or two, you could have interdicted. The third is having
(14:11):
the right type of technology around, for example, a tap
to pay system using your app, we would have been
identified that we had people who entered a train who
hadn't paid. Once again, somewhere along that ride, you could
have had people enter the train. So I look at
his three different opportunities with the right technology to have
(14:34):
interdicted that person. By the way, the person who was
stabbed also, I understand potentially had warrants out could have
interdicted that person, So we had the opportunity to have
gotten two people. The third part is with technology today,
(14:54):
you can sense escalation in a situation, another opportunity to
enter and disrupt something before it becomes a problem. So
I'm a huge believer that we have to invest in technology.
The next part is I said it earlier on we
had moved from a private security force to a private
(15:17):
policing force. I believe strongly and know that best practice
in transit is for that to be a sworn police
officer force. So although I'll be working with twenty six
other members of an authority, it is definitely in my
(15:38):
perspective that's something that we have to move to, and
we have to move to as rapidly as possible.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Well, and to that point in Lottie knows this, and
I said this on air many many times right after
the second stab it happened that you could ban me
right now and within two hours, soon as I leave here,
I'll be on the lightrail. You can ban me and
I will be on the light Did I not say
that many times? Yeah? I mean there's no way to note.
I equated it to like banning fans from a baseball stadium.
(16:06):
How in God's name or is every usher going to
know the one hundred and eighty seven people that have
been banned from Yankee Stadium or whatever it is. There's
no way, there's no way. Facial recognition. So that's what
you're talking about with technology facial recognition, correct.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, facial recognition scanning technology that for example, is not
these intrusive long line backing up type scanners, but ballards
that if you come on and you have your for example,
carrying a weapon, we know, we know when you've gone through.
The cameras can identify it. The ballards could identify, the
(16:40):
censors could identify it, and now we can enter whether
if we're not right there, we can enter at the
next station, and we can interject stuff and keep it safer.
You know, I talked about UNC Charlotte. If you talk
to Chief Baker there does an amazing job. Chief Baker
gets up every morning thinking about the safety and security
(17:03):
of everyone on campus, and he goes to bed every
night thinking about it. So he is one hundred percent
focused on it. They have technology. We were talking the
other day at a meeting where they identified someone who
was a concern. They were able to through their real
time response center, track this person all the way back
(17:24):
to their car, identify them through their license plate, so
when they interdicted the individual, they knew exactly who they
were dealing with. That's the type of thing that technology
can bring to the table and be a game changer
for these type of situations, because yes, you can't know
every person who's been banned.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
When we come back, I am gonna ask you some
questions about some more questions about the safety, because there
are people will say that's great, but under this possible proposal,
without having someone on every train arena, still would have
been stabbed and still probably would have died and the
other person would have stabbed when there was an escalation
(18:05):
in a fight broke out and nearly died. If you
don't have anyone on the train, how are you going
to prevent that? So we'll talk about that when we return.
Welcome back to Breaking with Brad Jensen here on Charlotte's
News Talk. One of seven point nine FMWBT. David Longo
(18:29):
is in studio with me today and he's part of
the Transit Authority, the local transit authority overseeing the cats
and the light rail. He's one of twenty seven members.
He was sort of helping oversee it to get the
one scent sales tax passed to be part of this
today and so he's he's going to be looking at
this quite a bit. He's part of the Triple CP,
(18:50):
which the CCCP. I still laugh every time I see that.
I don't know why. You know, the Soviet Union, those
are the old initials of the Soviet Union CCCP, but
the Charlotte Center City partners in the h in the
Local Regional Business Alliance. So let's talk about safety. We
were just talking about safety on the light rail, because
the bus is a whole separate issue. That's a whole
(19:13):
that's a nightmare. I can't even begin to imagine how
you deal with something like that, right, I mean I can't.
I don't even know how that even begins. But I
want to finish our discussion real quick before we get
to the bus side of the light rail, because more
of our listeners would ride the light rail than the bus.
So in terms of safety, and you talked about possible
(19:35):
facial recognition, and you know, technology that can determine whether
or not somebody's got a weapon hidden in their you know,
their clothing or whatever. And it can pick things up.
The technology can pick things up. It can flag if
someone's not supposed to be who didn't pay or is
it it has warrants against them, a legal a little
legal alien whatever. But let's say something like and I
(19:59):
don't think anything could have prevented the arenas of the
risk of murder from happening other than the person not
being allowed on the train for not having a ticket. Okay,
because it happened in the very very back and she
never let out of yell, she never let out a scream.
Nobody even knew, like you know, what was really going on.
But with that being said, if you have to wait
(20:20):
for an officer to get on at the next stop
or potentially two stops down the road, a lot of
damage can be done in three minutes to five minutes,
a lot of damage, and then all of a sudden
that everyone's going to go, it's still not safe. So
(20:40):
how do you alleviate that particular problem?
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I think when I I'm a broken window theory guy,
which is you sort of have to have this no
tolerance level and you have to enforce your laws, and
you have to make sure that people understand that if
they come onto the system, the laws are going to
be enforced. Whether you can put look at you can
(21:08):
put a person an officer on every single car on
every single train.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And there's only twenty there's only twenty cars. Yeah, there's
ten trains.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Ten trains typically twenty hours on average twenty hours a day,
and so if you were to put someone which is
not beyond consideration here as we start to ramp things up,
I think ultimately where you need to get to beginning
with the end in mind, is that people understand that
if they come on our transit system, whether it's trains
(21:40):
or buses or whatever, and they are being bad actors,
then there is going to be consequences with those which
means you talked about the buses. Not to debate into there,
but the same technology I talked about on trains can
easily be and when I say easily costs money, can
(22:01):
be implemented on our bus system also. I think that
that's going to be critical. I think that when people
start realizing and using this type of technology that if
anytime anyone who is banned from a system, who is
wanted on a warrant, etc. Is going to be identified
(22:23):
and arrested on that train, people are going to think
twice about getting on those that system. They're going to
choose an alternate mode of transportation potentially, But I believe
that enforcement is going to be critical. I do believe
in the right amount of deployment of police is critical.
I believe that having a sworn police officer force is
(22:45):
absolutely critical to the safety of our system.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
How do you how do you go about making sure
that people that are on the train are the ones
that are supposed to be on the train by actually
buying a ticket.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Again, that's part of the software that you part of
the technology that you can put in place so that
if you walk on today, if you ever tried to
have you tried to buy the paper pass thing. Quite frankly,
it's I won't use the word, but it's a pain,
right so, and now if you use your app like
I can pull up my cat's app here, a lot easier.
(23:22):
We need to move towards those type of technologies. If
you get on. When we were in Boston with the
Regional Business Alliance and we purposely spent some time on
their transit system, I just pulled I didn't have any
app or anything. I pulled my credit card out, walked
up to turnstile, hit it, and walked right in. By
(23:42):
the way, that is a secure system. A lot easier
to have a secure system when it's a subway system
than when it's above ground. But there are potential ways
that we can look at our platforms to make them
more secure. But again I would tell you that if
you can walk up with your app or with your
card and tap in, there are people who not paying.
(24:06):
Through a activated camera system with the right technology behind it,
we can identify you getting on that and then we
can start to interdict that. Again, the more interdictions, the
less people are going to do it.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
The problem though is criminals are criminals are criminals are criminals,
and no amount of you could potentially go to jail
is a deterrent because people still commit murders and commit
crimes and assaults and everything else knowing what the consequences are.
And so again it's I guess from a civilian looking
(24:40):
in from the outside, it would be I don't feel
safe unless I know there's security on that train. That
would be my eternal thoughts. And there may be a
lot of Now, granted, if you go into a concert
or Panthers game, there's always group in safety in numbers
and there's a lot of people, and I don't think
anyone worries about I would never worry about it like that.
If the light rails pack as you're coming back from
a hornse game, a concert, panthers or whatever. I would
(25:03):
that would never concern me. It really never would. But
a random Tuesday night right now at six forty five
on a Tuesday night, yeah, I might be I would
be leary. I'd be immediately looking around going all right,
who's on this train? Who's on this train?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Well, there's no question in that environmental considerations. You know,
as we worked on this public safety task force that
we talked about last time, which we've had some really
significant progress in. If you're walking down a dark alley,
you're gonna feel less comfortable. If you're walking down a
bright lit alley, you're gonna feel a little bit more comfortable.
(25:37):
If you're walking down an alley and there's a whole
bunch of people getting out from the game, you feel
even more comfortable. Maybe that's part of the solution. As
we explore you'd say, Okay, do we need to put
someone and I'm just brainstrong with you here, do we
need to put someone in every car in every train?
Or do you have someone if they're moving between platforms
(25:59):
around A and then are on car B and there's
enough of a presence where they're going back and forth
every other platform that might make people feel more comfortable.
Maybe when you have less people, when you're not in
peak rush hour, people feel more comfortable. That's where you
deploy police officers on every car. I think that there's
(26:19):
lots that have to be explored. I am not closed
to any of those things. What I am committed to
is we have to create a safe and secure system.
Otherwise you will start to lose ridership and then the
whole system doesn't work. And every person should feel safe
in our community. It's not just on our train, not
(26:41):
just on our buses, but in our whole community. Which
is why I think the work of the Public Safety
Task Force has been critical. It started with focusing on
Center City it needs to expand, But since implementing that,
they brought back the Entertainment District Policing Unit, which was
critical for example getting the Brooklyn night club closed down
(27:05):
and having more engagement in interdiction there. The Crown initiative
that was announced about I want to say about eight
ten weeks into our work, which is essentially taking no
tolerance policy and half a mile radius of trade and
try on our police chief has new police chief has
announced this program for operations safe City, which I think
(27:29):
she deemed it for this period of time, but intends
to continue her heavy focus on policing in our urban
core because what she's personally told me is if we
can't secure the urban core, nothing else is going to
be safe. And we have to do that, and we
have to do that, but we have to police our
whole community. And by the way, the way we police
(27:50):
our urban core might be different than the way we
police other areas, and we have to be nimble enough
to tailor our policing to that. And yes, I do
believe that we have to grow the number of sworn
police officers in CMPD also, so we have to get
the full staff and then we have to continue to
grow that, but we have to do it a smart way.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
When we return, we'll talk to David Longo about potential
outside influences going on with a transit authority. Are they
going to be just sealer and they have their own
input or is there going to be outside government influence.
We'll talk about that when we return. Welcome back to
(28:36):
Breaking with Brett Johnson here on Charlis Snows Talk. When
I seven point nine FM WBT, David Longo in studio
with me for a few more minutes as we're talking
about the regional Transit Authority, the one sent sales tax
passed recently, and you know, up to thirty billion dollars
over the next thirty years if I remember correctly, So
you guys will start receiving some of that money when.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Could be as early July first and as late as October.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
First, okay, okay, so minimum six months, no later than
nine months, okay. So outside influence, we've seen Charlotte go
in a tailspin from a governmental standpoint for quite a
while now. And Charlotte City Council has been under the
(29:23):
fire for quite a while as like it was the
most dysfunctional city council, one of the most dysfunctional city
councils in the country. They had to bring in outside
people to try and build team leaders and teams to
teach people how to get along because they all hated
each other. And now you've got half the city council
likes the mayor, the other half hates the mayor, even
though they're all the exact same party, and you know,
(29:47):
and so now and they're all trying to maneuver their
way to run for mayor at least four of them,
probably in two years. Four of the members that are
on city council right now. So how do you ensure that,
whether it's city council, county commissioners, state legislative, state senators, whomever,
how do you ensure or are you concerned that outside
(30:07):
political influence will try to alter the way you guys
do things.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I think there's always the potential for that to occur.
You know, you can't divorce human nature. I would start
by saying, for this authority to work effectively, there has
to be a hand in glove relationship with the city
in county. Because although the authority has a responsibility for
(30:35):
running and operating the system and building out the system,
if you think about all the development that will occur
around it, that still sits in the purview of the
city in the county. So I think it's critical that
we work together to establish a strong working relationship. I
think there are gonna be times that we're going to
(30:56):
agree unstuffed, and there are gonna be times where we
might agree to just agree. When you think about the
role of a trustee, when everyone was sworn any other day,
we swore our allegiance to our nation, to our state constitution,
and to our responsibility as a trustee of the authority.
(31:18):
My responsibility is to serve the authority and not any
individual group, meaning the town of Pineville, the City of Charlotte,
the County of Mecklenburg, or the state. Does it all
need to work together? Yes? Do I think that it's
important that people in other parts of government allow the
(31:43):
authority to operate as it's intended as an independent authority
to serve the citizens of this county. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Okay. One thing I do want to talk about real quick,
and we've got like maybe two minutes or so, is
I've never used it, but you mentioned it earlier and
it sort of peaked my curiosity is the Cat's app?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
So what do I need to know about the cats app? Well?
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I think one, it's once you have it loaded, it's
an easy way to load funds on to be able
to use them for your fares. But really importantly, one
of the challenges that you have around safety and security
is understanding where problems are. And so if you think
about the concept of see something, say something. If you're
(32:30):
a rider on a trainer on a bus and there's
something going on you pull up your cat's app. Right
on the front page, there's a report a problem the cats.
You click on that. You don't have to say anything,
you don't have to hit any emergency buttons, and then
you can select what you want to report, So for example,
a security concern, a maintenance concern, or just some other
(32:51):
kind of comment or complaint. You can then type it
tap you know there's an assault, crime in progress, disruptive behavior,
human trafficking, legal parking. You can hit any of those
things and then you could submit it either so we
know who you are, or you can hit the button
that says anonymous and it automatically notifies our mont Crime
(33:14):
Monitoring Center, which then would allow them to notify our
security police force to be able to come in and
interdict something. It's critical. This is noted on the trains,
it's noted on the buses, but it's just really important.
Our eyes are amplified if every rider is helping us understand,
(33:35):
hey this train is like really dirty, Hey there's broken
something on it, or there's a crime in progress. That
I believe that in the last stabbing incident, no one
on the train notified anyone and as I understand it,
the escalation occurs began around the Scaley Bark stop in
(33:56):
the stabbing didn't occur until we were up at Parkwood,
and I I think there's six to nine stations between there,
and so if someone had notified, hey, there's unruly behavior here,
I think we would have had an opportunity. Would it
have prevented Arena Zaruska now.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Other than preventing him from getting on the light rail,
because you take.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
It absolutely right back to my technology.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Right exactly exactly well, and again I appreciate everything you're
coming in here tonight because I know these are the
questions like, yeah, I know the buses and everything else,
but the light rail, I mean that that's a major,
major part of that gets the most widespread use. And
like you said, if people are afraid to use it,
it's going to die and it will just become, you know,
(34:44):
a way for people to ride the rails like hobos,
you know, and that's what nobody wants. So, David Longo,
the CCCP, Charlotte City Center Partners, and there's you know,
Charlotte Regional Business Authority and our Business Alliance rather and
and the Metro, the Transit Authority, and just the UNCC
Board of Trustees. Like business owner, this is way too
(35:07):
much going on over here. But seriously, thank you for
coming in tonight and breaking everything down and making it
simple for our listeners to understand, including myself.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Thank you for having me all right, TJ.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Ritchie is coming up next, I just real quick. On
December thirty first and January first, I will be doing
my top ten breaking stories that I broke this year,
so make sure you stick around for that, and so
until then, my name is Brett Jensen and you have
been listening to Breaking with Brett Jenson
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.