September 2, 2025 • 32 mins
Tune in here to this Tuesday's edition of Breaking With Brett Jensen!
Breaking Brett Jensen kicks the show off by talking about Mayor Vi Lyles’ recent controversies and introducing his exclusive interview with Democratic mayoral candidate Brendan Maginnis.
Maginnis doesn’t hold back—criticizing Lyles for what he describes as years of political maneuvering, lack of transparency, and a series of scandals including secret payouts, public safety missteps, and controversial development decisions. Maginnis, a former Marine and financial advisor, explains that he's running for mayor because no one else was willing to challenge the status quo. He highlights his focus on affordability, childcare, and systemic reform, emphasizing his commitment to solving root causes, not just symptoms.
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!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
News Talk eleven ten and ninety nine three WVT. Brett
Jensen here with you on a special edition of Breaking
with Brett Jensen on this Tuesday night. And I hope
everyone enjoyed their great Labor Day weekend to get in
on the show seven oh four or five seven to
eleven ten. That's also the text line number, which of
course is sponsored by Liberty Buick GMC. And if you
follow me at Brett Underscore Jensen on X and you
(00:21):
know what you're in store for tonight as Brendan McGinnis,
who is running for mayor in the Democratic primary, is
my special guest tonight, and trust me, this is an
interview you're not gonna want to miss.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
We sat down.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Outside of a restaurant a few days ago for over
an hour and I asked him a lot of questions
and he gave some very pointed answers, many of which
go directly against vy Lyles. So here's my interview with
mayor ol candidate Brendan McGinnis. Brendan vice had a tough
time of it since May. She's had a tough four
months between the secret Johnny Jennings payouts that got exposed
(00:54):
between when there was the mass shooting in Uptown, and
she didn't speak about it until I asked her about
it finally five days after the fact, and she said
her direct quote was, how about giving me some grace.
We were I was in DC with my grandchildren.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And then we know what happened with the statement that
she's been getting crushed for concerning the young lady that
got stabbed on the light rail. If I say the
name viy Lyles, what comes to mind to you?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Oh, I think it goes back to what you were
saying in terms of all the scandals and controversies that happened.
You know, it's not just the past four months. This
has been going out throughout her eight years. That's one
of the things that when I think about Violies, I
think politically savvy, because she's able to get past all
these scandals where there's the Boa Bank of America standum upgrades,
(01:43):
the Jennings, the dismissal Patrick Baker funding a one of
the candidates against her own council member back in twenty
twenty three, even the demolition of the historic her house.
She's able to basically come out say kind of nothing,
and we're going to do better and then that's enough
to placate everybody, whether it's the voters, the media, whatever else,
(02:06):
and then gets dropped and people have a.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
Tendency to just kind of forget.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
So she's very good at coming out of the bushes.
It's kind of like that Homer Simpson thing, which it
kind of comes out of the bushes, says something, and
then it kind of recedes back in the bushes and
everybody kind of just moves on with their lives.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
So, you know, it's something. It's a talent.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
I don't know it's the best talent to have as
someone who's trying to be an action oriented executive, but
it's a talent and that's what I think about.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
It is really a lot of words and not a
lot of action.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
So now, and we'll get back to Vylaos in just
a minute.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
But it's a two part question.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Who is Brendan mcguinnis and why are you running for
mayor on the Democrat side.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
You know, I'm a former marine and a financial advisor.
I went in the marine straight out of high school,
got out, worked my way through college, then started my
own financial planning business, building from the ground up from scratch.
Did that for twelve years and then passing on to
my partner a couple of years back. I think about that,
does that gives me a unique perspective in terms of
(03:07):
trouble solving, And what I mean by that is, I
don't want to just treat the effect.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
I want to solve the cause.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
And many times when we look at these things, we
want to treat the effect and not the cause.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
And I think I do that.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
And so when we look at the problems that Charlotte faces,
whether it's public transit, whether it's a job creation, childcare,
which is a topic that I'm covering in my platform
that isn't being covered right now, they all come down
to affordability and they're all interconnected financially. So the reason
why I'm running is because no one else would. Again,
going back to my marine background, there's a saying in
(03:44):
the Marines, lead, follow, or.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Get the heck out of the way, and I believe
in that.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
I am more than willing to follow when there is
leadership in place, I am more than willing to get
out of the way if I can't be part of
the solution. But if there's a lack of leadership, there's
not direction and no one else steps up, I'm going
to step.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Into that void.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
You know, we had what really motivated me in terms
of this getting into this race was we had a
sitting council member, council Member Wattington, come out and I
think she kind of pulled back the curta a little
bit and said, you know, there's corruption in the government
and we've in city government and we'd seen all these scandals.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
And I was thought that was an Aha moment.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Okay, here we go, someone is actually coming and saying
something about it. And there was some light media coverage
of it, at least legacy media, I would say. And
then it kind of just like any of these other scandals,
it receded in the background, and I was kind of
surprised that there wasn't more coverage of it. I expected
some another council moment to run. You know, we heard
Jennifer Roberts come out and say, so we needed a choice,
(04:49):
and you know, when she decided not to run, I said, well,
I can be that choice. I'd run previously in twenty
twenty four in the US House fourteenth district. Really built
up my grassroot organization at that point in time, and
you know, again when nobody stepped out, I'm gonna fill
that void. And I think it's really it's really kind
of bad that no one did step up. I think
(05:10):
a lot of times, you know, I don't consider myself
a politician.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
I consider myself a person.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
That's because I'm willing to take on these challenges and
races without thinking whether I'm going to lose or win
or lose.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
It's a matter of doing it in principle.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
And and that's really disappointing about the current council members
that none of them decided to step up. And it means,
you know, one of three things. I think either a
council member Wallington was lying, which I don't think she is.
She's a smart, smart woman, smarter than me. I don't
think she's lying. It means the council members are complicit
in this, uh you know what's going on with the
(05:46):
city government, or even worse or maybe just as bad,
they're covering up. And so again I'm running because I
think Charlottean's deserve a choice, and in actuality, I think
I'm the best candidate cannsidering my business background. I come
from the business community, and again I want to always
think of these and how is this going to help
(06:07):
everybody in the city, whether you're the top CEO or
the person just starting their new job.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
I want to help all Charlotteans in that way.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Speak with Brandon McGinnis, who's running from mayor against fire
Alliles and the Democratic primary.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
So let me ask you this.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
You know you talked about the situation with Victoria Wellington
and trying to have these secret payouts to the city
of the citizens of Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Never would have known about them. Would you have voted
for the payouts?
Speaker 4 (06:36):
My background is I got a degree in political science,
took a lot of law classes, thought about going to
law school, and decided to go into financial wising instead.
So I know a lot about law, but I'm not
a lawyer, and I don't know about the legal legal
lees behind all of this. You know, I know there
is a state law requirement that requires disclosure of settlements.
(06:57):
This is a weird situation because the interim city attorney
said cleared Tark mccarrey of any type of liability in
this yet then we're gonna go ahead and reward Award
Jennings with a settlement just on threats of a lawsuit,
not even a lawsuit sself on threats of a lawsuit.
So you know, on the surface, from what I know,
(07:20):
it was mishandled. You know. Can I say legally we
would have had a different outcome. I don't know. But
what I do know is it was not handled properly.
This is taxpayer's money. They deserve to know about this.
And one of the things of my plan that I
talk about transparency as part of my platform. There are
a couple solutions I have to make sure that something
like this doesn't happen again, specifically the Charlotte Accoutaiby Accountability Commission,
(07:44):
which is a commission composed of people within the community
that would review all types of big like a big
settlement like this or the Bank of America upgrades, because
not only is it a transparency, there's not community input
and there's no Without trans parency, there's no accountability.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
When we returned, we'll continue my interview with Brandon McGinnis
where he really starts firing after the mayor. Welcome back
to Breaking with Brett Jensen. As I continue my interview
with Brandon McGuinness. We did the interview a couple of
days ago, and he was running for mayor in the
Democratic primary, and he's not a big fan of Mayor.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Vy Lales.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
Brandon.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
The Shot Observer just.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Came out recently with a study of city council members
who are taking the most days offs.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So what are your.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Thoughts about so many people missing so much time on
the city council and the mayor.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yeah, her, I think her exact quote was something like
it was strategic. Her absences are strategic. I've seen a
conversation about this, and you know, attendance isn't everything. You
know that she's heard people talk about effectiveness or being
out in the community's office or something. So everybody has
their opinion about what is most important. So attendance isn't everything,
(08:56):
but I think it it matters a lot when you
don't get those other factors in there.
Speaker 5 (09:02):
It's about leadership.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
You know, not only is she not attending the meetings,
but then we see a sharp decline in the eight
years with the other, uh, the other city council members,
and so you lead by example, I think.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
And the problem with that is.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
And going back to Julie eseld is she was one
of her.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
There's article.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
In that article, VI was or There's another article that
was talking about dysfunction by the dysfunction by the city
Council by the Charlotte Observer, and Julia Iyeldt said, one
of her proponents had talked about, UH, the problem the
dysfunction in uh city council is being caused because.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
There's bomb throwers.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
And I sat there and said, so you're not attending meetings,
they're they're being absent, and then you know, you're blaming
them for the dysfunction in the council. How is that leadership?
You know, that's not leadership. You have to work with
these people, you have to do that. So I think
attendance is important, you know, I think ten it's important.
Is something that that should be done. But you know,
(10:03):
this goes back to you know again when we talk about,
you know, going back to her grandchildren or whatever else,
it's like, if that's what she wants to do, that's
that's what she wants to do. I question whether whether
she has the energy or the drive to actually do
this job. You know, I was a financial advisor and
(10:23):
we talk about I never got my clients to retirement.
The reason why we do that is we always use
the term financial independence, because what happens is you get
people who work for say forty years for the city government,
and they don't have an identity outside of their work,
and so they don't want to stop working, and so
it's the problem. And I wonder if that's what's going
(10:44):
on right now, is you know who is vililes.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
As if she isn't mayor of Charlotte.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
I think another thing that's going on unspoken, And it's
hard to say this, but I think we got somewhat
of a Charlotte version of Joe Biden. If you watch
any of the City of council meetings, you know, again
there's one in particular two weeks ago. She gets lost
a lot, don't She has problems keeping up with what's
going on.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
And I wonder if that again, you.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Say it as an executive, it's good to delegate power,
but it is she delegating power to actually in power
people on the council or is she doing it be
just because she can't handle the job anymore.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
And I don't think people are talking about that enough.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
And I talk to members and you know, city council members,
and they'll come up to me and say hi, and
we'll talk and they'll say, you know, I think she's
slipping a little bit, and they get this kind of
fright look on their face, like he knows, and then
they get this relieve look on their face, like Wow,
this is something we can actually kind of talk about
or whatever else. So, you know, I think the absences
(11:43):
are a matter of just you know, she's not be
this way, but she's gonna be seventy three years old.
I merely after this election. That is ten years older
or almost ten years older then the second oldest mayor
in Charlotte history. You know, you have to wonder again
with absences, does she have the energy, does she have
(12:04):
the drive, what is her reasoning for doing this? And
then you just wonder if there's some physical and other
limitations that aren't being addressed that everybody's kind of covering up.
And it all just spells that this is not going
to be solved by electing all of the same people,
all the same incumbents back in office. Now that they're
talking kumba ya because its election season, we're going to
(12:26):
have these same problems to your you know, for the
next two years if everybody goes back in place. And
so I don't know if that is necessarily it's solved
by just getting rid of our current mayor, or we
need to have other city council members out of there.
But one of things I can say is if we
have all the same we have the same mayor, same incumbents,
you're you're crazy if you think you're gonna get a
different result. We're doing the same thing and expecting a
(12:47):
differ result. Is the definition of insanity.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Brandon, Okay, So let's talk about some of the ideas.
Like everyone gets into politics with ideas and thoughts, But
what are some of the achievable things that you really
think it happened and that you would like to see
happen under your leadership.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
That's a great question because you're exactly right. You know,
people come in promising a lot of things, and sometimes
it's they're not achievable. What I would say is all
my plan or all my platform, in my research, everything
lines up to be achievable. It's conservative in terms of
the estimates where the funding sources are gonna come from.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
So but one of the.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Things I would say with that is it's better to
have some plan than no plan at all. You know, Again,
that's one of the issues I have in terms of
with Vililes right now in this race is I don't
think she's being very respectful. And you know what, if
she doesn't respect me or the other candidates, that it's fine,
but she's not respecting the voters. You know, this is
a short primary. It's thirty days. We're not talking about
(13:49):
campaigning for months on end. This is a thirty days sprint.
She has no website, nothing anywhere where a voter can
go out there and see what plans she has, what
she's doing whenever we're in any of these forms, which
she has decided not to go to several of them,
so they've been canceled.
Speaker 5 (14:06):
She doesn't outline what the future looks like.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
She's relying on what she thinks are her accomplishment so
far in her in her tenure, but doesn't really outline
what she's going to do. So again, in my platform,
I'll talk about myself. Is I have some very achievable things.
We've got a thirty six thousand affordable housing deficit right now,
and let me back up here. I don't think Charlotteans
(14:31):
understand how bad things really are. And that comes down
to the separation that we have within the city itself
between the people who have been doing well based upon
what's going on, and the people who most of time
are long time Charlotteans have not been doing well or
experienced the prosperity the rest of the city it has.
So one of the things I have to do in
terms of my platform is just made people where, hey,
(14:54):
these issues are deep, they're getting worse, and if we
don't fix them immediately, it's going to get much much worse.
So we got a thirty six thousand affordable housing unit deficit.
And the definition of affordable housing is if you are
spending Affordable housing is if you are spending a thirty
percent or less of your income that is considered affordable housing.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
That is the cities definition.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Right now, forty eight percent of Charlotteans are spending thirty
percent or more of their income on housing.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
Is called cost bird.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
So when you have half of your city being cost
bird and not having affordable housing, that's not just a problem,
that is an epidemic. What I look to do is
try to build twenty five thousand, nine hundred houses over
the next ten years. Now again you go, well, there's
a thirty six thousand housing deficit. Why don't you try
(15:47):
to solve all that I can't. I'm not going to
give unrealistic expectations. Twenty five thousand is the best. Once
I crutch numbers looked at all the different projects, that's
the best you can do. But you know, one of
the things that talks about when she talks about housing
is the Housing Trust Fund is one of our main
drivers in terms of affordable housing. And she talks about
how much affordable housing has been brought, but it's only
(16:09):
produced eleven thousand houses over the last twenty years. You know,
Tark McCary, former council member Taracary said, you know, we're
basically treading water, and he's right. You know, when you're
building eleven thousand houses, but you've got a thirty six
thousand deficit, that's a problem. So twenty five nine hundred
affordable housings over the next ten years. We've got ninety
(16:29):
five thousand people who are unemployed or underemployed right now
in Charlotte. So I've got a job creation plan that
creates sixty four thousand jobs over the next ten years.
Eighty percent of those are non degree holding. I think
that's the problem that Charlotte has as we bring in
a lot of jobs that have six digit incomes, but
(16:51):
we don't have those industries and we're not having that
job creation for the people who are in the underserved
communities who don't have four year degrees. That quite frankly,
a lot of these problems are having all the lot
of the problems that Charlotte has.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
When we return, I'll continue my interview with Brandon McGinnis,
who's running for mayor on the Democratic side, and I'll
ask him about all the crime. Welcome back to Breaking
with Brad Jensen. As I continue my interview with Brendan McGinnis,
who is running for mayor in the Democratic primary. He's
had a lot of things to say about the current leadership,
and in this portion of the interview we talk about
crime and housing.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Okay, so let's talk about the houses for a second.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Where do you get the funding to buy the land
to build the houses over the ten years?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Is the funding already there? How does that come about?
Speaker 4 (17:36):
It comes from multiple funding sources, So again it's not
necessarily buying land in those cases you know we currently have.
So throughout my platform you'll see is what I want
to do is I want to take things that have
worked been successful in Charlotte so far, and that's one
of the things I will say is I do have
some respect for the mayor and the city council she's
(17:57):
worked with over the last eight years that they have
put some positive initiatives in place and they have had
some accomplishments, though I think they've overstated those accomplishments. I've
taken those successes, those initiatives implemented in my plan, expanded them,
but then looking at new and innovative.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Ways to tackle these situations.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
So the main driver of affordable housing right now in
the city is the Housing Trust Fund, which is funded
by bonds. We've had initiatives every two years for that,
so I'm looking to expand that to build more affordable housing. Also,
the Charlotte Housing Opportunity Investment Fund, it is something that
Mayor Lyles started great program looking to double that. She's
(18:39):
put gotten one hundred thousand from private partnerships.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
And I'm looking to expand that to one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
So those are main drivers, and those are initiatives in
place that are doing well. But you can also look
at things like what we have right now going on
is we don't have competition. We have multiple builders, but
they're all doing the same thing, and so that's not
real competition. It's just like if you look at Big Oil,
there's multiple companies, it's a conglomerate. They're all doing the
(19:05):
same thing. So what you need to do is you
need to bring in new types of building. So you
have things like three D printing, you have modular homes,
you have micro units, and these are all programs or
all things that have been already in place in North Carolina.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
And the pushback I keep.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Getting from the mayor specifically and some of the council
members is this notion of Dylan rule that we can't
do this in this city because the legislature has the
power over us.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
These are already being done in North Carolina.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
The Dylan rules an excuse because they're in the pockets
of the builders and they don't want to bring in competition.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
The builder.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Of course, someone who is a traditional builder doesn't want
somebody to bring in a three D printing housing company
that can print a house in a thousand square foot
house in twenty four hours for thirty thousand dollars. Three
D printing can sit there and reduce the cost of
housing by thirty percent and reduce the build time by
(19:59):
twenty percent. That is a game changer. And if you
start bringing those types of things in, then not only
are you offering more affordable housing, but that's also going
to force those traditional builders to lower their prices as well,
and so you get an overall bringing housing prices down,
making overall all the housing more affordable.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
When you talk about the job creations or the housing situation,
does that include raising taxes of any side, and whether
it's property taxes, because I know any other type of
taxes has to go through the state House and everything else.
But would that raising taxes at all?
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Know where my plan doesn't raise taxes. It's a matter
of redirecting funding that's currently in place. And I know
people say, oh there's no more money. There's ways to
direct it, especially in programs that aren't very effective. You know,
it's about efficacy. So it's just a matter of re
redirecting some of those funds. And then this is where
the mayor comes in. You know, we talk about all
the time that the mayor you know, has limited power.
(20:54):
They only come in for tie votes in council. The
mayor is the influencer in chief. Their job is to
sit there and go into the private sector and convince
them that the things, the initiatives that Charlotte is doing
are beneficial to them. I think that's the problem that's
going on right now. Again, not to sound dismissive or
whatever else, but this is what happens when you put
(21:15):
a socialite in the mayor's office. They don't know how
to deal with people in terms of these corporate CEOs,
and so you can't go into these meetings with the
corporate CEOs and they say what's best for us is
best for Charlotte. You have to go in there and
convince them that what is best for Charlotte is best
for them. One of the major pieces of my plan
is trying to pedestrianize uptown and that is something that
(21:38):
may require NCGA approval, But what that's going to do
is that's going to increase jobs, increase towardsm There are
studies that show that if you cities who pedestrianize their
uptown area. You have it in San Antonio, you have
it in overseas like Copenhagen or Madrid, which are places
that I've visited myself.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
I see the impact.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
It can increase dollar by forty percent, and that's two
thousand new jobs, most of eighty percent of those for
people without a college degree.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
So you start building doing that in place.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
But what's the incentive for Bank of America to increase
tourism in Charlotte? What's the incentive for a Honeywell to
increase tourism Charlotte, at least from their perspective. You have
to go in there and convince them this is going
to be good for everybody.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
You're gonna get a better worker.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
You know, it's probably a bad thing to say bring
more people here, but at the same time, it's going
to make more attractive. You have to go in there
and convince them what's best for Charlotte is best for them.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
You know, trying to bring pedestrian traffic back up to uptown.
Uptown is not a very safe place right now. How
do you address uptown if people are afraid to go uptown?
Speaker 5 (22:45):
That's a good question. I can't remember who I heard
this from.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
So if you're hearing this and you are the one
that heard it, you know, conkudos or goes to you.
But you know, they said you can talk about crime
being down all you want, but if it impacts you,
it's gone up a thousand, and it's very true. It's
very personal. Crimes are very impactful. Obviously, there are things
that we can do in terms of the police. But
one of the things I want to go back to
is when I think about crime in Uptown, or you
(23:11):
talk about the recent stabbing on the south the Blue
line in South End, it's the broken window theory. And
if no one knows what that is, go google it.
You know, he's a bad name now, but Mayor july
And put this in New York City and it basically says,
if you go into a neighborhood and the windows broken,
then people are more likely to have commit more crimes.
(23:31):
So one of the first things he did is he
came in. He took off all the graffiti off of
the subway's subway cars and never let the subway car
come out if it has graffiti on it. And that's
how one of the ways that actually crime was reduced.
It's the same thing in Uptown in the light Row.
If we have more people in Uptown, we pedestionize it,
(23:52):
then there is a reason to have more police there
and then you are going to have less crime there
because there are more police there.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
If you have a blue line.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
One of the parts of my plan is extending the
blue line to Carawins. Again, going on that tourism, increasing tourism.
The blue line extension to Carawins directly to Uptown, you're
going to increase ridership. You're going to make that blue
line more profitable, and then there's going to be a
reason or you can actually have the capacity to have
police security on there to actually check for tickets and
(24:22):
make it more profitable. So again when we talk about
that is you pedestrianize, you make things so that they're
going to be more police presence. But one of the
big problems right now at the same time too, is
the police are understaffed. They're having a hard time recruiting,
and they've asked for certain measures from the mayor and
city Council that they've been denied that they feel are
(24:42):
going to help with recruiting. So you have, you know,
you have these officers who are over extended, not having
another ability to you know, covering vast amounts of territory.
It's going to be hard for them to respond to
any type of violent incident. You know, even when you're
talking about uptown, going from one end to the other,
(25:03):
if you're covering that whole thing just one patrol of
two people, it's going to take a lot of time
to get to those crimes. And a lot of times
when the police, it's about visibility. It's not a matter
of getting to a crime first. It's being around enough
or being visible enough so people won't.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Do the crime.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
So you know, again, I've talked to the Fraternal Order
of Police, heard some of their concerns. I think they're valid,
and that's one of the things I do as coming
in as mayor is look at helping them. What do
they need, What are the resources they need to get
more recruiting, to get more officers so they're not overextended,
so that we're able to reduce that crime, because that's
what it's about.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Welcome back to Breaking with Brad Jensen. We wrap up
my interview with Democratic mayoral candidate Brandon McGinnis. I've been
all over the world and Shant is the only city
that I have ever been to where they rely on
the honor.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
System to buy a ticket.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Do you have any specific thoughts about safety and security
about the light rail because people are just using it
whenever they want, so even if you want to increase
and send it down to cara Ones, you still have
people not paying for tickets.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Certainly, and again, in one sense it's kind of a
chicken egg. But I think if you have that extension,
you do get ridership up. Once you put that extension place,
you actually have the police there until that ridership gets flowing,
and then there's a reason.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
To actually have it there. It's in my plan.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Actually, I have as part of my transit plan, twenty
million dollar upgrades to the infrastructure of our transit and
so part of the better Bus plan, it's not only
bringing shelters, but also bringing cameras, additional lighting to some
of these stops to make it more safe so these
crimes will happen less. But you're exactly right, you know,
(26:50):
I've done extensive traveling in Europe. I'm not going to
say it was purely for business. Some of its pleasure,
but what I wanted to see was what works in
those cities that we can bring back here to Charlotte.
We are an international city, whether people realize it or not.
We need to start looking overseas in other cities for
solutions for that, and you're exactly right. In all those
(27:12):
other places, there are security there, you know. Unfortunately, had
to run in with people the police in France in
Paris because I threw my ticket away and they checked
for my ticket after I got off.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
The train and I got fined for it.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
They checked for these things, and we should be doing
the same thing as well. But I get it because
we don't have ridership. And then now we're trying to
talk about putting something like the red line in place.
Why are we putting something else in place when we
can't even cover the stuff that we already have. That's
why this transit builla just doesn't make sense. And unfortunately,
again I want to talk about my platform, but it
(27:47):
goes back to vilizers arc or what else, and it
says why are you doing this or what are else?
And she envisioned herself cutting the blue ribbon on the
red line. That's not a reason to have a red
line in place for your legacy. You know, if that's
what she wants to do, We'll take one hundred thousand
dollars from somewhere, put a gold statue up on trade
and trying for and then we'll go ahead and spend
(28:09):
the restless money on stuff that's actually going to help
people in Charlotte, specifically East Charlotte who needs public transportation.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Is there anything that you want to talk about that
I haven't asked you about over these last six seven minutes.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
You know, the biggest thing is why am I running?
Speaker 4 (28:26):
I kind of answer the answer at the beginning, but
that answer has kind of evolved over time. It may
sound in cliche, but I'm running to bring back hope.
I think you have some apathy in Charlotte, and actually,
because of the segregation that Charlotte actually naturally has, you
have apthy different types of apathy from both sides. And
(28:48):
what I mean by that is you have a Charlotte
underserved neighborhoods, longtime Charlotte teans who have apathy. They don't
feel that the city council and the mayor listening to them,
and they don't feel that the organizations that are supposed
to represent them or say that represent them actually do
represent them, so you know, they don't go out and vote.
(29:11):
On the other hand, you have the people who have
had some prosperous have been prospered, have enjoyed the prosperity
that Charles had over the last twenty years, and they.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
Have a different type of apathy.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
And what I mean by that is they don't feel
that municipal elections really matter them because they've been prospering
and their focus is on the national and what's going
on with Trump and everything else around the national level.
And so they have a little bit of apathy because
they don't think municipal elections matter. And when they do
go and actually vote in the municipal elections, they defer
(29:42):
their vote to who they think is going to help
the ones who are suffering, and so they will actually
vote based upon the opinions of those organizations that don't
actually represent the communities that are doing that they think
are benefiting them. So they're actually not doing the communities
that they're trying to help by doing their vote, they're
actually not helping them, so that we have these dual apathies.
(30:04):
So what I want to do is I want to
be that bridge. I want those underserved communities to understand
I'm a champion for them. I'm going to be there,
I'm going to speak for them, and I'm going to
get the ones who are prospering in Charlotte to understand
who actually is going to benefit them.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
So again, it's one of those.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Things where you know, I would like to say that
I'm planning, I'm trying to bring Hope home.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Last forty five seconds or yours.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Is there anything that you'd like to say to all
the independence and all the Democrats that are listening right
now leading into the primary.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
I think I appeal to unaffiliated. You know, my background
is from the business world. You know, I wasn't someone
who got their first job in Government's been on you know,
government payroll for forty plus years. You know, I know
what work is like. My parents both work two jobs.
When I was in high school, I was in the Marines,
I worked a you know, a restaurants as a cook
(31:00):
for five years, working my way through college. I know
what work is like, and so, you know, I think
what that does is gives me the perspective of as
a business person looking.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
At these things.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
I'm not the type of person who believes that there
should be government restrictions or it's all about telling good
business what to do.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
It's about helping I.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Was a small a small business owner, I know, a
government can help and hurt a small business. I want
the government to be a guiding hand in terms of
the economy getting to do what it needs to be
done without over restrictions. And I think that business mindset
is what Charlotte needs in terms of moving at next level.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Brandon McGinnis, I really do appreciate your time today and
good luck running for the mayor in the Democratic primary.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Thank you, Brett.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
That's gonna do it for us.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Tonight again thanks to Brandon McGinnis, who took a lot
of time out of this day to sit down and
talk to me earlier about running from mayor and Charlotte.
If you missed any portion of tonight's show, and trust me,
you're gonna want to hear all of it, go to
WBT dot com home, click on my show and you
can have the whole interview right there. All right, everyone
look forward to doing this all over again tomorrow night.
So until then, my name is Brett Jensen, and you
(32:09):
have been listening to Breaking with Brett Jensen.
News Talk eleven ten and ninety nine three WVT. Brett
Jensen here with you on a special edition of Breaking
with Brett Jensen on this Tuesday night. And I hope
everyone enjoyed their great Labor Day weekend to get in
on the show seven oh four or five seven to
eleven ten. That's also the text line number, which of
course is sponsored by Liberty Buick GMC. And if you
follow me at Brett Underscore Jensen on X and you
(00:21):
know what you're in store for tonight as Brendan McGinnis,
who is running for mayor in the Democratic primary, is
my special guest tonight, and trust me, this is an
interview you're not gonna want to miss.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
We sat down.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Outside of a restaurant a few days ago for over
an hour and I asked him a lot of questions
and he gave some very pointed answers, many of which
go directly against vy Lyles. So here's my interview with
mayor ol candidate Brendan McGinnis. Brendan vice had a tough
time of it since May. She's had a tough four
months between the secret Johnny Jennings payouts that got exposed
(00:54):
between when there was the mass shooting in Uptown, and
she didn't speak about it until I asked her about
it finally five days after the fact, and she said
her direct quote was, how about giving me some grace.
We were I was in DC with my grandchildren.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And then we know what happened with the statement that
she's been getting crushed for concerning the young lady that
got stabbed on the light rail. If I say the
name viy Lyles, what comes to mind to you?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Oh, I think it goes back to what you were
saying in terms of all the scandals and controversies that happened.
You know, it's not just the past four months. This
has been going out throughout her eight years. That's one
of the things that when I think about Violies, I
think politically savvy, because she's able to get past all
these scandals where there's the Boa Bank of America standum upgrades,
(01:43):
the Jennings, the dismissal Patrick Baker funding a one of
the candidates against her own council member back in twenty
twenty three, even the demolition of the historic her house.
She's able to basically come out say kind of nothing,
and we're going to do better and then that's enough
to placate everybody, whether it's the voters, the media, whatever else,
(02:06):
and then gets dropped and people have a.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
Tendency to just kind of forget.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
So she's very good at coming out of the bushes.
It's kind of like that Homer Simpson thing, which it
kind of comes out of the bushes, says something, and
then it kind of recedes back in the bushes and
everybody kind of just moves on with their lives.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
So, you know, it's something. It's a talent.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
I don't know it's the best talent to have as
someone who's trying to be an action oriented executive, but
it's a talent and that's what I think about.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
It is really a lot of words and not a
lot of action.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
So now, and we'll get back to Vylaos in just
a minute.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
But it's a two part question.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Who is Brendan mcguinnis and why are you running for
mayor on the Democrat side.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
You know, I'm a former marine and a financial advisor.
I went in the marine straight out of high school,
got out, worked my way through college, then started my
own financial planning business, building from the ground up from scratch.
Did that for twelve years and then passing on to
my partner a couple of years back. I think about that,
does that gives me a unique perspective in terms of
(03:07):
trouble solving, And what I mean by that is, I
don't want to just treat the effect.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
I want to solve the cause.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
And many times when we look at these things, we
want to treat the effect and not the cause.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
And I think I do that.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
And so when we look at the problems that Charlotte faces,
whether it's public transit, whether it's a job creation, childcare,
which is a topic that I'm covering in my platform
that isn't being covered right now, they all come down
to affordability and they're all interconnected financially. So the reason
why I'm running is because no one else would. Again,
going back to my marine background, there's a saying in
(03:44):
the Marines, lead, follow, or.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Get the heck out of the way, and I believe
in that.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
I am more than willing to follow when there is
leadership in place, I am more than willing to get
out of the way if I can't be part of
the solution. But if there's a lack of leadership, there's
not direction and no one else steps up, I'm going
to step.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Into that void.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
You know, we had what really motivated me in terms
of this getting into this race was we had a
sitting council member, council Member Wattington, come out and I
think she kind of pulled back the curta a little
bit and said, you know, there's corruption in the government
and we've in city government and we'd seen all these scandals.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
And I was thought that was an Aha moment.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Okay, here we go, someone is actually coming and saying
something about it. And there was some light media coverage
of it, at least legacy media, I would say. And
then it kind of just like any of these other scandals,
it receded in the background, and I was kind of
surprised that there wasn't more coverage of it. I expected
some another council moment to run. You know, we heard
Jennifer Roberts come out and say, so we needed a choice,
(04:49):
and you know, when she decided not to run, I said, well,
I can be that choice. I'd run previously in twenty
twenty four in the US House fourteenth district. Really built
up my grassroot organization at that point in time, and
you know, again when nobody stepped out, I'm gonna fill
that void. And I think it's really it's really kind
of bad that no one did step up. I think
(05:10):
a lot of times, you know, I don't consider myself
a politician.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
I consider myself a person.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
That's because I'm willing to take on these challenges and
races without thinking whether I'm going to lose or win
or lose.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
It's a matter of doing it in principle.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
And and that's really disappointing about the current council members
that none of them decided to step up. And it means,
you know, one of three things. I think either a
council member Wallington was lying, which I don't think she is.
She's a smart, smart woman, smarter than me. I don't
think she's lying. It means the council members are complicit
in this, uh you know what's going on with the
(05:46):
city government, or even worse or maybe just as bad,
they're covering up. And so again I'm running because I
think Charlottean's deserve a choice, and in actuality, I think
I'm the best candidate cannsidering my business background. I come
from the business community, and again I want to always
think of these and how is this going to help
(06:07):
everybody in the city, whether you're the top CEO or
the person just starting their new job.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
I want to help all Charlotteans in that way.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Speak with Brandon McGinnis, who's running from mayor against fire
Alliles and the Democratic primary.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
So let me ask you this.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
You know you talked about the situation with Victoria Wellington
and trying to have these secret payouts to the city
of the citizens of Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Never would have known about them. Would you have voted
for the payouts?
Speaker 4 (06:36):
My background is I got a degree in political science,
took a lot of law classes, thought about going to
law school, and decided to go into financial wising instead.
So I know a lot about law, but I'm not
a lawyer, and I don't know about the legal legal
lees behind all of this. You know, I know there
is a state law requirement that requires disclosure of settlements.
(06:57):
This is a weird situation because the interim city attorney
said cleared Tark mccarrey of any type of liability in
this yet then we're gonna go ahead and reward Award
Jennings with a settlement just on threats of a lawsuit,
not even a lawsuit sself on threats of a lawsuit.
So you know, on the surface, from what I know,
(07:20):
it was mishandled. You know. Can I say legally we
would have had a different outcome. I don't know. But
what I do know is it was not handled properly.
This is taxpayer's money. They deserve to know about this.
And one of the things of my plan that I
talk about transparency as part of my platform. There are
a couple solutions I have to make sure that something
like this doesn't happen again, specifically the Charlotte Accoutaiby Accountability Commission,
(07:44):
which is a commission composed of people within the community
that would review all types of big like a big
settlement like this or the Bank of America upgrades, because
not only is it a transparency, there's not community input
and there's no Without trans parency, there's no accountability.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
When we returned, we'll continue my interview with Brandon McGinnis
where he really starts firing after the mayor. Welcome back
to Breaking with Brett Jensen. As I continue my interview
with Brandon McGuinness. We did the interview a couple of
days ago, and he was running for mayor in the
Democratic primary, and he's not a big fan of Mayor.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Vy Lales.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
Brandon.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
The Shot Observer just.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Came out recently with a study of city council members
who are taking the most days offs.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So what are your.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Thoughts about so many people missing so much time on
the city council and the mayor.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yeah, her, I think her exact quote was something like
it was strategic. Her absences are strategic. I've seen a
conversation about this, and you know, attendance isn't everything. You
know that she's heard people talk about effectiveness or being
out in the community's office or something. So everybody has
their opinion about what is most important. So attendance isn't everything,
(08:56):
but I think it it matters a lot when you
don't get those other factors in there.
Speaker 5 (09:02):
It's about leadership.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
You know, not only is she not attending the meetings,
but then we see a sharp decline in the eight
years with the other, uh, the other city council members,
and so you lead by example, I think.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
And the problem with that is.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
And going back to Julie eseld is she was one
of her.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
There's article.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
In that article, VI was or There's another article that
was talking about dysfunction by the dysfunction by the city
Council by the Charlotte Observer, and Julia Iyeldt said, one
of her proponents had talked about, UH, the problem the
dysfunction in uh city council is being caused because.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
There's bomb throwers.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
And I sat there and said, so you're not attending meetings,
they're they're being absent, and then you know, you're blaming
them for the dysfunction in the council. How is that leadership?
You know, that's not leadership. You have to work with
these people, you have to do that. So I think
attendance is important, you know, I think ten it's important.
Is something that that should be done. But you know,
(10:03):
this goes back to you know again when we talk about,
you know, going back to her grandchildren or whatever else,
it's like, if that's what she wants to do, that's
that's what she wants to do. I question whether whether
she has the energy or the drive to actually do
this job. You know, I was a financial advisor and
(10:23):
we talk about I never got my clients to retirement.
The reason why we do that is we always use
the term financial independence, because what happens is you get
people who work for say forty years for the city government,
and they don't have an identity outside of their work,
and so they don't want to stop working, and so
it's the problem. And I wonder if that's what's going
(10:44):
on right now, is you know who is vililes.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
As if she isn't mayor of Charlotte.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
I think another thing that's going on unspoken, And it's
hard to say this, but I think we got somewhat
of a Charlotte version of Joe Biden. If you watch
any of the City of council meetings, you know, again
there's one in particular two weeks ago. She gets lost
a lot, don't She has problems keeping up with what's
going on.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
And I wonder if that again, you.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Say it as an executive, it's good to delegate power,
but it is she delegating power to actually in power
people on the council or is she doing it be
just because she can't handle the job anymore.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
And I don't think people are talking about that enough.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
And I talk to members and you know, city council members,
and they'll come up to me and say hi, and
we'll talk and they'll say, you know, I think she's
slipping a little bit, and they get this kind of
fright look on their face, like he knows, and then
they get this relieve look on their face, like Wow,
this is something we can actually kind of talk about
or whatever else. So, you know, I think the absences
(11:43):
are a matter of just you know, she's not be
this way, but she's gonna be seventy three years old.
I merely after this election. That is ten years older
or almost ten years older then the second oldest mayor
in Charlotte history. You know, you have to wonder again
with absences, does she have the energy, does she have
(12:04):
the drive, what is her reasoning for doing this? And
then you just wonder if there's some physical and other
limitations that aren't being addressed that everybody's kind of covering up.
And it all just spells that this is not going
to be solved by electing all of the same people,
all the same incumbents back in office. Now that they're
talking kumba ya because its election season, we're going to
(12:26):
have these same problems to your you know, for the
next two years if everybody goes back in place. And
so I don't know if that is necessarily it's solved
by just getting rid of our current mayor, or we
need to have other city council members out of there.
But one of things I can say is if we
have all the same we have the same mayor, same incumbents,
you're you're crazy if you think you're gonna get a
different result. We're doing the same thing and expecting a
(12:47):
differ result. Is the definition of insanity.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Brandon, Okay, So let's talk about some of the ideas.
Like everyone gets into politics with ideas and thoughts, But
what are some of the achievable things that you really
think it happened and that you would like to see
happen under your leadership.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
That's a great question because you're exactly right. You know,
people come in promising a lot of things, and sometimes
it's they're not achievable. What I would say is all
my plan or all my platform, in my research, everything
lines up to be achievable. It's conservative in terms of
the estimates where the funding sources are gonna come from.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
So but one of the.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Things I would say with that is it's better to
have some plan than no plan at all. You know, Again,
that's one of the issues I have in terms of
with Vililes right now in this race is I don't
think she's being very respectful. And you know what, if
she doesn't respect me or the other candidates, that it's fine,
but she's not respecting the voters. You know, this is
a short primary. It's thirty days. We're not talking about
(13:49):
campaigning for months on end. This is a thirty days sprint.
She has no website, nothing anywhere where a voter can
go out there and see what plans she has, what
she's doing whenever we're in any of these forms, which
she has decided not to go to several of them,
so they've been canceled.
Speaker 5 (14:06):
She doesn't outline what the future looks like.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
She's relying on what she thinks are her accomplishment so
far in her in her tenure, but doesn't really outline
what she's going to do. So again, in my platform,
I'll talk about myself. Is I have some very achievable things.
We've got a thirty six thousand affordable housing deficit right now,
and let me back up here. I don't think Charlotteans
(14:31):
understand how bad things really are. And that comes down
to the separation that we have within the city itself
between the people who have been doing well based upon
what's going on, and the people who most of time
are long time Charlotteans have not been doing well or
experienced the prosperity the rest of the city it has.
So one of the things I have to do in
terms of my platform is just made people where, hey,
(14:54):
these issues are deep, they're getting worse, and if we
don't fix them immediately, it's going to get much much worse.
So we got a thirty six thousand affordable housing unit deficit.
And the definition of affordable housing is if you are
spending Affordable housing is if you are spending a thirty
percent or less of your income that is considered affordable housing.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
That is the cities definition.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Right now, forty eight percent of Charlotteans are spending thirty
percent or more of their income on housing.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
Is called cost bird.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
So when you have half of your city being cost
bird and not having affordable housing, that's not just a problem,
that is an epidemic. What I look to do is
try to build twenty five thousand, nine hundred houses over
the next ten years. Now again you go, well, there's
a thirty six thousand housing deficit. Why don't you try
(15:47):
to solve all that I can't. I'm not going to
give unrealistic expectations. Twenty five thousand is the best. Once
I crutch numbers looked at all the different projects, that's
the best you can do. But you know, one of
the things that talks about when she talks about housing
is the Housing Trust Fund is one of our main
drivers in terms of affordable housing. And she talks about
how much affordable housing has been brought, but it's only
(16:09):
produced eleven thousand houses over the last twenty years. You know,
Tark McCary, former council member Taracary said, you know, we're
basically treading water, and he's right. You know, when you're
building eleven thousand houses, but you've got a thirty six
thousand deficit, that's a problem. So twenty five nine hundred
affordable housings over the next ten years. We've got ninety
(16:29):
five thousand people who are unemployed or underemployed right now
in Charlotte. So I've got a job creation plan that
creates sixty four thousand jobs over the next ten years.
Eighty percent of those are non degree holding. I think
that's the problem that Charlotte has as we bring in
a lot of jobs that have six digit incomes, but
(16:51):
we don't have those industries and we're not having that
job creation for the people who are in the underserved
communities who don't have four year degrees. That quite frankly,
a lot of these problems are having all the lot
of the problems that Charlotte has.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
When we return, I'll continue my interview with Brandon McGinnis,
who's running for mayor on the Democratic side, and I'll
ask him about all the crime. Welcome back to Breaking
with Brad Jensen. As I continue my interview with Brendan McGinnis,
who is running for mayor in the Democratic primary. He's
had a lot of things to say about the current leadership,
and in this portion of the interview we talk about
crime and housing.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Okay, so let's talk about the houses for a second.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Where do you get the funding to buy the land
to build the houses over the ten years?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Is the funding already there? How does that come about?
Speaker 4 (17:36):
It comes from multiple funding sources, So again it's not
necessarily buying land in those cases you know we currently have.
So throughout my platform you'll see is what I want
to do is I want to take things that have
worked been successful in Charlotte so far, and that's one
of the things I will say is I do have
some respect for the mayor and the city council she's
(17:57):
worked with over the last eight years that they have
put some positive initiatives in place and they have had
some accomplishments, though I think they've overstated those accomplishments. I've
taken those successes, those initiatives implemented in my plan, expanded them,
but then looking at new and innovative.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Ways to tackle these situations.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
So the main driver of affordable housing right now in
the city is the Housing Trust Fund, which is funded
by bonds. We've had initiatives every two years for that,
so I'm looking to expand that to build more affordable housing. Also,
the Charlotte Housing Opportunity Investment Fund, it is something that
Mayor Lyles started great program looking to double that. She's
(18:39):
put gotten one hundred thousand from private partnerships.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
And I'm looking to expand that to one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
So those are main drivers, and those are initiatives in
place that are doing well. But you can also look
at things like what we have right now going on
is we don't have competition. We have multiple builders, but
they're all doing the same thing, and so that's not
real competition. It's just like if you look at Big Oil,
there's multiple companies, it's a conglomerate. They're all doing the
(19:05):
same thing. So what you need to do is you
need to bring in new types of building. So you
have things like three D printing, you have modular homes,
you have micro units, and these are all programs or
all things that have been already in place in North Carolina.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
And the pushback I keep.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Getting from the mayor specifically and some of the council
members is this notion of Dylan rule that we can't
do this in this city because the legislature has the
power over us.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
These are already being done in North Carolina.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
The Dylan rules an excuse because they're in the pockets
of the builders and they don't want to bring in competition.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
The builder.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Of course, someone who is a traditional builder doesn't want
somebody to bring in a three D printing housing company
that can print a house in a thousand square foot
house in twenty four hours for thirty thousand dollars. Three
D printing can sit there and reduce the cost of
housing by thirty percent and reduce the build time by
(19:59):
twenty percent. That is a game changer. And if you
start bringing those types of things in, then not only
are you offering more affordable housing, but that's also going
to force those traditional builders to lower their prices as well,
and so you get an overall bringing housing prices down,
making overall all the housing more affordable.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
When you talk about the job creations or the housing situation,
does that include raising taxes of any side, and whether
it's property taxes, because I know any other type of
taxes has to go through the state House and everything else.
But would that raising taxes at all?
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Know where my plan doesn't raise taxes. It's a matter
of redirecting funding that's currently in place. And I know
people say, oh there's no more money. There's ways to
direct it, especially in programs that aren't very effective. You know,
it's about efficacy. So it's just a matter of re
redirecting some of those funds. And then this is where
the mayor comes in. You know, we talk about all
the time that the mayor you know, has limited power.
(20:54):
They only come in for tie votes in council. The
mayor is the influencer in chief. Their job is to
sit there and go into the private sector and convince
them that the things, the initiatives that Charlotte is doing
are beneficial to them. I think that's the problem that's
going on right now. Again, not to sound dismissive or
whatever else, but this is what happens when you put
(21:15):
a socialite in the mayor's office. They don't know how
to deal with people in terms of these corporate CEOs,
and so you can't go into these meetings with the
corporate CEOs and they say what's best for us is
best for Charlotte. You have to go in there and
convince them that what is best for Charlotte is best
for them. One of the major pieces of my plan
is trying to pedestrianize uptown and that is something that
(21:38):
may require NCGA approval, But what that's going to do
is that's going to increase jobs, increase towardsm There are
studies that show that if you cities who pedestrianize their
uptown area. You have it in San Antonio, you have
it in overseas like Copenhagen or Madrid, which are places
that I've visited myself.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
I see the impact.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
It can increase dollar by forty percent, and that's two
thousand new jobs, most of eighty percent of those for
people without a college degree.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
So you start building doing that in place.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
But what's the incentive for Bank of America to increase
tourism in Charlotte? What's the incentive for a Honeywell to
increase tourism Charlotte, at least from their perspective. You have
to go in there and convince them this is going
to be good for everybody.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
You're gonna get a better worker.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
You know, it's probably a bad thing to say bring
more people here, but at the same time, it's going
to make more attractive. You have to go in there
and convince them what's best for Charlotte is best for them.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
You know, trying to bring pedestrian traffic back up to uptown.
Uptown is not a very safe place right now. How
do you address uptown if people are afraid to go uptown?
Speaker 5 (22:45):
That's a good question. I can't remember who I heard
this from.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
So if you're hearing this and you are the one
that heard it, you know, conkudos or goes to you.
But you know, they said you can talk about crime
being down all you want, but if it impacts you,
it's gone up a thousand, and it's very true. It's
very personal. Crimes are very impactful. Obviously, there are things
that we can do in terms of the police. But
one of the things I want to go back to
is when I think about crime in Uptown, or you
(23:11):
talk about the recent stabbing on the south the Blue
line in South End, it's the broken window theory. And
if no one knows what that is, go google it.
You know, he's a bad name now, but Mayor july
And put this in New York City and it basically says,
if you go into a neighborhood and the windows broken,
then people are more likely to have commit more crimes.
(23:31):
So one of the first things he did is he
came in. He took off all the graffiti off of
the subway's subway cars and never let the subway car
come out if it has graffiti on it. And that's
how one of the ways that actually crime was reduced.
It's the same thing in Uptown in the light Row.
If we have more people in Uptown, we pedestionize it,
(23:52):
then there is a reason to have more police there
and then you are going to have less crime there
because there are more police there.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
If you have a blue line.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
One of the parts of my plan is extending the
blue line to Carawins. Again, going on that tourism, increasing tourism.
The blue line extension to Carawins directly to Uptown, you're
going to increase ridership. You're going to make that blue
line more profitable, and then there's going to be a
reason or you can actually have the capacity to have
police security on there to actually check for tickets and
(24:22):
make it more profitable. So again when we talk about
that is you pedestrianize, you make things so that they're
going to be more police presence. But one of the
big problems right now at the same time too, is
the police are understaffed. They're having a hard time recruiting,
and they've asked for certain measures from the mayor and
city Council that they've been denied that they feel are
(24:42):
going to help with recruiting. So you have, you know,
you have these officers who are over extended, not having
another ability to you know, covering vast amounts of territory.
It's going to be hard for them to respond to
any type of violent incident. You know, even when you're
talking about uptown, going from one end to the other,
(25:03):
if you're covering that whole thing just one patrol of
two people, it's going to take a lot of time
to get to those crimes. And a lot of times
when the police, it's about visibility. It's not a matter
of getting to a crime first. It's being around enough
or being visible enough so people won't.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Do the crime.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
So you know, again, I've talked to the Fraternal Order
of Police, heard some of their concerns. I think they're valid,
and that's one of the things I do as coming
in as mayor is look at helping them. What do
they need, What are the resources they need to get
more recruiting, to get more officers so they're not overextended,
so that we're able to reduce that crime, because that's
what it's about.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Welcome back to Breaking with Brad Jensen. We wrap up
my interview with Democratic mayoral candidate Brandon McGinnis. I've been
all over the world and Shant is the only city
that I have ever been to where they rely on
the honor.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
System to buy a ticket.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Do you have any specific thoughts about safety and security
about the light rail because people are just using it
whenever they want, so even if you want to increase
and send it down to cara Ones, you still have
people not paying for tickets.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Certainly, and again, in one sense it's kind of a
chicken egg. But I think if you have that extension,
you do get ridership up. Once you put that extension place,
you actually have the police there until that ridership gets flowing,
and then there's a reason.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
To actually have it there. It's in my plan.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Actually, I have as part of my transit plan, twenty
million dollar upgrades to the infrastructure of our transit and
so part of the better Bus plan, it's not only
bringing shelters, but also bringing cameras, additional lighting to some
of these stops to make it more safe so these
crimes will happen less. But you're exactly right, you know,
(26:50):
I've done extensive traveling in Europe. I'm not going to
say it was purely for business. Some of its pleasure,
but what I wanted to see was what works in
those cities that we can bring back here to Charlotte.
We are an international city, whether people realize it or not.
We need to start looking overseas in other cities for
solutions for that, and you're exactly right. In all those
(27:12):
other places, there are security there, you know. Unfortunately, had
to run in with people the police in France in
Paris because I threw my ticket away and they checked
for my ticket after I got off.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
The train and I got fined for it.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
They checked for these things, and we should be doing
the same thing as well. But I get it because
we don't have ridership. And then now we're trying to
talk about putting something like the red line in place.
Why are we putting something else in place when we
can't even cover the stuff that we already have. That's
why this transit builla just doesn't make sense. And unfortunately,
again I want to talk about my platform, but it
(27:47):
goes back to vilizers arc or what else, and it
says why are you doing this or what are else?
And she envisioned herself cutting the blue ribbon on the
red line. That's not a reason to have a red
line in place for your legacy. You know, if that's
what she wants to do, We'll take one hundred thousand
dollars from somewhere, put a gold statue up on trade
and trying for and then we'll go ahead and spend
(28:09):
the restless money on stuff that's actually going to help
people in Charlotte, specifically East Charlotte who needs public transportation.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Is there anything that you want to talk about that
I haven't asked you about over these last six seven minutes.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
You know, the biggest thing is why am I running?
Speaker 4 (28:26):
I kind of answer the answer at the beginning, but
that answer has kind of evolved over time. It may
sound in cliche, but I'm running to bring back hope.
I think you have some apathy in Charlotte, and actually,
because of the segregation that Charlotte actually naturally has, you
have apthy different types of apathy from both sides. And
(28:48):
what I mean by that is you have a Charlotte
underserved neighborhoods, longtime Charlotte teans who have apathy. They don't
feel that the city council and the mayor listening to them,
and they don't feel that the organizations that are supposed
to represent them or say that represent them actually do
represent them, so you know, they don't go out and vote.
(29:11):
On the other hand, you have the people who have
had some prosperous have been prospered, have enjoyed the prosperity
that Charles had over the last twenty years, and they.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
Have a different type of apathy.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
And what I mean by that is they don't feel
that municipal elections really matter them because they've been prospering
and their focus is on the national and what's going
on with Trump and everything else around the national level.
And so they have a little bit of apathy because
they don't think municipal elections matter. And when they do
go and actually vote in the municipal elections, they defer
(29:42):
their vote to who they think is going to help
the ones who are suffering, and so they will actually
vote based upon the opinions of those organizations that don't
actually represent the communities that are doing that they think
are benefiting them. So they're actually not doing the communities
that they're trying to help by doing their vote, they're
actually not helping them, so that we have these dual apathies.
(30:04):
So what I want to do is I want to
be that bridge. I want those underserved communities to understand
I'm a champion for them. I'm going to be there,
I'm going to speak for them, and I'm going to
get the ones who are prospering in Charlotte to understand
who actually is going to benefit them.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
So again, it's one of those.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Things where you know, I would like to say that
I'm planning, I'm trying to bring Hope home.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Last forty five seconds or yours.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Is there anything that you'd like to say to all
the independence and all the Democrats that are listening right
now leading into the primary.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
I think I appeal to unaffiliated. You know, my background
is from the business world. You know, I wasn't someone
who got their first job in Government's been on you know,
government payroll for forty plus years. You know, I know
what work is like. My parents both work two jobs.
When I was in high school, I was in the Marines,
I worked a you know, a restaurants as a cook
(31:00):
for five years, working my way through college. I know
what work is like, and so, you know, I think
what that does is gives me the perspective of as
a business person looking.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
At these things.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
I'm not the type of person who believes that there
should be government restrictions or it's all about telling good
business what to do.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
It's about helping I.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Was a small a small business owner, I know, a
government can help and hurt a small business. I want
the government to be a guiding hand in terms of
the economy getting to do what it needs to be
done without over restrictions. And I think that business mindset
is what Charlotte needs in terms of moving at next level.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Brandon McGinnis, I really do appreciate your time today and
good luck running for the mayor in the Democratic primary.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Thank you, Brett.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
That's gonna do it for us.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Tonight again thanks to Brandon McGinnis, who took a lot
of time out of this day to sit down and
talk to me earlier about running from mayor and Charlotte.
If you missed any portion of tonight's show, and trust me,
you're gonna want to hear all of it, go to
WBT dot com home, click on my show and you
can have the whole interview right there. All right, everyone
look forward to doing this all over again tomorrow night.
So until then, my name is Brett Jensen, and you
(32:09):
have been listening to Breaking with Brett Jensen.
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