A Small Title, Two Votes, And An Early Tell At City Hall
The prayers had been said, the anthem sung, the oaths recited with hands on Bibles and grandkids tugging at sleeves. Charlotte’s 2025 swearing-in ceremony felt, for a while, like pure celebration: tributes to parents and pastors, applause for outgoing members, promises to keep moving the Queen City forward.
Then the speeches ended, and the first contested decision of the new term arrived in a few quiet words from Mayor Vi Lyles.
“I think it is time,” she said, “for the council to elect a mayor pro tem.”
What followed was a brief but revealing sequence. It did not involve land use maps, police contracts or tax rates. It did involve a split vote, a regrouping, and a reminder that this council will not move in perfect lockstep over the next two years, even on internal questions.
The first motion failed. The second passed. The title went to one familiar figure. The numbers are all the public gets.
The First Split Vote Of The New Term
The moment unfolded without theatrics.
A council member moved to nominate at-large member Dimple Ajmera as Mayor Pro Tem. There was a second. The mayor asked whether there were any other motions. Hearing none, she called for a vote.
Hands went up around the dais. When the count was done, there were four in favor and seven opposed. The motion failed.
There was no floor fight. There were no speeches for or against, no attempt to lay out competing visions of the role. The disagreement appeared entirely in the arithmetic: four yes, seven no.
Almost immediately, at-large member LaWana Slack-Mayfield moved to nominate at-large member James “Smudgy” Mitchell Jr. for the same position. The motion was seconded. Again, there was no extended debate.
This time, nine hands went up in support. Three members opposed. The mayor confirmed the numbers and offered a simple conclusion.
“Congratulations,” she said. “Mayor Pro Tem.”
It was all over in a few minutes. No one explained their vote on the record. No roll call was taken to show who landed on which side. Residents watching the meeting saw only what the camera and the clerk saw: two names, two motions, and a council that needed a second try to find a choice with broad support.
What The Mayor Pro Tem Vote Can Tell Residents
There is a limit to what can be drawn from a single procedural vote. Council members did not spell out their criteria. No member stood up to say, on the record, why they preferred one colleague over another.
Still, the pattern is plain.
First, the council did not present a unanimous front on its initial choice. Seven members were willing to oppose a motion that named a colleague who had just earned 96,599 votes citywide, according to the election results read aloud by City Clerk Stephanie Kelly. That is a sign of some internal division, however polite.
Second, the body was able to regroup quickly around Mitchell. On a night heavy with farewell speeches and promises of unity, nine of twelve voting members were comfortable handing him the gavel that comes with the title in the mayor’s absence. Three chose to formally register opposition.
No one on the dais used words like “bloc” or “faction.” What residents have, instead, is this: an early example of where unanimity exists, and where it does not.
A Chamber Full Of Priorities
If the vote hinted at something beneath the surface, the speeches before and after it filled in some of the context.
This was not a routine meeting. It was a night of arrivals and departures. Outgoing District 3 member Tiawana Brown used her final remarks to describe herself as “the first and only, formally incarcerated woman” to serve on council and to lay out her mantra of “people over politics, purpose over pain.”
Outgoing District 5 member Marjorie Molina framed her two terms as a “celebration,” even after what she described as an ugly race. She recalled projects like Eastland Yards and described Charlotte as “one of the greatest cities in the United States of America.”
Newcomers stepped into the light. Joy Mayo, the new District 3 representative, told residents she wants to help create “walkable 10 minute neighborhoods” where people can live, work and play within a short walk, bike ride, transit trip or drive. Juan Diego Mazzarella Arias, the new District 5 representative, described himself as “the first Latino, the first formally undocumented, and the first Gen Z to sit on this council,” promising a “people first” approach for East Charlotte.
In District 6, new member Kimberly Owens reminded listeners that her district is not just “privileged zip codes with silver spoons in every kitchen.” Her pledge was to “bore you with acts of governmental competence,” and to make sure residents know who represents them and how to plug into meetings that decide roads, transit, public safety, economic development and housing.
Incumbents used their time to underline themes they intend to carry into this term.
Transit, Safety And Turnout Loom In The Background
Lyles, beginning her fifth term as mayor, used her oath-night remarks to talk less about personalities and more about policy.
“The future of our city depends on how we move,” she said, linking mobility to “access,” “freedom” and “opportunity.” She pointed to the passage of a transit tax referendum as a “proud moment for Charlotte,” and framed that vote as a choice residents already made to invest in a vision that connects people across the city.
She also connected mobility to safety, promising continued work with the police department and transit partners so that “every person can move through our city with confidence and peace of mind.”
Several council members echoed or expanded the safety theme.
Owens described elders in her neighborhoods worrying about how they would eat when their benefits were paused, and residents who felt unsafe leaving their homes after a recent surge in violence. She cited a day when more than 30,000 children stayed away from school, and said some might not return until later in the month.
District 2’s Malcolm Graham called affordability “not just a housing issue, it’s a moral issue,” and tied it directly to the future of the workforce. “If our workers cannot afford to live here,” he said, “we are going to see a mass exodus of our workforce, just as we’re seeing a mass influx from other areas.”
Slack-Mayfield, returning as an at-large member, put turnout math on the record. On the transit referendum, she noted that 92,499 voters supported it and 84,939 opposed it, a roughly 52 to 47 percent split. Then she zoomed out.
“Our city has over 811,350 eligible registered voters,” she said. Actual participation was 21.97 percent.
“Imagine,” she added, “what would it look like even if we had 30 percent?”
At-large member Renee Perkins Johnson urged residents to keep showing up at rezoning meetings and coalition gatherings, and thanked organizations from the Black Political Caucus to labor unions for their endorsements. At-large member Victoria Watlington spoke of “record voter participation for the primary,” calling it proof that “when the stakes are high, we rise together,” while also acknowledging that fewer than 200,000 voters turned out citywide in the general, in a city with more than 800,000 residents.
In short: the political backdrop to that small internal vote is a city wrestling with transit investments, safety concerns, housing costs and an uneven pattern of civic engagement.
A Council That Knows It Will Disagree
The Mayor Pro Tem selection landed in the middle of all that.
Mitchell, now holding that title, used his time at the microphone to talk about small business, minority participation, public safety, workforce development for 18- to 24-year-olds and affordable housing. He thanked voters for another term, ran through the list of supporters and institutions that backed him, and closed with a chant.
“All in?” he asked.
“All in,” the room answered.
“Together.”
Around him, colleagues acknowledged in plain terms that they will not always be aligned.
Slack-Mayfield warned that “the answer cannot be yes all the time,” and called for more of the disagreements to happen “behind these walls more than at this dais,” in the hope that public meetings would show more shared direction after hard conversations in private.
Ed Driggs, returning from District 7, put it bluntly. “I am a Republican,” he said. Residents, he added, have seen who he is for twelve years and can count on more of the same. His promise was to bring that perspective to council deliberations while seeking collaboration rather than confrontation.
Owens, fresh off a long campaign, told residents to expect disappointment at times. “I am going to disappoint all of you at times,” she said. Not because she planned to, but because she had never done the job before and believed the reality of municipal government would sometimes collide with what people want it to do.
Through all of this, one thing remained constant across the speeches. No member suggested that disagreement itself was a problem. The concern was how to channel it, and how to keep residents involved in the decisions that follow.
What Residents Can Take From A Quiet Vote
For most Charlotteans, the title “Mayor Pro Tem” is not what will determine daily life in the city. It does not decide bus headways, school lines, or how much of a paycheck goes to rent. Those choices sit in budgets, long range plans, and yes or no votes that have not yet reached the floor.
What the selection does offer is a first glimpse of how this group of officials behaves when the cameras are on, the stakes are mostly internal, and there is room to disagree.
The first motion failed on a 4–7 split. The second passed 9–3. No one explained why. No one tried to turn the moment into a grand statement about ideology. It was, in that sense, a very Charlotte kind of conflict: real, but understated; visible if you are paying attention.
Residents can decide for themselves how much weight to give those numbers. They sit alongside everything else that happened that night, from Brown’s defiant farewell to Mazzarella Arias’ declaration that “this leadership is from East Charlotte for East Charlotte,” to Lyles’ reminder that her granddaughters live here and will inherit the choices this council makes.
The next time the council splits, the vote will likely be on something more concrete: a rezoning, a budget amendment, a plan for streets or buses or greenways. When that happens, the brief sequence on swearing-in night will be one more data point for anyone trying to understand who stands together, who raises a hand in dissent, and how a city of more than 800,000 people is governed by twelve votes at a time.
About The Author
Jack Beckett is the senior writer for The Charlotte Mercury, which means he spends a suspicious amount of his life reading agendas, watching meetings and drinking coffee that could probably degrease an engine. When he is not untangling what happened at City Hall, he is usually hunting for a quiet corner and a refill.
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This article, “What Charlotte’s First Mayor Pro Tem Vote Reveals About The New City Council,” by Jack Beckett is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0.
“What Charlotte’s First Mayor Pro Tem Vote Reveals About The New City Council”
by Jack Beckett, The Charlotte Mercury (CC BY-ND 4.0)